For International Women’s Day 2022 #BreakTheBias, VCCP Sydney are shining a spotlight on outdated gender representation that we continue to see in the media.
“The Most Ridiculous Thing on Shutterstock” compares some of the bizarre image results that can be found on the international stock library with the more profoundly ridiculous set of gender bias results you receive when you search under many professional job titles.
The social campaign was teased with a series of intriguing posts depicting the most random images from the bowels of Shutterstock, posing the question, “Is this the most ridiculous thing on Shutterstock?” and followed on International Women’s Day with a film calling attention to the very real issue of gender bias.
Kim Feitelberg, chief strategy officer at VCCP said, “Thinking about the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, we were reminded of the responsibility we in the media have to propagate real, or perhaps even ideal, gender roles – we have a meaningful role to play in influencing culture. It did surprise me to see the gender bias in such a basic tenant of our work such as image libraries.”
Scott Huebscher, VCCP executive creative director added, “What we see around us, in search results or otherwise creates our truth. By calling attention to the gender bias happening on something as simple as an image library search – drives home the fact that gender bias is all around us, whether we realise it or not.”
