Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Gender bias is more exaggerated in online images than in text

A big-data analysis shows that men are starkly over-represented in online images, and that gender bias is stronger in images compared with text. Such images could influence enduring gender biases in our offline lives.
  1. Bas Hofstra

    1. Bas Hofstra is in the Department of Sociology, Radboud University, Nijmegen 6525 GD, the Netherlands.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Anne Maaike Mulders

    1. Anne Maaike Mulders is in the Department of Sociology, Radboud University, Nijmegen 6525 GD, the Netherlands.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Images are an increasingly important vehicle for circulating information online and for grabbing and keeping people’s attention1. Writing in Nature, Guilbeault and colleagues2 detail how online images reflect and exaggerate existing gender bias found in the offline world.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 626, 960-961 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00291-6

References

  1. Zhang, L. & Rui, Y. ACM Trans. Multimedia Comput. Commun. App. 9, 36 (2013).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Guilbeault, D. et al. Nature 626, 1049–1055 (2024).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Simon, S. & Hoyt, C. L. Group Proc. Intergroup Rel. 16, 232–245 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links