The gender equality bandwagon careens around another corner.
NPR reports that “Facebook’s New Logo Is A Visual Nod To Gender Equality“.
“A woman designer at Facebook recently updated the company’s iconic “friends” logo,” reads the byline, “making the woman’s silhouette larger and moving it in front of the man’s.”
From nasty, patriarchal old… to New & Improved!
The old image featured the woman’s silhouette behind the man’s, with the woman’s figure a bit smaller. In a Medium post published yesterday, Facebook designer Caitlin Winner said she didn’t like that. “Much to my dismay,” she wrote, “not long into my tenure as a Facebook designer I found something in the company glyph kit worth getting upset about.”
She continued, “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… I assumed no ill intentions, just a lack of consideration but as a lady with two robust shoulders, the chip offended me.”
Someone named Caitlin getting “offended” in a Silicone Valley workplace. Ain’t no one gonna touch that one.
Caitlin should be thinking bigger, like how to parlay her strategically-positioned ‘offensibility’ into a larger piece of the Facebook pie. Where is Gloria Allred when you need her?
So, Winner went about changing the friend logo. She fixed that drooping, chipped shoulder, and updated the hair, which she said previously was a “Darth Vader-like helmet.” Winner also updated the man icon, adding a “slight slope to his shoulders” and a hair style that is “smoothed down.”
Yes, let’s further emasculate the male image. Slope those shoulders! Remove those symmetrical features!
You go, girl!
Err… I mean… You go, woman!
Err… I mean… You go… ummm…
It sounds like the person with the real chip on their shoulder might be… Caitlin?
SIDENOTE: While we’re at it, we also need more female action heroes!
I get all progressively stimulated when I see 100 lb waifs throwing 200 lb men against the wall.
