Unbias Button
ElaN
Issue 51 | June 2019
Agency
J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam
Creative Team
Creative Partner Bas Korsten Creative Directors Friso Ludenhoff, Maarten Vrouwes Director/Sr. Art Director Tunchan Kalkan Creatives Marius Gottlieb, Jasper Korpershoek
Production Team
Director/DOP Robert Harrison Digital Strategy Director Wybe Sallows Concept Producer Charlotte Lilly Editing, Motion Graphics & Sound Design Tim Arnold Voice-over Hannah Whitely
Other Credits
PR Director Jessica Hartley CEO ElaN Languages Robrecht Belien Business Development Director Johan Noe¨l Communications Officer Stijn Phlix
Date
March 2019
Background
There is plenty of research to show that the words people use directly affect the way they think. Whether it is noticed it or not, all language is infused with countless gender-biased words. In one sociolinguistic study, it was clearly stated that ‘language appears to play a particularly important role in forming people’s attitudes toward gender and occupation’.
Idea
The effects that gender bias has within language can influence women to be ‘less likely to apply for jobs with masculine suffixes’. The terms cameraman, mailman, fireman and salesman create a biased view on what society has believed are appropriate roles for men and women.
ElaN Languages, an independent translation organisation in Belgium, wanted to tackle this unconscious bias by updating their online translation tool with a new feature: ‘the unbias button’.
The plug-in offered unbiased translations of biased words. Fireman became firefighter, mailman became mail carrier. And the reverse was also true, with midwife becoming birth assistant.
When ‘the unbias button’ was applied, thousands of words within the ElaN Languages database were reframed as gender-neutral words.
Results
While there are no numbers on the use of the button, dozens of publications wrote about it. One comment on Facebook was: we should all have an Unbias Button installed in our heads.
Our Thoughts
This is a heartening example of how tech can help show individuals how discrimination is deeply rooted within most of us.
‘An old wives’ tale’ has a very different implication to ‘tall story’ or ‘legend’. It isn’t just specific roles that reveal bias (fireman, policeman) but generic words such as ‘musician’, ‘actor’ and ‘economist’, which research shows are more associated with men than women.
Nor is it just the English language which is at fault. All the world’s major languages are fundamentally sexist.
For me, this idea is not about political correctness. It is about a more prosperous world. One study in the U.S.A. has concluded that closing the gender gap would add four trillion dollars to GDP a year.
Changing the language is the first step to changing the system.