Search results on Google and other search engines are either organic or not. Organic means that the results are supposedly raw and unfiltered. “Not” means paid or sponsored results. Yet even those organic results aren’t so organic and natural. At the very least, Google knows who you are, so it tailors results for you.
What is more contestable is whether Google changes results to fit its worldview. It does. Which makes this all the more interesting: Search suggestions displayed at the top of the Google Image results that, in the view of some, may be viewed as sexist and demeaning. I have noticed this for as long as Google has had this leaderboard feature–not sure what to call this secondary search, other than “firming up your search results.”
This came about when I was reading up on former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who recently died, then found myself reading up on his ex-wife, former CIA officer and writer Valerie Plame. I was surprised to see that the first-ranked suggestion for Plame was “body.” Yet since Plame doesn’t frequent beaches, isn’t a Hollywood-type celebrity, and isn’t at all in the business of exposing flesh, anyone searching for Valerie Plame in a bikini on the beach will need to be content with this #1 image search result:
Plame has accomplished more in her life than sitting in a bikini on the beach in Malibu–which she doesn’t do. But who knows? As a 56 year-old mother of two, Plame might be flattered that a great number–if not the majority–of searches are for “Valerie Plame body.” I know that, as a 55 year-old father of one fighting dad bod, I’d be thrilled if the world cared.
Image-searching random names, male and female, for suggestions related to body (including bathing suit, beach, etc.) and purposely avoiding the young and the hot, yields the following.
Body Suggestions: Appear
- Valerie Plame: #1 for “body”
- Lena Dunham: #1 for “body”
- Joanna Gaines: #1 for “bathing suit,” #4 for “beach,” and #7 for “body”
- Lauren Bacall: #5 for “bathing suit”
- Naomi Watts: #6 for “bathing suit”
- Amy Chua (Tiger Mom): #6 for “body”
- Michelle Obama: #7 for “body”
- Jon Hamm: #9 for “package” and #11 for “dad bod”
- Daniel Craig: #11 for “beach”
- Jed Rubenfeld (Amy Chua’s husband): #12 for “body”
Body Suggestions Do Not Appear
- Ruth Bader Ginsberg
- Chip Gaines
- Brad Pitt
- Oprah Winfrey
- Barack Obama
- Liam Neeson
- Bernie Sanders
- Kamala Harris
Note
Lena Dunham’s results might be considered an exception; they might be skewed in this direction since she is a well-known anti fat-shaming advocate.
