UN Women just made their latest ad campaign public and it proves a known but undoubtedly terrifying fact: finding sexism in the world is as easy as typing a few words into the world’s largest search engine. The ads match women’s faces with beginning search terms such as “women cannot” and “women shouldn’t” and show how gender prejudices can rear its ugly head on a universal tool like Google by disclosing the autocomplete suggestions which reek of misogyny. As if to silence their voices, the phrases of the Google searches were placed over the mouths of women portraits.
Developed as a creative idea for UN Women by the creative, interactive, branding, advertising, marketing and digital media agency and “Agency of the Year” at the 2010 Dubai Lynx Awards, Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, the results were from an actual Google search, based on searches dated 9 March, 2013. The “study” ends with clear results: in 2013 sexism and discrimination against women still are an actual problem; negative sentiments can be stereotyping but also the outright denial of women’s rights.
“The searches confirm the urgent need to continue making the case for women’s rights, empowerment and equality, a cause the organization is pursuing around the world,” states UN Women – help them fighting sexism and join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #womenshould!
Image credits: Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai.
