Autocomplete Truths about Gender Inequality

Christopher Hunt of Ogilvy & Mather Dubai used Google autocomplete to bring attention to gender inequality in this print ad campaign for United Nations Women.

Hunt noted that the advertisements, titled Auto Complete Truth, used actual Google search autocomplete results, as queried on March 9, 2013. While different Google users in various countries may see different results, some of the autocompletes referenced in the ad showed in our own quick test (see below for the different autocomplete results for search queries for the exact term, but using "men" instead of "women.")

View the original ad page over at Behance - via Design Taxi.

Below is the result of my own men/women autocomplete comparison (searched Oct 21, 2013 from Southern California). What does yours look like?


Looking in Swedish, I got some horrible results:

kvinnan ska tiga i församlingen (the woman should be silent in church)
kvinnan ska behaga mannen (the woman should please the man)
kvinnan ska underordna sig mannen (the woman should be subservient to men)
kvinnan ska stå i köket (women should stay in the kitchen)

I didn't expect that. It certainly doesn't represent many people's opinions, as far as I know.

but some results poke out:

kvinnor ska stå i köket (women should stay in the kitchen)
kvinnor ska lyda (women should obey)
kvinnor ska ha högre lön (women should have higher salaries)
kvinnor ska inte köra bil (women shouldn't drive)

and looking in english some of them were quite unexpected:

men should always pray
men should not get married
men should wear makeup
men should be what they seem

boys should be boys
boys should know
boys should wear bras
boys should wear dresses


...but why would you use this as search phrases?
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i see now that all of these jezebel articles that are here now are being written by you, alex. it's really tiresome. there are plenty of sites that deal with this social justice stuff. neatorama should be one of them.
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It's worth noting that although these are things people search for, it may not accurately reflect their personal opinions and beliefs.

For instance, that bit about women being silent in church can probably be explained by people researching the bible verse of a similar sentiment, 1 Cor 14:34. (Note: I used Google to find this reference but do not believe that women shouldn't speak in church.)

That being said, there is still a lot of work to be done in the area of gender equality, and I think this ad campaign will at least get people talking.
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