UN Women has launched a new campaign to highlight the
need for further discussion on sexism worldwide. The campaign creator used
images of actual Google searches using the autocomplete feature to show that
sexism is still very much a part of the everyday lives of women. One example of
the autocomplete process was “Women need to be put in their place.” Another was
“Women should be slaves.” The images are of women of different ethnicities, and
presumably different nationalities, but the results are most likely accessible
as a result of U.S.-based searches.
Autocomplete is a result of the most searched for items
and reflects actual users’ searches. The text of the searches are over the
mouths of the women pictured, to show them being silenced. This shows that
women are seen, but not heard, and then this idea is reflected in the
autocompleted search texts.
Kareem Shuhaibar, a copy writer for the campaign, talked
about his hopes for the campaign: “The ads are
shocking because they show just how far we still have to go to achieve gender
equality. They are a wake up call, and we hope that the message will travel
far.” The campaign was based on searches done in March of this year and was
just unveiled in mass media this week, so its impact is as yet to be
determined.
In Wilcox and Cameron’s article
“Reaching Diverse Audiences” the importance of crafting culturally appropriate
messages based on age, gender, socioeconomic status, etc. is discussed. Does
this campaign have the ability to reach these diverse audiences? If you were a
PR professional for an organization that works on women’s rights issues, would
you align yourself with this campaign? Why or why not?
To see the ads in more detail, check out one of these web sites:
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