An advocacy group fighting for gender equality has slammed Google for focusing more on men than women on its doodles.
The advocacy group called SPARK Movement has released a report that looked into the diversity of the iconic doodles of Google. In a report titled "#DoodleUs: Gender & Race in Google Doodles," the organization presents its findings on the discrepancies of how society honors men and women.
"We like Google Doodles a lot, but we couldn't help but notice that, like a lot of other places where we learn history, they felt a little...male. And white. So we did some research. From 2010-2013, Google celebrated 445 individuals in Doodles on its various homepages throughout the world. An overwhelming 357 of those people were men-and 275 of those men were white. 77 Doodles celebrated women-but only 19 celebrated women of color," the feminist group stated.
SPARK Movement pointed out that no women of color were featured in any global Doodle until jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald was featured last year. In the three years of Google Doodle data they studied, only 17 percent of human Doodles honored women.
It also noticed the dominance of white people featured in about 91 percent of global doodles, these are doodles visible on all homepages of Google around the globe, and made up 74 percent of total Doodles that honored people from 2010 to 2013.
Only 18 percent of the 26 percent of Doodles dedicated to colored people honored women of color. Women of color were only honored 4.3 percent against the sum total of tributes for people.
"Google Doodles may seem lighthearted, especially when they're accompanied by quirky games and animation, but the reality is that these doodles have emerged as a new manifestation of who we value as a society-a sign of who 'matters.' Just like statues, stamps, and national holidays, you know that if someone is featured on Google's homepage, they've done something important," SPARK stated. "We want Google to correct this imbalance. We're asking them to #DoodleUs-to get real about history and to stop contributing to the dangerous fiction that white men built and did everything worth remembering."
The group condemns the "whitewashed" style of teaching and learning history that puts too much spotlight on the contributions of white males, discounting the efforts of the rest.
SPARK Movement has also started a petition on change.org to pressure Google to change its Doodle preferences.
"Women have historically been underrepresented in almost all fields: science, school curricula, business, politics - and, sadly, doodles," said Google Doodle team lead Ryan Germick. It's not clear, however, whether Google will be working to fix that problem.
