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Women reclaim disturbing Google results for feminism

Sometimes Google autocomplete results are worth a thousand words.

 

Audra Schroeder

IRL

Posted on Nov 16, 2013   Updated on Jun 1, 2021, 1:48 am CDT

Last month, the United Nations gender equality group U.N. Women compiled a number of screengrabs that showed the results of several different Google autocomplete searches relating to the word “women.”


 

Now, those searches have been taken a step further. Policy Mic used the words “feminists” or “feminism” to illustrate the amount of misogyny directed towards women who align themselves with that label.

(Just to test this out, I typed “feminists” into Google. The autocomplete results I got were “feminists for life,” “feminists are annoying,” “feminists are stupid,” and “feminists are sexist.”)

In addition to the autocomplete search results, an additional statement has been added in yellow, literally highlighting what Google search results should be revealing. These new results are accompanied by images of modern-day feminist heroes like Jessica Valenti and Zerlina Maxwell.
 


 


 

By juxtaposing these images and words, writer Elizabeth Plank is addressing a bigger issue. “Everyone deserves to live in a world where they are treated with respect,” she says, “and believing in equality should never get in the way.”

Photos via Policy Mic

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*First Published: Nov 16, 2013, 11:00 am CST