Google search analysis shows the sickening extent of sexism in politics

Google search analysis shows the sickening extent of sexism in politics

sexism

Is sexism alive in politics? Well, most of us can already see it and point to plenty of very real examples in Australia and across the world..

Now a Cambridge researcher has released results from a study indicating rife sexist attitudes towards female politicians in the UK by voters.

Sam Gilbert, an entrepreneur and researcher from the Bennet Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge, gathered search data from Google throughout the weeks leading up to the 2019 general election campaign and found a fifth of the Google searches about Jo Swinson, British Liberal Democrat politician, involved mentions of her body.

Gilbert believes these results provide a disturbing insight into citizens’ psychology, and reveals how sexism continues to shape the public’s views on politicians.

Gilbert told Wired that search engines like Google reveal voters’ “unfiltered moments”, where between November 9 and December 7 last year, Google’s seventh most common search featuring the word “Swinson” was “jo swinson boobs”. Other common searches included “jo swinson sexy”, “jo swinson body”, “jo swinson measurements”, “jo swinson nipples”, “jo swinson bikini”, “jo swinson cleavage”, “jo swinson stockings” and “jo swinson hot”.

“jo swinson husband” was the fifth most popular Google search about Swinson during the campaign. Almost 20 percent of Google searches including her name expressed overtly sexist attitudes, where numerous searches involving Swinson’s appearance or personal life, such as “jo swinson teeth”, “jo swinson husband” and “jo swinson accent”.

Swinson served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats for 7 months in 2019. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position.

Gilbert told Wired that he believes that by studying Google searches, a unique insight into the ways the public view politicians is offered, especially when it comes to the issue of sexism in politics.

“Because we’re so unfiltered when we use Google and other search engines, the data that is created by our internet searches is very powerful,” he said. “You can think of it as a vast reservoir of our opinions, fears, needs, and desires. It expresses our collective consciousness.”

Did male politicians succumb to such queries?

No.

Google searches for Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson showed almost no searches about their physical appearance. The closest iteration of searches related to their personal lives involved queries involving their offspring. The second most popular search about Johnson was “boris johnson children”.

Wired’s technology reporter Rowland Manthorpe suggested that Google Images can indicate sexism— a Google Image search for “jo swinson” will provide auto suggestions including “weight loss” and “big”.

Manthorpe spoke to a Google spokesperson who told him “ …with our predictive features, including Autocomplete and refinements in Google Images, we aim not to shock or offend people with sensitive or inappropriate predictions.”

“Our systems are trained to avoid showing these types of predictions,” the spokesperson continued. “…but if policy-violating predictive features slip through, as happened in this case, we remove them.”

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