I was going looking for some strong female images or woman leader images. To me there seems to be lack of these images. Lots of images of women looking pretty, laying around in bikinis, showing toned mid-riffs etc. But not a lot of images of women in power, coaching or leading. If I use the search term "Female Leader" the first image is of a lion. I think we can do better in 2018.
Searching for "woman business" shows plenty of women working, which might be a better strategy. Other search terms like "woman confident" or "woman executive" might also work. "Female" as a search term is more likely to pick up animals too, where "woman" is more likely to return humans.
There may also be some hidden reasons why you get less productive results when you use "female" as your search term rather than "woman." Even if you're intending "female" to be an adjective for leader, rather than a noun, the search tool doesn't know that. The content library looks for how images are tagged. It's possible that photographers who tag images as "female" are more likely to have images of women in bikinis, where images tagged "woman" are more likely to be fully clothed.
The reasons behind why that might be are more complex than we probably need to delve into here, but just changing your search terms might be enough to steer you to more of the images you want.
Here are a few links if you want to read more. Please note, I'm not accusing you of any bias. You're clearly trying to consciously combat bias, and I commend you for that. I do think you're picking up on some bias in your search though.
I tried your suggestions the results are still less than helpful. Take a look at the attachments. The first image for Woman Leader is a lion, other images a woman being led by a man, a woman licking a lollipop, a man having coffee, elk, penguins, and an elephant.
If you're looking for perfect search results, I think you're going to be perpetually disappointed. Search is always going to require multiple attempts, especially since the content library has a fairly poor search (no way to do boolean searches, for example). Trying multiple terms to refine your search and get better results is part of the process. I think these terms are better, not perfect.
The first 15 results in the search for "female leader" include
4 animals
3 object pictures with no people
Only 2 pictures where a woman is clearly included in the image
The first 15 search results for "woman leader" include
3 animals
No pictures of just objects
6 images where a woman is clearly included in or is the focus of the image
Clearly not perfect, but getting closer.
Interestingly, the first image for the search "leader" shows a black woman leading a business meeting.
The tagging system in the Articulate content library seems pretty haphazard overall, so you're going to have to do multiple searches and try different combos to find what you want. Multiple searches are a necessary strategy for any image library though. Even in Getty's enormous library, it takes me a few tries to find what I want. I just checked, and Getty's search seems to turn up the same results for "female leader" and "woman leader"; their search does a much better job of recognizing synonyms.
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Searching for "woman business" shows plenty of women working, which might be a better strategy. Other search terms like "woman confident" or "woman executive" might also work. "Female" as a search term is more likely to pick up animals too, where "woman" is more likely to return humans.
There may also be some hidden reasons why you get less productive results when you use "female" as your search term rather than "woman." Even if you're intending "female" to be an adjective for leader, rather than a noun, the search tool doesn't know that. The content library looks for how images are tagged. It's possible that photographers who tag images as "female" are more likely to have images of women in bikinis, where images tagged "woman" are more likely to be fully clothed.
The reasons behind why that might be are more complex than we probably need to delve into here, but just changing your search terms might be enough to steer you to more of the images you want.
Here are a few links if you want to read more. Please note, I'm not accusing you of any bias. You're clearly trying to consciously combat bias, and I commend you for that. I do think you're picking up on some bias in your search though.
Grammar Girl recommends using female as the noun only for animals or scientifically (which is one reason you're getting animals in your search). https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/woman-versus-female-0?page=1
This Jezebel article talks about some issues with using female versus woman. https://jezebel.com/the-problem-with-calling-women-females-1683808274
I tried your suggestions the results are still less than helpful. Take a look at the attachments. The first image for Woman Leader is a lion, other images a woman being led by a man, a woman licking a lollipop, a man having coffee, elk, penguins, and an elephant.
If you're looking for perfect search results, I think you're going to be perpetually disappointed. Search is always going to require multiple attempts, especially since the content library has a fairly poor search (no way to do boolean searches, for example). Trying multiple terms to refine your search and get better results is part of the process. I think these terms are better, not perfect.
The first 15 results in the search for "female leader" include
The first 15 search results for "woman leader" include
Clearly not perfect, but getting closer.
Interestingly, the first image for the search "leader" shows a black woman leading a business meeting.
The tagging system in the Articulate content library seems pretty haphazard overall, so you're going to have to do multiple searches and try different combos to find what you want. Multiple searches are a necessary strategy for any image library though. Even in Getty's enormous library, it takes me a few tries to find what I want. I just checked, and Getty's search seems to turn up the same results for "female leader" and "woman leader"; their search does a much better job of recognizing synonyms.
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