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An Exploration of Gender Bias in Computer Clip Art

Communications Department, Oregon Institute of Technology, 3201 Campus Drive, Klamath Falls OR 97601

A growing body of literature presenting the results of research regarding text book illustrations indicates that visual gender bias is obvious in several acade mic fields, including business communication. To date, however, no study has extended those observations to clip art files in popular computer programs. The current study examines over 14,000 clip art images for gender bias from six different Windows-based programs: WordPerfect Presentations, PowerPoint 4.0, Microsoft Publisher 2.0, Harvard Graphics 3.0, Power Up!, and Corel 3.0, CD-ROM. Tabulations indicate that only 4.54% of total images depict women and that they are typically presented in stereotypical roles, such as secretaries, nurses, teachers. Reasons include a male bias in the computer science field (a 3:1 ratio in programming), apparent gender-based differences in relationships with machines, and a societal gap in traruitioning between old and new media.

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