Parents Ask Google If Their Sons Are Geniuses and If Their Daughters Are Fat

[geek tragedy]

Last edited Tue Jan 21, 2014, 11:29 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/01/21/parents_ask_google_is_my_son_gifted_and_is_my_daughter_overweight.html

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz writes for the New York Times on his research looking at the different concerns that parents bring to Google when it comes to sons and daughters. He finds, unsurprisingly, that despite a decade-plus of "girl power" cheerleading, parents still believe that what matters about sons is their intelligence and what matters about girls is their looks.

While girls are 11 percent more likely, in the real world, to be in gifted programs, parents are way more likely to look at their sons and feel the soaring hope that they detect signs of burgeoning genius. Stephens-Davidowitz found that for every 10 Google queries asking, "Is my daughter gifted?" there were 25 asking, "Is my son gifted?" Parents were way more likely to ask about sons being geniuses or intelligent than they were about daughters. But the attention paid to boys' brains over girls' showed up on the other side of the spectrum, too, with worried parents 52 percent more likely to ask if sons were "stupid" than daughters and 46 percent more likely to ask if sons were "behind" than daughters.

It's not that daughters are ignored in the world of Google inquiries, however. Shift the focus to the area directly under the actual brain and suddenly interest in daughters surges. Boys are slightly more likely to be overweight than girls, but girls' weight concerned parents a lot more. For every 10 inquiries about sons being overweight, there were 17 about daughters. Indeed, there's a lot of fear that the daughters of America are not cutting it in the looks department. There were three times as many inquiries about whether a daughter is "ugly" than for a son. And yes, it's hard to understand why parents would think Google knows the answer.

The data does not explain itself, but it seems implausible to rule out sexism as a primary driver.

[mike_c]

1. precisely how does one phrase a search such as "is my daughter ugly?" and get...

...meaningful responses?

AARRGGHHHH! Ok, the answer to that question is obvious, so I tried it (and thereby added another data point to the sexist column). If you try this, be sure to look at the recommended search phrases that pop up, presumably based on other, prior searches. For fuck's sake.

[geek tragedy]

2. the whole thing is puzzling and maddening and depressing nt

[Squinch]

4. Wow. And click on any of them and they seem to be mostly people who despise their

daughters and want to "knock them down a peg."

It's insane.

[Moliere]

3. OP: link to source?

[geek tragedy]

5. edited to add. thanks!

[Moliere]

7. Thank you (eom)

[dilby]

6. Wonder if it's men or women asking these questions.

Reason being as a man my ex always asked if I thought she was fat. I know my daughter is not fat and my son's only chance of a scholarship is through sports, my ex would probably disagree with me though, maybe she looked it up on google.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

8. you crack me up

[geek tragedy]

9. what is funny about this OP? nt

[Pretzel_Warrior]

10. Several things

[geek tragedy]

11. None of which you care to share. nt

[Sheldon Cooper]

12. Don't waste the effort, geek.

It's simply not worth it.

[CreekDog]

13. so do you

on a good day.