Weakness
Ever noticed these?
Usually when I notice them I notice the stupid skirt, and I grumble stupidly that that’s not me so why yadda yadda…
…but if I’m stuck wherever it is for a longer than usual time, I move on to the shoulders.
Look at the shoulders.
Consider the message.
yep. it’s total crap. One time I was heavily drugged and I had to go to the bathroom. And I was so stupefied that I stopped and looked at the sign, and looked at my pants, and went into the men’s room. B/c pants. Such an easy mistake to make.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know what ‘message’ you are talking about with regard to the shoulders? That men typically have broader shoulders than women?
I’m much more disturbed the disparity in male/female bodies in Disney cartoons. Men are, on average, 10% larger than women but in Disney cartoons, the male characters are twice the size of the female characters.
The dude here is clearly wearing a jacket with shoulder pads.
Beth Clarkson, I think if you tried really really hard you could probably figure it out.
Ophelia Benson
Maybe. I’m not particularly inclined to spend any more time at it though. I guess it’s not particularly important to either of us that I understand what you were trying to communicate.
I’m sorry. Please accept my apology for the snide remark. I usually don’t hit post after writing them. My bad.
I don’t understand what you’re getting at. I could try, but without your help I’ll never know if I’ve successfully decoded your message or concern or observation about the differently shaped shoulders. It’s not particularly important in either or our priorities, so don’t sweat it.
@Beth Clarkson: females can certainly square their shoulders (a typically ‘dominant’ stance, and about the only way to get that much air space between the arms and torso), and males can certainly round theirs (i.e. slouch, a typically ‘subordinate’ or ‘submissive’ stance). Although admittedly it might be difficult to square one’s shoulders wearing what looks like a large sturdy solid triangle of a garment.
…never mind that the (guesstimating…) 1.5X difference in width is absurd, given the ~1″ average difference that actually exists.
Hm, looking at it more closely shouldn’t the vertical-legs stance be a touch *wider* in the ‘female’ figure than the ‘male’? Hard to tell with their hips obscured, though.
I used to have a photo studio, and since I’m in Los Angeles I did a lot of shoots with actors and models. One day a stuntwoman who was trying to move into acting came to me with her portfolio, and said an agent who’d been interested in representing her had looked at her photos and asked “Don’t you have any where you look like a girl?
She was a trained athlete, and in all her photos she was tall and proud and looked physically capable. Personally, I find that quite attractive, but then I’m not a typical guy. So we did a lot of shots and I had to keep reminding her to “relax the shoulders, relax the shoulders.” I made her “look like a girl,” but I’d much rather have celebrated the fact that she was a woman who could kick ass and take names.
The limb girth also seems to range between 1.5 – 2x that on the pants-wearer vs. the apron wearer…
You’ve lost me on this one. It’s a graphic symbol. It has to exaggerate differences to be comprehensible. In this case it works – at least in ‘western’ countries.
[…] want to draw attention to something Pieter B said in a comment, because the situation he describes is so…frustrating, pervasive, […]
Hey! I was sitting next to that guy on a plane recently. He was already sitting in his window seat when I tried to settle in next to him. His shoulders were in my space and he had his elbows out, taking up the whole armrest. I know that he was not just naturally big because, well, his elbows were out, not at his side, and near the end of the two hour flight, he relaxed and there was plenty of room for us both (not just at the armrest, but shoulder level too). Plus at one point, he had to adjust his music, and was awkwardly trying to fiddle with it one-handed so as to maintain his position on the arm-rest.
When I sat down, I realized I had two choices: lean over into the aisle and deal with a sore back for the next couple of days, or push back. So push back I did. Hard. And he wouldn’t give. So we had two hours of leaning hard into each other. At one point, he started flexing his hands, so a little bit of satisfaction that his piggishness wasn’t all that relaxing for him either.
So yeah, fuck you, Mr. Bathroom Sign Guy.
fork – I was recently on a trans-Atlantic flight between two men. Both of them had their knees spread wide, and that left me with only enough room to shove my knees as close together as possible; in an 8.5 hour flight, that left me with knees that were barely functional for two days after I got off the plane. The one on my right also decided the arm rest belonged to him, leaving me squished into my seat. I pushed back a couple of times, but because of my recent shoulder surgeries, I am not able to do the two hours of leaning hard into him, so he won by default. As a woman, I was brought up not to sit with that wide stance, but next time I see a guy doing that beside me on a plane, I’m going to take a deep breath, jettison my “lady” training, and go for as wide a stance as possible. I deserve space as much as any other paying customer, even if I am a woman.
I don’t see how this is even controversial. The female figure is portrayed as being weaker. This is the entire point behind so much of feminist objections of the last few decades. Do you people seriously not get this? Perhaps that is a problem.
Quite. I’m surprised by the surprised reactions. The male figure is exaggeratedly broader and stronger in the shoulders, and the female figure is exaggeratedly narrower and weaker. Women do actually have shoulders; the stick figure makes it look as if our arms attach to our necks.
Well, “thankfully” there are definitely plenty of (often incredibly ridiculous) options:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/09/02/guest-post-go-where-sex-gender-and-toilets/
https://www.flickr.com/groups/gendersigns/pool/
(I do like the White Dog Cafe’s approach; although their specific design relies on English-language puns, which won’t work universally either, simply indicating whether there are urinals in the room or not seems a pretty straightforward way to go.)
Frankly, I’m not sure why symbols are insisted upon in the first place. I get that there may be a language barrier for tourists, but it shouldn’t be beyond anyone’s ability to either ask for assistance or learn the local-language word for their gender :/
“I’m going to take a deep breath, jettison my “lady” training, and go for as wide a stance as possible.”
Go for it.
I no longer travel as a passenger in a car since my husband is now no longer driving, but I remember – reasonably often – looking down horrified at myself. There I am, a woman of 40+ or 50+ years, sitting in my own car with my hands neatly folded resting on a lap formed by knees neatly, primly, held together. Old habits die hard.