Google is indeed sexist, according to a new American analysis of more than a million images. Wikipedia doesn’t do any better when it comes to professional stereotypes… nor does the film encyclopedia IMDB.
The Harry Potter effect
In recent years, several studies have argued that the Internet perpetuates sexist stereotypes. But Douglas Guilbeault, an Ontario sociologist who works at the University of California at Berkeley, thinks he has definitively demonstrated the problem. From a million images from Google and Wikipedia searches, it shows February 13 in Nature that the portrait of 3,500 trades and professions is based on stereotypes. “It’s particularly worrying because the images remain engraved in the memory,” he said in an interview. For example, you may have imagined Harry Potter in many ways while reading his book, but after watching the films you have Daniel Radcliffe in mind. »
The stars
The presentation of stars is also sexist, according to the study Nature. “On IMDB (Editor’s note Internet Movie Database) and Wikipedia, more than 70% of people identified as celebrities are men,” says Mr. Guilbeault. In politics, this can be understood, but in cinema and television it is still surprising, given the number of actresses. This shows that stereotypes promoting masculine characteristics influence stardom. » This sexism of stardom could explain why actors are paid more than actresses, even if there are more actresses than actors, according to the researcher.
Reality
PHOTO FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY SITE
Douglas Guilbeault, author of the study
Mr. Guilbeault also compared images from Google and Wikipedia to American census data. The images turn out to be more gendered than reality. For example, when searching for a more masculine profession or profession, the results show even more images of men than in reality. The discrepancy between image searches and census statistics is about 10%. But in some cases, Google reflects reality well, or is slightly less gendered. “We need to think about the possibility that search engines play a role in improving parity and inclusion, rather than simply reflecting stereotypes,” says Mr. Guilbeault.
The neutrality of language
The researchers also analyzed the proportion of men and women in the descriptions of trades and professions. Here, Google and Wikipedia are not sexist – even less so than census data. Is it because of campaigns promoting epicene language? “No, because there is still little impact of these campaigns on internet content. This is because of the neutrality of language. Sometimes we don’t know if we’re talking about a man or a woman. Many terms do not have a different version depending on gender. »
From one country to another
On the other hand, text searches could be more sexist with more gendered languages, for example Latin languages. Electrician for example is invariable in English, but in French we can say lectricienne. “Two years ago, there was a study which showed that searches on Google were more gendered in more sexist countries,” says Mr. Guilbeault. This study was published in PNAS and was based on the World Economic Forum’s gender equality scores.