Google Images branded SEXIST for not showing enough photos of women
Google's images search engine is dominated by pics of men, and misrepresented women in 19 of the 30 job roles analysed in a new study
GOOGLE has been blasted for showing sexist image results that underrepresent women across a broad range of job roles.
New research indicates that the web giant's image search engine shows just 11 percent of females in results for "CEO", as opposed to the actual 36 percent that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports.
The same goes for ‘solicitor’, where females are underrepresented by 21 percent in the search results, and ‘baker’, where females are marginalised by 22 percent in comparison to ONS data, according to .
Overall, Google Images misrepresented women in 19 of the 30 job roles analysed by the company, while males were misrepresented in 10 of the 30 job roles.
A Google spokesperson said the following about the fresh data:
"Our image search results are a reflection of content from across the web, including the frequency with which types of images appear and the way they’re described online.
"This means that sometimes biases that exist in the media or on the web can affect which image search results appear for a given query.
"These results don’t reflect Google’s own opinions or beliefs -- as a company, we strongly value a diversity of people, perspectives, and cultures."
For the vast majority of Brits, Google is the first port of call for a search query, whether text or image-based – with the big G holding 89.7% of the search engine market share in the UK.
The company is highly secretive about how its all-powerful search engine works, but like most of its web platforms (think YouTube, Maps, and Chrome) it relies on algorithms that get smarter over time.
The Most Underrepresented Roles for Females on Google Images
- CEOs – females are underrepresented by 25% on Google Images
Google Images: 11%
ONS data: 36% - Bakers – females are underrepresented by 22% on Google Images
Google Images: 49%
ONS data: 27% - Solicitors – females are underrepresented by 21% on Google Images
Google Images: 48%
ONS data: 27% - Pharmacists – females are underrepresented by 15% on Google Images
Google Images: 58%
ONS data: 73% - Police Officers – females are underrepresented by 13% on Google Images
Google Images: 15%
ONS data: 28%
The Most Underrepresented Roles for Males on Google Images
- Pilots – males are underrepresented by 27% on Google Images
Google Images: 68%
ONS data: 95% - Farmers – males are underrepresented by 18% on Google Images
Google Images: 72%
ONS data: 90% - Gardeners – males are underrepresented by 15% on Google Images
Google Images: 70%
ONS data: 85% - Teachers – males are underrepresented by 13% on Google Images
Google Images: 34%
ONS data: 47% - Librarians – males are underrepresented by 11% on Google Images
Google Images: 18%
ONS data: 29%
For instance, the more these tools understand what people are searching for, the faster they can give you a result, or even make suggestions while you're typing.
But flaws in this system have been exposed in the past.
As The Sun reported in May, Google's search engine was surfacing derogatory automated suggestions like "Obama is a stupid...b**stard" and "liberals are...parasites".
The company later removed the offensive results.
And this damning report comes as Google is grappling with its own internal diversity issues – a problem that continues to plague Silicon Valley in general.
While its latest report shows that it hired slightly more Asian employees, Google is still failing to recruit more women workers and especially women of colour.
Women now constitute just 30.9 percent of the global Google workforce, as compared to 30.8 percent last year, according to the company's latest diversity .
Globally, Google is 3 percent black and 5.3 percent latino – but women in both groups are still underrepresented: 1.2 percent of Google’s global population are black women, and 1.7 percent of its global population are latina women.
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