<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">I wasn't claiming that the algorythm appeared in a vacuum. I was attemping to argue (perhaps foolishly) that there is no inherent sexism in this particular technology.. Rather, the sexism is a side effect of the extensive languages the algorithm indexes. <DIV><DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>here are some fun statistics!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>"he invented":<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>"she invented": <SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>ratio:</DIV><DIV>google:<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>1,060,000<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>164,000<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>6.463</DIV><DIV>yahoo:<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>1,340,000<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>241,000<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>5.560</DIV><DIV>microsoft:<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>268,511<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>30,054<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>8.934</DIV><DIV>ask.com:<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>244,100<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>22,800<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>10.706</DIV><DIV>technorati<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>240,216<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>240,216<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>1</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It is nice to know that technorati's search algorithm is so precisely egalitarian. Kidding aside, either all of these search engines are sexist in extremely similar ways, or are indexing similar data. Why are we singling out google? because someone popularized an oddity and posted it on digg?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Back to google, I'm getting different results than you are. Your results seem based on googling both words "she" and "cooked." This is how google treats generic searches, but it also includes pages with both words in unrelated places. All of the statistics above were conducted by me, just now, and I made sure to include the quotes around the phrase, defining it as a phrase search and not a keyword search.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>note that: she cooked</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>returns 1,570,000</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>whereas "she cooked" </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>is 281,000.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I also want to point out that you are making possibly subjective assumptions about usage of your keyword terms. I notice that the first result of "she looked" is: <FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">14 Responses to “Other Things Kiera Knightley Wishes </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><B>She Looked</B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"> Like"</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">but your arguments are all assuming that all your results are linked(?) verb usage of looked. "She looked over the ledge" is quite unrelated to "she looked thoughtful." and will definitely skew readings of hundreds of thousands of unknown search results.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">technicality aside, these revised statistics still support your argument:</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>cooked<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>looked<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>ratio:</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">he<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>201,000<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>1,830,000<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>10.427</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">she<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>281,100<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>2,930,000<SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>9.104</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">There is still a higher ratio of she-looked to she-cooked than he-looked to he-cooked, yet no "did you mean" suggestion. This seems anomalous. My first thought, that I'm not sure how to verify, is that there is a 250,000 threshold for a similar spelling. Actually I would assume that the threshold would scale in accordance with how many alternative spellings are in the index.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I of course would never argue against you that many languages have built in, often political agendas. As to the authoritarianism of the english language I have always enjoyed Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage by David Foster Wallace, even though he is rather smug. I believe it's available online, although not sure how readable it is in web form.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Best,</DIV><DIV>Andrew Macfarlane</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><DIV><DIV>On May 9, 2007, at 1:01 PM, Sullivan wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">When you search for<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>"she cooked" it doesn't make any alternate</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">suggestion, and you get 1.6 million results.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Search for<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>"he cooked" and you get just over 3 million results, but it</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">gives you the alternate<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>"Did you mean: he looked".</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"He looked" gives you 51.6 million hits.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"She looked" gives you 32.7 million hits. Why didn't it ask me if I meant</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"she looked" when I put "she cooked"?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">There are only 17 times as many results for "he looked" as for "he cooked"</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">but there are 20 times as many results for "she looked" as "she cooked".</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Interesting.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">It's certainly questionable that it suggests you mean to look for men</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">instead of women inventing things (a stereotypically male activity) or</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">that you didn't really mean to look for men cooking but did for women (a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">stereotypically female activity). It does the same damn thing with "she</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">created" (58.8 million hits) and "she built" (56.5 million hits) and "she</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">designed" (52.4 million hits), even though all of those result in millions</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">of hits.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Language, used in a largely patriarchal culture and historically</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">structured largely by male power, is used in the interest of male</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">dominance and gender inequality. as radfeminist46 posted in the comment</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">section to this previous post:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">We learn to think of doctors, lawyers, scientists, and professors as male.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The harmful assumption is that women aren't intelligent, hardworking, or</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">rational enough to be in these occupations. We even unconsciously</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(sometimes consciously) encourage boys and young men to become scientists,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">doctors, and professors...to go into science and math. We tend to</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">encourage girls and young women to go into teaching, nursing, and other</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">service work. Since women's work is devalued in this society, nurses,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">teachers, secretaries, flight attendants, etc. are low-paying careers,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">which offer little room for advancement and most of them have a low</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">prestige. Remember that the average nursing salary didn't go up</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">considerably until men started entering the profession.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">All of this is to say that when we refer to a doctor as a "woman doctor"</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">we're saying that she is a doctor IN SPITE OF her gender. What we imply is</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">that she has gone beyond what we expect of her and her "abilities" as a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">woman in becoming a medical professional. On the other hand, when we say</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"male nurse" we are implying that we do not expect men to work below their</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"abilities" and become nurses. After all, we all know that's a woman's</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">job...or so the stereotype goes.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Phrases like "Male nurse" don't hurt men or reinforce harmful stereotypes</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">about men. Rather, they reinforce the old stereotype that service jobs and</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">jobs where you help the "real" professional (i.e. doctor) are for women.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">This stereotype has real world consequences. Girls are channeled into</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">occupations that pay less and have low prestige...which leads to the wage</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">gap. Women who do go into professions dominated by men are seen as</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"bitches" who likely "slept their way to the top."</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">In other words, for men, gender works to their benefit and for women,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">gender works against them.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">So, the question again is about why this algorithm is generating these</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">particular results, who designed this algorithm, in what social context?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">does this mean something about the possibilities for seemingly neutral</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">software to encode distinct cultural biases?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">This quote from Fatima Lasay:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">?Software cultures are cultures generated by programmers, designers and</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">software users. As such, programmers, designers and software users</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">interact with the social dimensions of software. Here, the social</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">dimensions of software not only reflects but also is an extension of the</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">social structure of a cultural group within which information is shared. A</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">subservient society misunderstands and misuses the social dimensions o</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">software. A subservient information society produces a productive yet</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">docile information economy- subservience is the collective acquiescence of</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">programmers, designers and software users to the corruption of a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">consumerist information society?. (from Philippine BBS Culture, No</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Carrier?)</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>