So a couple of weeks ago, I used the metaphor treading water to describe that particular week. I’m quite familiar with treading water, so that made sense. This week I felt like I was constantly juggling lots of different balls. To focus my full attention on one ball meant they would all fall down around me and knock me out. At least that’s always the fear. I mean, I don’t juggle for realz, so I’m not sure.

This week, I decided that the juggling took too much energy, and I just needed to let them fall around me. Once they all fell, I could spend my energy dealing with each one rather than trying to keep them all in the air.

Once I decided to write about this metaphor, I went in search of the perfect image, and what I found really surprised me. In hindsight, it probably shouldn’t have surprised me. Based on my findings, it turns out that according to the google images, women are doing most of the metaphorical juggling of life.

My first search term was juggling, and I was greeted with several categories the images were telling in each category: Juggling life, juggling work, and juggling chainsaws.

These are the images that come up when searching for juggling life. Based on the small sample of images, it seems the majority of people juggling life are white women with curves and coiffed hair.

This next series of images comes up when selecting juggling work. And while the majority are still women, there are a bit more men in this series.

But perhaps funny and disturbing was the category: juggling chainsaws. And of course, if these categories and images are to be believed, while women are out juggling life and work, men are juggling chainsaws.

An interesting quick study about how much visuals influence our beliefs and communicate values. This is why it’s so important to question what images are being used to represent and communicate these set of values and question why.