Women: the United Nations campaign against discrimination

"Women cannot drive", "Women should not have rights", "Women should stay at home", "Women must be put in their place". These are the first four results, in English, that come up if you Google the combinations "Women should ..." "Women shouldn't ..." and so on, leaving the search engine itself to complete the sentence with the autocomplete function. In fact, the Google system tends to complete the phrases we are looking for based on the searches carried out most frequently. An experiment conducted on March 9, 2013, which demonstrates how research relating to women, including online, is severely marked by forms of discrimination.

This discovery is at the heart of the press campaign promoted by UN Women, the United Nations agency that deals with women's rights, and entrusted to the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather. On the occasion of November 25, the UN Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the United Nations demonstrates with facts what are the most widespread ideas regarding women. In this case, Google is simply the most immediate means to demonstrate the frequency and recurrence of certain prejudices.

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© Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai Kareem Shuhaibar, author of the photo series, said: "The announcements are shocking, because they show how long there is still a way to go to achieve gender equality. Ours is a wake-up call. which I hope will be caught as it deserves ".

However, UN Women was pleased with the reactions and the hype of the campaign, and started a discussion on Twitter, in which anyone can participate, using the hashtag #womenshould (women should).