George Wiman, in searching for news about the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords’ and others, typed into Google the phrase “congresswoman assassinated.” Google, it turns out, isn’t sure that “congresswoman” is a word. I tried it again at midnight last night with the same result.
UPDATE: Readers discovered that Google doesn’t say “Did you mean congressman?” if you type only “congresswoman.” The algorithm is based on language that already exists on the net and apparently “congresswoman assassinated” is not a phrase we find out there. It’s so interesting how neutral tools — like algorithms — can nevertheless reproduce existing biases. Because there have been so few congresswomen (too bad), and so few targeted with violence (thank goodness), typing in “congresswoman assassinated” makes it seem as if women are strangers to congress. To sum, I’m not saying that this is some evil plan or oversight by Google, it’s an interaction between our real, unequal social world and a neutral algorithm.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 38
Gabrielle — January 10, 2011
Interestingly it doesn't make the suggestion until you add the word "assassinated"; it doesn't try to correct congresswoman on its own to congressman
R Jackson — January 10, 2011
Point well taken. However, Congresswoman Giffords was not assassinated -- as of this writing she is alive and I know we all hope she will survive the attack. A search for "congresswoman shot" yields the expected results. So, the question is, has a congresswoman ever been assassinated? If not, perhaps the Google results hew a bit closer to fact than prejudice?
Marianne — January 10, 2011
Earlier Google corrected "French military victories" into "French military defeats", so I wouldn't think too much about what Google suggests.
T — January 10, 2011
Jesus H. Christmas Lisa!! Google is a search engine that operates according to a mathematical algorithm. It's based on the *frequency* of word combination in the ENTIRE corpus of the internet.
As you can see, the results of "congresswoman assassinated" are appropriate -- they reflect the news stories and so on based on the frequency and timing of that word combination. This is more "popular" now, so those results show up first.
GUESS WHAT!?? There's A LOT more on the internet related to "congressman assassinated" and variations on that! A lot more.
This post is just snarky and lacks any semblance of scientific thought.
missdisco — January 10, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJT67NApROI
Google should stop trying to second guess people
JL — January 10, 2011
Perhaps because she wasn't actually assassinated. I see from your screen capture that the search for "congresswoman assassinated" resulted in 33 results. The algorithm for suggesting alternative searches is based, I imagine, on the premise that if search A turns up very few results, then perhaps the user meant search B, which has more results.
I went and began to type in "congressw" -- resulting in a drop down box of suggested searches. The first three were "congresswoman shot," "congresswoman giffords," and "congresswoman gabrielle giffords." (A search for "congresswoman attempted assassination" is also a successful search with no alternate suggestions.)
So Google does indeed recognize "congresswoman," but it is a computer algorithm that operates based on input from users and a data set of internet results. A search for "congresswoman shot" is not given any alternative suggestions, since it is a search that produces many results.
T — January 10, 2011
In other words... Google "recognizes" the search words perfectly fine. BUT it suggests other words that are STATISTICALLY more appropriate.
Stop just posting what folks e-mail you. STOP for two seconds and think about it. Learn a bit about the topic. THEN make the decision to post or not.
George — January 10, 2011
A modest proposal - Why do we not simply agree to accept -man as a suffix denoting a person's position in the same way that we use -er in some words. There's no point distinguishing men from women in most cases and -person too stilted for every day language.
I suppose since there are some people who now consider "man" to refer specifically to males it's not the ideal suffix, but I don't know of a better one in common use. Plus if we started referring to women congressional representatives as congressmen those kinds of artificial connotations would disappear.
MPS — January 10, 2011
My guess would be the update suggestion on Google is not generally preset by some thinking person, but is based on some algorithm that recognizes a far more frequent, similar search. In this sense the suggestion congresswoman -- > congressman would "merely" reflect that Google users far more frequently search for congressman than they search for congresswoman. If it requires "assassinated" to be added, then it implies that it's in the context of this particular search where the frequency is sufficiently disparate to trigger the auto suggestion.
Scapino — January 10, 2011
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=michelle+jackson+doctor&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=ca05a7bb65e82229
Google doesn't recognize the name "Michelle!"
Dragonclaws — January 10, 2011
It also seems to think by "sexist" I mean "sexiest".
Vermillion — January 10, 2011
Can anyone point me to some good sociological analysis of the context of this assassination attempt? Perhaps there is none in such situations. But everytime we talk about an alienated individual on a shooting rampage, I wish C. Wright Mills could to weigh in. Especially when psychiatric and political charlatans dominate the discussion.
russ — January 11, 2011
The post's current title "Google Doesn’t Recognize “Congresswoman”" just makes it easier for critics to laugh at this blog as naive and should really be changed to something more accurate (e.g. to "Different frequencies of mentions in the web of congresswomen and congressmen being assassinated" or something - a legitimate interesting discussion instead of an embarrassing mispresentation about how Google's search algorithm and user interface work).
The current title completely misrepresents what actually happened, bogusly making it sound as if Google thinks "congresswoman" is a spelling error or invalid word or something. Yet of course Google "recognized" the word "congresswoman", and correctly returned results for the search phrase "congresswoman assassinated" as expected, while also algorithmically offering similar phrases which are more often searched for and appear more frequently in the web.
Didn’t you mean ‘congress*man*’? « Feminist Philosophers — January 11, 2011
[...] It might seem this means that google thinks ‘congresswoman’ isn’t a word, but the truth is more complex. (Thanks, [...]
Sully R — January 11, 2011
I took screen caps of these a year ago, and knew they'd come in handy someday. I was trying to find a policewoman doll to give to one of my nieces, and google came up with an interesting suggestion:
http://sridout.com/misc/policewoman1.jpg
When i deleted "doll," i thought the suggested searches were even more disturbing:
http://sridout.com/misc/policewoman2.jpg
Note that these searches don't have the same result anymore.
Google doesn’t get female politicians being assassinated | Critical Sass — January 14, 2011
[...] get female politicians being assassinated Posted on January 14, 2011 by GinaThe writers at Sociological Images bring news of an amusing Google gaffe: Google is so unfamiliar with the idea of congresswomen being [...]
April — January 26, 2011
If you type in "congresswomen" google suggests "congresswoman." That goes along with part of the theory that google reflects our use of language on the internet, at least, but also the lack of multiple congresswomen.