Barbie Is The First Woman To Appear When You Search "CEO" In Google Images

A university study looked at how search engine image results can affect people's perceptions of certain professions.

If you type "CEO" into Google Images this is what you'll see.

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Then this.

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And then this.

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Notice anything? Quite a lot of men, right?

In fact, the first female among the images is Barbie – a toy.

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The image of Barbie isn't even from its manufacturer, Mattel – it's from a spoof news report from The Onion, written in 2005.

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The Onion article's headline, by the way, is "CEO Barbie Criticized For Promoting Unrealistic Career Images".

The Verge reported the results after the University of Washington published a study that suggested people’s perceptions of certain careers can be influenced by search engine results.

The BBC said the study's authors found "stereotype exaggeration and systematic underrepresentation of women in search results".

The university said that where a gender did not meet an occupational stereotype, search results were more likely to be “provocative or inappropriate”.

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Study co-author Cynthia Matuszek said: “A number of the top hits depicting women as construction workers are models in skimpy little costumes with a hard hat posing suggestively on a jackhammer. You get things that nobody would take as professional.”

Analysis of Google Image results found that for some professions, women were significantly underrepresented in comparison to reality.

For example, in the images found by a search of “author”, 25% of the subjects were female – compared to the actual 56% figure in the U.S.

However, with professions such as nurse (86%) and engineer (13%), the search engine results were within 5% of the actual figures.

The study asked participants what proportion of men and women worked in particular professions, then, two weeks later, showed them search engine results and asked them again.

Some volunteers changed their answers the second time, and the study attributed 7% of the change to them being shown the search results.

Co-author Sean Munson declared: "Our hope is that this will become a question that designers of search engines might actually ask. They may come to a range of conclusions, but I would feel better if people are at least aware of the consequences and are making conscious choices around them."