What does 'South Indian Masala' look like? Well, it looks like women in skimpy clothes on Google

It's degrading to reduce women to 'South Indian Masala'. But, it's really not Google's fault.

Sarwat Fatima Sarwat Fatima
जुलाई 07, 2017
What are you waiting for? Go type 'South Indian Masala' on Google and see for yourself. Photo Courtesy: Shutterstock/ IndiaPicture


Google knows it all. It holds answers to all your questions. Whatever you wish to seek, you can find it there. All you need to do is type the words into the search tab and you will be rewarded with answers. However, this is true in 99.9% of the cases, barring one. If you wish to know what 'South Indian Masala' really looks like, you will be left confused with the results Google Images throws at you.

No, it's not pictures of cardamom, clove, cumin, or coriander. But, raunchy images of South Indian actress, sultry posing in front of the camera. It's weird because when you type in 'North Indian Masala', the search results are accurate. Your computer screen is embellished with exotic looking spices, potent enough to make your mouth water.

Recently, a man named Satyavrat Bondre took to Facebook to point out this odd contrast. However, his social media feed got flooded with extremely sexist and misogynist comments, which does reflect the sad reality of our society. It sure is a little confusing as to why Google would misdirect users to a page full of scantily-clad women. But, if you go deeper into the mechanics of how search engines work, it's really not that surprising.


According to a report published in Daily O, "the keywords for the image search are actually based on the filename of the image (so you can imagine the file names of those pictures of women - yes, masala). When searching for an image, a thumbnail of each matching image is displayed."

This basically means that the said images have probably been saved with the caption: South Indian Masala, in the first place and people search them with the same tags. Google, being a machine that works by taking into account the data and algorithms, ends up exhibiting the images in the search results. Now, this brings us to another important question: why 'masala' after all?

Well, it's no shocker that some Indian men like to call women names, which objectify them sexually. Tota, maal, mirchi, masala, and item are few of the many. And when it comes to women on the silver screen, these men feel it's their divine right to stereotype them. But, who can blame these men? After all, our Indian cinema does do a fantastic job of sexualizing women, anyway.

In fact, don't be surprised when we tell that a UN-sponsored study claims that Indian films have content dipped in sexualization and stereotyping of women.

Well, it's no shocker that some Indian men like to call women names, which objectify them sexually. Photo Courtesy: IndiaToday.in Well, it's no shocker that some Indian men like to call women names, which objectify them sexually. Photo Courtesy: IndiaToday.in

The study conducted by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, with support from UN Women and The Rockefeller Foundation, reveals the "deep-seated discrimination, pervasive stereotyping, sexualisation of women and their underrepresentation in powerful roles by the international film industry. The Indian films have a significantly higher prevalence of sexualisation of female characters measured in terms of sexually revealing clothing, nudity and attractiveness."

So, when the cinema and people in general love to stereotype women in general and tag them as 'masala', you really can't blame Google for going astray. "Search isn't always perfect. Sometimes, the way images are described on the Internet can yield surprising results to specific queries," a spokesperson from Google said in an interview to HuffPost India.

Though, now Google is working on improving their algorithms, we still can expect such goof-ups in the future. Why? Because unless men stop sexualizing women, 'masala' and 'mirchi' will remain adjectives to describe the female lot.

Also read: Dear Richa Chadha, the way to deal with everyday sexism is not by being "immune" to it

Also read: Dear boys, would you be able to handle it if we leer at you the way you leer at us?

 

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