FLUENCE

IG: fluence.co

AI has... well, a lot of problems. Last year Alexa would respond to sexist comments like they were compliments. Last week Facebook has to apologize for its AI system labeling black people as “primates”. Yikes. But none of this explains why AI voices are always female (Siri, Alexa, Cortana) and it seems experts can’t even agree on why. 

There’s so much to unpack that we could never fit it into a post, but we did try to fit it into an IGTV episode. But what do you think? Is it nice that AI has a soothing female voice? Or does it set up a stereotype that doesn’t help women?

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Share this with a female CEO (or boss friend), or your friend named John. Tell us what they say :)

https://www.instagram.com/fluence.co/: We took the lead male and female characters in popular cartoon movies and compared body shapes. In general, the main female leads had two shapes: slender rectangle or hourglass. The male leads had far more variety in the shapes of their bodies.

Now, body shape does become a little more varied when we review all side characters (think Ursula... when she's a sea squid... not when she's a slender woman). However, the men still win in body shape diversity count.

Disney princesses are famously slender on average, and their princes are not much better. The princes are either slender (think Prince Phillip) or overly muscular (think Hercules). We assumed Pixar would be better about body diversity, but it turns out they're better only when it comes to the men. And it's not just Disney. Kung Fu Panda, Despicable Me, Shrek and other popular cartoons made by Disney's competitors follow the same trend overall.

So what do we do with this? Well, first we need to talk about it. Because if we watch cartoons and we never notice this trend, we internalize the subtle messaging of what a "normal" female body looks like. As a society, we're at the point where we celebrate Moana for having calves. And that IS a win for body diversity... but it is also a low standard. We need more women shaped like circles, squares, rectangles, trapezoids, and more. Especially the princesses.

Have you noticed this trend before this post? What shapes would you like to see?

https://www.instagram.com/fluence.co/: 

Feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes." That's it. That's the whole thing.

We get a lot of strange comments on both sides about this. Let's walk through each point of view we hear (POV).

POV 1: We get comments about how it is justified to dislike an entire sex of people (men). Of course there are great men in the world. Yes, it is still true that a few men commit more crimes than most women. But that's not most men. Activism is not about hating another group of people. We don't want our followers to think we're okay with bashing men, because we aren't. Caring about a group of people should never lead us to hate another.

POV 2: We get comments about how a post is "attacking men". We'll be honest— most of the time we did not think the comment we made was about men in any way. Saying women's shampoo costs more should not feel like an attack on men. If anything, it's criticizing the shampoo company. Saying women don't have enough pockets doesn't mean we hate men who have pockets. It means we hate not having pockets. It seems that anytime we talk about a women's issue, someone has mistaken it as a personal attack on men everywhere. Why? Probably because there ARE women's accounts that attack men. They imply men aren't as capable as women, or don't know anything. They don't allow men to have an opinion on certain topics. That's not okay either. So all of us need to denounce this when we see it, because otherwise people associate "man-hating" with the entire feminist movement.

So here's a summary, in case you missed it.

Men = good

Women = good

https://www.instagram.com/fluence.co/: Did you hear? More women participated in this Olympics than ever before. More women broke records than ever before. And while you may have heard about some women individually, collectively female athletes are making huge strides. Who was your favorite women to watch in Tokyo?

https://www.instagram.com/fluence.co/: Are you a feminist? We know that the word ‘feminist’ often has misleading and negative connotations. The truth is though, feminism isn’t about man-hating or misandry, it’s all about equality. There are so many topics and issues feminism tackles and discusses, and the questions above are just a few examples. If you answered yes to the questions above, you’re definitely a feminist.

https://www.instagram.com/fluence.co/: If you’re just tuning into the olympics, here are some incredible women to look out for. This list is focused on the women who have yet to finish competing, so you can still tune into their events! No matter the country or sport, it’s always incredible to watch women perform at the top of their game. Who are you watching this Olympics?