Pink for Princesses, Blue for Superheroes
Amifa Raj, Ashlee Milton and Michael D. Ekstrand. 2021. “Pink for Princesses, Blue for Superheroes: The Need to Examine Gender Stereotypes in Kid’s Products in Search and Recommendations”. To appear in Proceedings of the 5th International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Children & Recommender and Information Retrieval Systems (KidRec) Search and Recommendation Technology through the Lens of a Teacher- Co-located with ACM IDC 2021 (KidRec 21).
Abstract
In this position paper, we argue for the need to investigate if and how gender stereotypes manifest in search and recommender systems. As a starting point, we particularly focus on how these systems may propagate and reinforce gender stereotypes through their results in learning environments, a context where teachers and children in their formative stage regularly interact with these systems. We provide motivating examples supporting our concerns and outline an agenda to support future research addressing the phenomena.