A new advertising campaign launched by UN Women has a powerful message about the prevalence of sexism and misogyny around the world. The ads comprise images of women and display real suggested search terms from Google’s autocomplete feature. The results are persuasive in illustrating just how entrenched and prevalent the attitudes that propagate gender inequality remain.
The images were taken from real Google searches that took place in September this year and while the results are different in different parts of the world, some of these searches took place in America.
The results include:
“Women shouldn’t… have rights, vote, work, box”
“Women need to….be put in their place, know their place, be controlled, be disciplined”
“Women cannot… drive, be bishops, be trusted, speak in church”
The next time you face resistance to the notion that sexism or misogyny or discrimination against women are relics from the past, bookmark these ads. They indicate otherwise as persuasively as any words can.
Christopher Hunt, head of art at Oglivy & Mathers Dubai, the creative agency behind the campaign, told Ad Week that the campaign uses the world’s most popular search engine to illustrate how gender inequality is a worldwide problem
“The adverts show the results of genuine searches, highlighting popular opinions across the world wide web” he said.
Do these results surprise you?