These women are challenging sexist dictionary sentence examples on Google
Google the definition of the words "whinge," "promiscuous," or "ugly," and you might notice a subtle trend.
All these definitions have examples where women are portrayed in a negative light, or are subject to sexist, outdated tropes. From sentences such as "she let off steam by having a good whinge" to "she's a wild, promiscuous, good-time girl" -- these examples are undoubtedly unpleasant.
It's something that advertising employees Georgia Patch and Kiah Nicholas from Sydney, Australia, have noticed, leading a project called "Redefine Women" which is pushing to have these sentences changed.
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Nicholas, a copywriter, often spends her day finding definitions and synonyms via Google. But it was a particular definition one day that piqued her interest.
"A couple of weeks back I stumbled across one -- grating -- and I noticed the sentence example, 'her grating voice' and I screen-grabbed it straight away," Nicholas told Mashable Australia.
Nicholas sent the definition's example via email to Patch, who she often discusses sexism with. They eventually found other sentence examples with negative portrayals of women.
"Kiah sent through this definition, and I thought it was objectively bad. We did a little more delving and searching, then we ended up stumbling on so many words ... we realised there was something fundamentally wrong that is being overlooked for far too long," Patch said.
"We just thought to ourselves that we can raise awareness around this, and try and get these definitions contemporised to be more accurate examples, that define women in a more positive light," she added.
The examples come from Oxford Dictionaries, which told Mashable Australia that the sentences are taken from a variety of sources of English, and don't represent their views.
While the two women are trying to get the attention of Google to amend the examples, they say they firmly believe the company will be welcoming of the idea, due to its ethos.
"We see Google as a really progressive and forward-thinking company. We think they'd be so on-board with something like this, and want to maintain that positive perception and trust people have in Google," Patch said.
"They're the world's largest aggregator of definitions, and the go-to for the general population for the meaning of words," Nicholas said.
The duo are focusing on the definition examples for the moment, in the belief it's the start of a much bigger conversation about gender inequality.
"There's definitely bigger goals to achieve, but right now this is the start of a conversation, starting with definitions. Because it's a fundamental thing that we need to get right, if these bigger conversations are going to be impactful," Patch added.
A Google spokesperson told Mashable Australia via email that it will be investigating the issue.
"The definitions and sample sentences we provide come from the Oxford Dictionary of English and do not reflect Google's opinions or beliefs," according to the spokesperson.
"As a company, we strongly value gender equality and a diversity of perspectives, ideas and cultures. We are looking into the issue, but you can always give feedback on definitions you find unacceptable, so we can improve these results over time."
You can read more about how dictionary examples are chosen here.
Time will tell, indeed.
[h/t Pedestrian.TV]
Topics Google
