Democratic Debates tracked for gender representation with Matroid

In the world of computer vision, there are two common terms: Face Detection and Facial Recognition. Both are great tools for identifying faces; although, face detection has many forms of uses. It can be used to identify gender, age, emotions, ethnicity, and other facial characteristics.

Gender face detection is a powerful tool for measuring the demographic makeup of an intended audience. A recent example of this application is from the non-profit organization, GenderAvenger.  They used Matroid to monitor TV screen time of women and men presidential candidates in last months democratic debates. As an organization, they are striving for change and communicating the value of gender equality in the public arena. As GenderAvenger notes, “The power of counting is that it demands accountability”.

By using Matroid’s detector to monitor a live TV stream, GenderAvenger was able to collect some interesting facts. As highlighted in their June blog post, “Screen time was in proportion to the gender ratio of candidates on stage:

• Women represented 30% of the candidates on stage and were on screen 30% of the time.
• Men represented 70% of the candidates on stage and were on screen 70% of the time.”

(GenderAvenger, 2019)

Fig.1 OpinionToday.com (@OpinionToday), June 30, 2019, Twitter

Fig.2 Dan “Dan Schultz” Schultz (@slifty), June 27, 2019, Twitter

Matroid’s face detector is just one of thousands of detectors available.  We have the largest library of free, ready-made detectors for anyone to use.  Without writing a single line of code, you can quickly load our detectors and start monitoring a digital image, video, or a live stream.

Matroid is proud it can provide cutting edge technology to organizations to help highlight and promote change in gender equality and diversity. To augment computer vision in your organization, contact us at [email protected], we’ll be happy to help!

GenderAvenger. (2019, June 28). The GenderAvenger Screen Time Index for NBC’s Democratic Presidential Debates [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/screen-time-index-democratic-presidential-debates

NBC News (2019, June 27). Democratic Presidential Debate – June 27 (Full) | NBC News. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX7hni-zGD8