Is there a reasonable reason why the first female CEO in Google images is Barbie?
First Women Exclusives · February 3, 2016
We kid you not! When you type the word “CEO” into Google images, you’ll need to scroll down countless rows of men – and generic Shutterstock pictures merely containing the words – before you finally reach a female CEO. And it just so happens to be Barbie.
To make matters worse, not only has Google decided to feature the image of Apple’s Angela Ahrendts first – who is not a CEO – but it has also added “woman” in the sub-category at the top.
And almost ironically, the image is attached to a 2005 article from parody site The Onion, entitled “CEO Barbie criticised for promoting unrealistic career images”. Of course, the article makes light of the lack of women in leadership roles.
We took a look at Google’s search algorithm to find out that there is more than first meets the eye. The company uses different image categories for each gender.
To find out what conclusions we came to, read the full article on Real Business.
