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Facebook Heralds Iconic Woman’s Right Victory
As a graphic designer and web developer, I find myself reading a wide variety of sites that hold a pretty liberal view of the world. But when it comes to design principles and development standards, most everyone is on the same page.
Every now and then, however, there comes a disturbance in the flow of modern life. Something so grossly offensive that the false morality and self-righteous indignation come bubbling to the surface, and the offended party feels compelled to speak and act. In this case, a designer at Facebook expressed outrage at yet another example of the bigoted, unequal, and hateful undertones prevalent in our day.
What is it this time you ask? An icon. Yes, a little 32×32 icon that showed — hold your breath — a man standing in front of a woman.
L-R: Old, hate-filled icon; new, acceptable icon.
See the difference? If you don’t, you’re a misogynist. And if you do? You’re probably still a misogynist.
Oh, but there’s much, much more:
Much to my dismay, not long into my tenure as a Facebook
designer I found something in the company glyph kit worth getting upset about. There in the middle of the photoshop file were two vectors that represented people. The iconic man was symmetrical except for his spiked hairdo but the lady had a chip in her shoulder. After a little sleuthing I determined that the chip was positioned exactly where the man icon would be placed in front of her, as in the ‘friends’ icon, above. I assumed no ill intentions, just a lack of consideration but as a lady with two robust shoulders, the chip offended me.
Now, before you grab your torches and pitchforks to mob the unequal, hate-harboring social network website, you’ll be relieved to know that the offense was alleviated. The icons were changed and the social victory won.
No longer will icons be ruled by men. No longer will women be subjected to the shadows of web apps and their formerly male-dominated toolbars. Now, women everywhere can know that they matter every time they click the “friends” tab on their favorite social network. The weight of this social justice victory is beyond words. Not since Rosa Parks has our country seen the likes of such bold, invigorating change.
Or, maybe we live in a day and age where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. In other words, people find that that being offended gets them what they want. Thus, the things that provoke “outrage” become more and more trivial with each passing day.
Pretty soon, Facebook will be considered homophobic for refusing to change their brand colors from blue to the all-too-pervasive colors of the rainbow. As you may have noticed with the icons above, it was never about “equality” as so many tout today, but dominance. By the way, I noticed all of these icons are white. Isn’t that a tad racist?
In other, non-offensive news: ISIS women are beating other women into merciless subjection. But hey, good job on the Facebook icons. I’m sure innocent Syrian women would be proud.
Published in Culture, Technology
Faceless Book will one day soon have to put burqas over the heads of all their glyphs to avoid giving offense.
You could make the case that all the icons represent lesbians.
I always figured the icon was more displaying a man and woman side by side with the woman being *shorter*. Huh.
There on to us. Let’s retreat to our
mancavespersonal spaces.Another day, another faux outrage. I keep thinking they’ll run out, but nooooooooo…..
You know, I find the icon changes mildly interesting and for the good.
But we’re talking about a dust mote of good.
I bet you do!
Putting the woman in front further exposes her to the male gaze, turning her into even more of an object. Now that both her shoulders are exposed, men everywhere will be imagining both her breasts, too!
Didn’t they realize, he was protecting her?
Facebook Fail. That was Caitlyn & Bruce.
Watch at your own peril, little men.
If you allow that any given icon might be transgendered, you can offend everyone for everything.
Sock puppets are meta. (I have no idea what this means but it sounds like I might.)
Ya see there? Ya see? Merlin always said teaching ’em to read was a mistake, but did Artie listen? No, of course not, and the next thing you know, Gwen (sweet gal, mind, but daft as a brush) was writing disquisitions on the sexism inherent in heraldry, and Morgan le Fay…
Skip it. It’s just too depressing.
Are damsels distressing you instead of being in the passive mood? (Grammar joke for the knight. BTW, Artie was King Arthur.)
“As a woman, educated at a women’s college, it was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon…”
Scratch out “women’s” college for a moment, and ask, “where do people learn to overinterpret this sort of thing?” I’ve assumed for a while that this kind of thinking is taught (directly or indirectly) in sociology classes. I’m an astronomer, but I went to a liberal arts college (Rhodes), where I took a wide variety of classes, so I’ve had anthropology and history and so on, but I never took sociology, and I’m kind of guessing at this. Can anyone else confirm this?
I have a daughter heading off to college (Notre Dame) this fall. She’s going into architecture but has a knack for the engineering side of it, and she has a conservative view on almost all social issues. I’ve given her my worries about sociology, and I hope she won’t be taken in by this kind of thinking if she is exposed to it.
Don’t laugh. Back in my fearless, feckless youth, I painted a mural on the wall of the tiny, basement office the college administrators had assigned to the campus feminist organization I was in charge of. It was a tasteful design of vaguely female figures (think: Matisse cut-outs, with less graphic appeal) painted in shades of violet, ecru and green. A member of the group, stopping to watch me in my creative throes, pointed out anxiously that some might think the colors objectionable. Why? Because of the ecru.
Were all the characters women?
Come, now. As a graphic designer I expect you to have a portfolio full of mockery of this nonsense by now. Show us the one with the space alien in front. Or how about the illegal alien! (sombreros first). There’s comedy gold in them thar hills!
Heh heh – I was thinking the same thing. Now the guy gets to check out the ladies curves rather than having to sweat about what she is going to get up to behind his back. Big win the boys on this one so thank you misandric Facebook designers!!
When Facebook accompanies the hatemongering Steyn articles I share with transgender emoticons, I’ll start to worry.
The American cultural war:
One side wants to dominate and the other side wants to be left alone.
Which side would you bet on to win? (Hint: they’ve already won.)
This is why argument is pointless. You have to make it hurt to attempt to dominate. It’s that or adopt a doctrine of pre-emption and dominate them first. No fun, right?
You cannot deter an action that s already taking place. You have to defeat it.
Of course. With a Y.
There’s a typo in there. The chip wasn’t “in” her shoulder, it was “on” her shoulder.
Final straw. Deleted FB. Gives me more time to peruse the Member Feed here on Ricochet.
Good, you stuck a blow for equality and womyn’s rights. ;-)
I find it a joy in life at seeing people being so righteous in causes that would just look foolish if the shoe was on the other foot. Rules should apply to all. Just think of the “Congressional White Caucus” as an example that would never fly.
What kind of cis gendered sexist homophobic racist running dog capitalist represents ” wymen” with an icon that ASSUMES” they have STRAIGHT MEDIUM LENGTH hair?
I for one am DEEPLY OFFENDED and feel my anxiety has been triggered by this blatant micro aggression.
Kozak,
It is an affront to bald wymen every where. Thank you for not mentioning the color. White is not neutral and hurts us all. Should FaceBook be sued?
Shouldn’t there be something like 50 folks in the graphic given their sex/gender identification options with “tbd” filling the rest of the image?