Study: Barbie is the first female CEO in a Google image search

Study: Barbie is the first female CEO in a Google image search

According to a new study on gender biases from the University of Washington, the first female CEO to show up in a Google image search is a CEO Barbie doll.

Want to see something disturbing. Go to Google, type in “CEO,” and then switch to an image search. As you might expect, the results are populated largely by white males. What is surprising, though, is how far down you have to scroll to find a female in the mix. In fact, the first female CEO is in the ninth row of images…and it’s Barbie.

That’s right: the first female CEO to show up in a Google image search is a CEO Barbie doll. Such was the alarming discovery of a recent study conducted by the University of Washington. The study, titled “Who’s a CEO? Google image results can shift gender biases,” suggests that Google search results like this can influence how different jobs are viewed.

For instance, the conclusion to be drawn from the aforementioned “CEO” image search is that women have much more difficulty finding success or respect as powerful leaders in the corporate world than men. This conclusion can subsequently lead to a perpetuation of stereotypes and gender biases.

As if Barbie showing up as the first female CEO in Google Images wasn’t bad enough, the image in question isn’t even an official promotional photo from Mattel. Rather, it’s a fake image pulled from a 2005 Onion article, entitled “CEO Barbie Criticized for Promoting Unrealistic Career Images.” And while The Onion is obviously a satirical news source, the article’s claims that “Women don’t run companies” and that “Typically, [women] with talent, charisma, and luck work behind the scenes to bring a man’s vision to light” seem all too true in the light of these recent findings.

In fact, the idea of that particular image showing up in a Google image search for CEOs seems like a slap in the face to professional women everywhere. Of course, Google didn’t purposefully or manually assemble these results. Like any other Google search, the “CEO” image query was answered with a range of different artificial intelligence algorithms that assess relevance without bias.

However, the fact that a fake CEO Barbie doll is the first “relevant” female search result in a “CEO” image search speaks volumes in and of itself. University of Washington researchers are even wondering if Google and other search engines should revise their algorithms to provide for more inclusive and diversified results.

“Our hope is that this will become a question that designers of search engines might actually ask,” said Sean Munson, the co-author of the study. “They may come to a range of conclusions, but I would feel better if people are at least aware of the consequences and are making conscious choices around them.”

 

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