The Gendered Web
An experimental plug-in imagines a web without men
We’ve all heard about the gender gap, the fact that men make more money working the same jobs that women do, and that men have more of a voice in politics and in the media. Indeed 60% of bylines belong to men—and that figure jumps to nearly 70% if you look specifically at breaking news. But this phenomenon is mostly invisible.
As a studio, Normally, wanted to see what it might feel like to experience the web in different ways. In this particular case, we explored the concept of gender and how, as we browse the web, our presence within a man-centric bubble is constantly reinforced. I was helping to deep dive into the research and frame the story, which included writing the copy, art directing the assets and pitching the experiment to personal contacts in the media.
As a studio, Normally, wanted to see what it might feel like to experience the web in different ways. In this particular case, we explored the concept of gender and how, as we browse the web, our presence within a man-centric bubble is constantly reinforced. I was helping to deep dive into the research and frame the story, which included writing the copy, art directing the assets and pitching the experiment to personal contacts in the media.
Result: filter that would scan bylines to sort out the women’s names and allow only those to appear, first applied for The New York Times. The project led to numerous conversations, further experiments and features in publications such as FastCompany.
Team Credit
Entire studio: Chris Downs, Marei Wollersberger, Mark Watson, Simone Seiter, Basil Safwat, Nic Mulvaney, Ivo Vos, Tom Jarrett, Peter Koraca, Ellen Rhodes, Pete Dalton, Karolina Haley and Sara Salsinha.
All images and videos courtesy of Alexandra Plesner and the Normally studio.
