{"id":30843,"date":"2009-11-30T14:15:20","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T13:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/blog\/?p=30843"},"modified":"2009-11-30T15:15:07","modified_gmt":"2009-11-30T14:15:07","slug":"another-example-of-unintended-messaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/main\/another-example-of-unintended-messaging\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Example of Unintended Messaging . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"


<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/a><\/div>\n

Recently, I went looking for a report on the website of a fairly well-known company, so of course I stopped by their Careers page\u2014and through a series of events, I ended up noticing something that wouldn\u2019t be obvious to most visitors.\u00a0 But even if it won\u2019t be seen by the public, I think it\u2019s important for two reasons:\u00a0 (a) no one caught it in-house, and (b) it suggests a pattern of thinking that seems problematic, even though it\u2019s surely not intentional.<\/p>\n

In order to be kind to the company in question, I\u2019ll disguise the specifics, but here\u2019s slightly altered version of \u201cthe scoop\u201d:<\/p>\n

To get the report I wanted, I had to register.\u00a0 To register, I had to select a \u201ctitle.\u201d\u00a0 Let\u2019s say my selected title was \u201cChannel Manager.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 There didn\u2019t seem to be any special benefit to having a title, but once I had picked one, it followed me to every page on the site.\u00a0 And next to my title at the top of the page was a small picture (it definitely looks like a stock photo, not a real employee) which is presumably meant to represent a \u201cChannel Manager.\u201d<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t help wondering what the purpose of the whole title idea might be, so I decided to try on different titles and see what changed.\u00a0 Actually nothing important seemed to alter according to my title, in terms of the information presented.\u00a0 But–I did see a different picture every time.\u00a0 And that\u2019s where I noticed . . .<\/p>\n

Stereotyping!<\/p>\n

If you took a list of the two dozen or so possible titles and had ten random people divide the titles into \u201cgender piles,\u201d I\u2019ll bet the piles would exactly match the pictures on this site.\u00a0 Titles\/descriptions that had words like strategy, architecture, or infrastructure got a man\u2019s picture.\u00a0 Titles that had something to do with marketing or managing got a woman\u2019s picture.\u00a0 A couple of exceptions, but overall, a pretty noticeable pattern.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, this pattern probably won\u2019t be noticed by visitors, because most won\u2019t try out more than a couple of titles.\u00a0 And if you go straight to the Careers page without registering on the main site, you won\u2019t even have a title, so it\u2019s moot.\u00a0 But if you do<\/em> register, the title will show up any time you go to the Careers page, and that\u2019s how I got started down this particular rabbit trail.<\/p>\n

Once I focused on the Careers page, the plot thickened a bit.\u00a0 Let\u2019s set aside the whole matter of titles, and just assume the visitor came to the Careers page without any previous picture experience.\u00a0\u00a0 As they looked around the site, they would find (all on a single tab) four employee profiles, each with a real photo of a real person.\u00a0 And all four are men. <\/em><\/p>\n

I doubt very much that this company is a hot-bed of stereotyping or gender bias.\u00a0\u00a0 I doubt anyone there even realizes that this unintended message has taken shape on the website.\u00a0 But–that\u2019s exactly the problem.<\/p>\n

One other note:\u00a0 The \u201ctitle\u201d pictures were also somewhat lacking in ethnic diversity, but I left that out in order to focus on the gender point.\u00a0 As for ethnic diversity in the employee profiles . . . zero.\u00a0 So at that point, you really do have to wonder who\u2019s minding the messaging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I went looking for a report on the website of a fairly well-known company, so of course I stopped by their Careers page\u2014and through a series of events, I ended up noticing something that wouldn\u2019t be obvious to most visitors.\u00a0 But even if it won\u2019t be seen by the public, I think it\u2019s important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,25],"tags":[41,2111,6023,6024],"class_list":{"0":"post-30843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-best-practices","7":"category-careers","8":"tag-corporate-website","9":"tag-diversity","10":"tag-gender","11":"tag-stereotyping","12":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nAnother Example of Unintended Messaging . . . - 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