There’s a new ad campaign featured by the U.N. using something we in the Internet age know all too well: the Google auto-fill.
This is where as you’re typing Google gives you the most popular options based on what other people are searching for at the time.
So while helpful, and often a source of comedic memes, this campaign highlights the degrading and bigoted side of some incomplete sentences regarding women.
Seen here in the picture, when “women should” is typed in the Google search, the automated results are “stay at home,” “be slaves,” “be in the kitchen,” and “not speak in church.”
I’ve included a few other pictures that use different tag lines for each one. (you’ll probably have to zoom in to actually look at the text)
The first thing a person probably notices beyond the text is the fact it’s placed over the women’s mouth. By covering her mouth, the ad alludes to the fact that she can’t speak for herself while these stereotypes and viewpoints are reflected in these Google auto-fills.
I like the rhetorical choice of implementing these Google auto-fills because it’s a different and more culturally salient way to express popular opinion. Rather than just using the text of statistics on women’s rights, the auto-fills are a graphic within themselves, a garishly bright contrast to the rest of the ad.
I also like the rhetoric used by this ad because it recognizes that the population knows the auto-fills reflect what real-life people are searching. Google gives this ad the much-needed ethos to keep people thinking about the items in the box long after they’ve viewed the ad.
And of course there’s the pathos of a woman’s face in the background of each ad, with large, wide eyes staring straight at you.
I like that they also remedy the same tag line at the end of each ad.
So the U.N. finished off “women should” as “women should have the right to make their own decisions.”
This ad made me think of what other stereotypes would come up if I started my own taglines.
What can you find?
I’m really glad that you blogged about this because I hadn’t seen this ad campaign before today and think that it does a really good job about exposing the negative attitudes and stereotypes towards women that unfortunately still exist in today’s culture. The way that the U.N. used something that we are all familiar with to express their ideas was definitely a smart decision because it makes the ideas more relatable. You do a really good job of analyzing the cultural saliency of the ad, and your discussion of the women’s facial expressions and placement of the tag lines over their mouths provides insight into the rhetoric that makes this ad effective.
I agree with you that the U.N. made the right decision by using something so culturally relevant like the google autofill to bring attention to the website unwomen.org. Everything from the contrast between the dark of the ground and light of the autofill to the gaze of the women directly at you. In addition, I think there is an element of shock in these ads that grabs peoples attention. Particularly in Western countries like the United States and Canada, where women enjoy many political rights and social freedoms, it can easy to forget that this is not the case in many other areas in the world. This brings awareness to the fact that the Women’s Rights Movement is not over and there are still individuals who are biased and sexist.