Something that really stood out to me in one of this week’s readings, “Missed Connections: What Search Engines Say About Women”, was that search engine’s have no sense of awareness about stereotypes, inequity, and identity – a concept that seems blatantly obvious, but something I had simply never considered before. The author discusses many facets of this issue, including what comes up when a person searches certain terms relating to race and gender. She also states that constructions of women’s identities and interests seem to be based on traditional, limited sexist norms, just as they are in the traditional media. This speaks to how the Internet, and search engines are not just replicating forms of sexism, racism, and more – but maintaining those inequalities. To finish her piece, the author states “Search engines have the potential to display information and counter-narratives that don’t prioritize the most explicit, racist, or sexist formulations around identity. We could experience freedom from such contrived and stereotypical representations by not supporting companies that foster a lack of social, political, and economic context in search engine results, especially as search engines are being given so much power in schools, libraries, and in the public domain.” – something that I am aiming towards after reading this work.
