Sometimes I wish I could read minds. Sadly for me crowd-sourced information from sites like Google is as close as I will ever get to knowing what people are thinking about. Through Google I can learn what people might not ever dare to say out loud but what they believe and what informs their decisions around their family, work and community.
UN Women has this week launched an ad campaign which was produced by Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai which gives us some insight into what people think about women. Google’s search engine automatically completes the possible searches as you start typing key words, based on what the most frequently used search terms are that start with that combination of words. The images show real Google searches with the phrases ‘women shouldn’t…’ and ‘women must…’. The auto-completed search responses are shocking – they are unbelievable. Is it possible that the most frequently asked questions beginning with ‘women need to…’ is ‘be controlled’, ‘know their place’ or ‘be disciplined’. Who are the people who are searching for ‘women need to know their place’?
On Monday I sat at my desk stunned and, in this job, I am not easily stunned. Every day, I hear stories of women who have experienced the most horrific violence in their homes, women who are escaping wars with their families and seeking a better life, women who live in abject poverty and women who are locked out of decision making related to their bodies, families and communities. Yet the thing that shocks me most is the fact that while lots of people work to help these women, work to build relationships between business, governments and NGOs to empower women, behind the scenes other people are sitting in their homes around the world searching ‘women should be slaves’.
Yesterday I made a terrible decision and tried searching ‘women should be slaves’ hoping that what came up was a link to the police and some strong feminist responses. Instead I found myself in a whole other world comprised of websites dedicated to helping men find sex slaves. Websites that proudly report that nearly 400,000 times each month, random people from across the world type into Google ‘where can I find a sex slave’. Bodybuilding.com has a whole discussion page about why women should be slaves. Admittedly, they appear to have banned most of the commenters but they have not taken down their comments.
However horrified we are, and the results are horrifying, it is fantastic that UN Women and Ogilvy have shone a light into these dark corners of the internet. They have reminded us how much more work is to be done in achieving gender equality. These images should be shared with friends, family and colleagues. Put the posters in your workplace and start a discussion with your friends. The only way we are ever going to achieve gender equality is once we stop denying that we have a problem. This campaign shows us that views concerning what women cannot or should not do are widespread enough to be the most frequently searched terms in the world.
If I ever needed reminding of the important work that UN Women does in breaking down gender stereotypes and empowering women, then this ad campaign was it. If you are as horrified as I am by the sexism revealed by these ads, please consider becoming a monthly donor to empower women and girls. For as little as $20 per month, you can join our national Equality Champions Program and make a contribution to challenging these shocking attitudes towards women worldwide.