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Author Topic: Female traffic lights  (Read 28931 times)  Share 

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Russ

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #45 on: March 07, 2017, 10:43:55 pm »
+10
I try and post this every time someone attempts to complain that we're not treating people equally or make some comment about 'humanism'


jamonwindeyer

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #46 on: March 07, 2017, 10:48:10 pm »
+3
that is not my opinion, it is a fact that 67 genders don't exist.

Gender isn't the same as biological sex - Two totally different constructs. Gender is a social construct.

And if I may boldly try and be a Biologist for a second (no math, ew) - Even if you did choose to define gender purely on your chromosomes, what do you call those born with three X chromosomes. Are they women? What about Klinefelter Syndrome, two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome?

This isn't an attack, it's just raising the issues that come with assigning gender purely to biological sex. It's a far more complex thing than that - Like many aspects of studying humanity, assigning something to be either "black or white" or "chemical or natural" or "heroes or terrorists," isn't really something you can do :P

(Not super well read, feel free to correct on above, lol)

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #47 on: March 07, 2017, 10:48:57 pm »
0
I try and post this every time someone attempts to complain that we're not treating people equally or make some comment about 'humanism'

(Image removed from quote.)

Gdi I've seen you post this before I think and it just hits me in the feels every time

Coffee

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #48 on: March 07, 2017, 10:49:14 pm »
+2
Riiiight, thanks for sharing that Coffee!! If this is a project funded by the private dollar, then without opening the "Should women be represented as stick figures with dresses" debate, I think that shuts down most of the opposition I've been seeing, which has pretty much been, "What a waste of time and money." I absolutely think there are way more important things going on in the world right now, but why be against it if it has a positive impact? I don't think there'd be any negative impacts of doing it :)
I completely agree and I think this quote pretty much sums it up:

Quote
"A culture of sexism is made up of very small issues, like how the default pedestrian crossings use a male figure — and large issues such as the rate of family violence facing women."

Of course there are more pressing issues, but it's also important to pay attention to the little things. The issue with male traffic lights is that it presents an unconscious bias towards men and I think this is something worth questioning rather than simply dismissing it for it's 'insignificance'.

Sine

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #49 on: March 07, 2017, 10:51:50 pm »
+1
Just wondering

Why does anyone assume the traffic light represents a man? Kinda confused  :P

 :)

elysepopplewell

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #50 on: March 07, 2017, 10:53:32 pm »
+4
Of course there are more pressing issues, but it's also important to pay attention to the little things. The issue with male traffic lights is that it presents an unconscious bias towards men and I think this is something worth questioning rather than simply dismissing it for it's 'insignificance'.

Right on, Coffee! Treating domestic violence isn't as simple as stopping family members from hitting other family members. We need to break it down, all the way down to the micro-aggressions and everyday sexisms. (Not saying traffic lights contribute to DV, just an example of another issue).

To me, the best thing to come out of this is the challenging of gendered representation and bias. It's a healthy conversation to have with others, but I've also found it to be really fruitful to challenge my own assumptions inwardly.
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elysepopplewell

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #51 on: March 07, 2017, 10:56:12 pm »
+2
Just wondering

Why does anyone assume the traffic light represents a man? Kinda confused  :P

 :)

No direct answer to this, but it is the crux of the debate about gendered representation. I mentioned earlier that I was always told "wait for the little man to turn green." If you look at the female and male signs on public toilets, the women are wearing a triangle shaped dress thing, and the men are often just a stick figure, like the traffic light. So I think it's not unlikely to assume there's a connection been made there.

But it does raise bigger issues - that stick figure is ambiguous about gender. Why do we assume that androgynous figures relate to masculinity?

In my opinion, we should be challenging these representations and asking the exact question you are - why are we assuming this is a man?
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Sine

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #52 on: March 07, 2017, 11:05:05 pm »
0
Just wondering

Why does anyone assume the traffic light represents a man? Kinda confused  :P

 :)
No direct answer to this, but it is the crux of the debate about gendered representation. I mentioned earlier that I was always told "wait for the little man to turn green." If you look at the female and male signs on public toilets, the women are wearing a triangle shaped dress thing, and the men are often just a stick figure, like the traffic light. So I think it's not unlikely to assume there's a connection been made there.

But it does raise bigger issues - that stick figure is ambiguous about gender. Why do we assume that androgynous figures relate to masculinity?

In my opinion, we should be challenging these representations and asking the exact question you are - why are we assuming this is a man?
just using the confused state as a persuasive technique

but seriously, yes we are conditioned to assume that it is male (can't really blame ourselves for this). I really don't see the problem in having female traffic lights but i feel this will just create more "issues" as some will complain about their being more male traffic lights.



elysepopplewell

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #53 on: March 07, 2017, 11:14:03 pm »
+1
just using the confused state as a persuasive technique

but seriously, yes we are conditioned to assume that it is male (can't really blame ourselves for this). I really don't see the problem in having female traffic lights but i feel this will just create more "issues" as some will complain about their being more male traffic lights.

Do you (or anyone reading this) know much about the campaign for this change? I try to keep up with this stuff but I didn't hear anything about it before it actually was declared today, I didn't know it was even being lobbied for. Maybe because it's in Melbourne and I'm not so I missed the lead-up.

"The aim is to move towards one-to-one male and female representation across the state of Victoria." According to the ABC article here. I agree that I hope it doesn't become about how many male to female traffic lights there are, but I'm coming from a standpoint of not really seeing it as an issue to begin with. I'm just riding out the outcome in the hopes that we can turn it into a positive of challenging ideas of gender bias.
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Deshouka

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #54 on: March 07, 2017, 11:37:58 pm »
0
Gender isn't the same as biological sex - Two totally different constructs. Gender is a social construct.

And if I may boldly try and be a Biologist for a second (no math, ew) - Even if you did choose to define gender purely on your chromosomes, what do you call those born with three X chromosomes. Are they women? What about Klinefelter Syndrome, two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome?

(Not super well read, feel free to correct on above, lol)
Thing is though, not even biological sex is purely determined by your chromosomes-that would be genetic sex. But if we were to define gender based on chromosomes, assuming that we are equating gender with genetic, not biological sex,  the obvious answer would be:
XXX= female and XXY=male.
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brenden

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #55 on: March 08, 2017, 08:37:59 am »
+7
The most telling thing about this whole saga has been the crybaby reaction from people who think it's "too far" and so on so forth as if feminists are the unreasonable ones.

The main line I'm seeing on Facebook is "ugh it's so tiny, who cares!!"

If it's so tiny- why the fuck are you making a big deal out of 10 traffic lights? Why are people so offended and upset by the change?

It's just a bit funny is that all I hear about feminism is how unreasonably offended everyone is getting, but the only time I see a whole group of people get unreasonably offended is when feminism makes progress 😅😅

Is it a BAD thing the lights are changing? I don't see how you could argue that. Is it the BEST thing that could happen? No one is arguing that. What does that leave as an option? Probably that it's a cool thing, probs helpful, no biggy, let's go sensationalise something else.
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sudodds

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #56 on: March 08, 2017, 09:15:14 am »
0
It's just a bit funny is that all I hear about feminism is how unreasonably offended everyone is getting, but the only time I see a whole group of people get unreasonably offended is when feminism makes progress 😅😅

Bingo! This is where the real outrage should be directed...

Edit: apparently this is meant to be the silhouette of a suffragette? If thats true then I think thats pretty cool :)
« Last Edit: March 08, 2017, 09:23:14 am by sudodds »
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geminii

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #57 on: March 08, 2017, 11:56:37 am »
0
Going back a bit, but I did say I would reply!

Of all the emergencies I've been in, which admittedly haven't been many, "women and children" were privileged on zero occasions. Although when a bus I was on crashed, the pregnant lady was given a lot of attention by medics which I really think is quite fair. As soon as I read your claim, I thought "wow, that sounds like a 100 years ago" and then you referenced the Titanic. Being a huge fan of the Titanic, I have often wondered about why it was in a society where women were still fighting to vote, they were given privilege to getting off the Titanic? I put it down to the chivalrous idea that the men would go down with the ship. But, woman couldn't vote in a lot of democracies at that time, so I hardly think it's the case that 100 years ago, women were thought to be more important than men.

Actually, this is still true today. I only gave the Titanic example because it was quite easy to see - however even today, if a plane is crashing or a ship is sinking and lifeboats are brought out or people need to evacuate, they do indeed say 'women and children first'. Pretty much 99% of the time.

I also completely disagree that when a man hits a woman, it's abuse, when a woman hits a man, it's self defence? I'm not sure if this is something people in your life are perpetuating, and if they are, I encourage you to speak out against it. It's an awful notion and definitely not one that the broader feminist movement perpetuates.

This is not something that happened to me personally or anything, it's society's way of thinking. It's well known that if a man hits a woman it bears more weight than a woman hitting a man. You can see that in many social experiments that have been conducted, plus the jail time that women receive compared to men for the same crime.

But I mean, girls and women are far more likely to be victims of sexual or physical violence by someone they know, far more likely to have their genitals mutilated in a way that causes long-term physical and mental effects, sometimes occasioning death, far more likely to not report abuse crimes, and I could talk about every-day sexism forever.

I agree, that's a big problem that we need to solve; however, how is changing traffic lights going to help?

My intention is not to compare who has it worse, the argument doesn't look fruitful - my intention is to highlight the gender disparity as an issue and International Women's Day as being a fair time to celebrate successes and focus on ways to continue to bridge gender gaps. I talked about my thoughts on the issue of the traffic lights :)

Yes, you talked about traffic lights - but then asked me how women are more privileged than men, so I answered.
I'm not saying we shouldn't celebrate IWD. In fact that's great. But IMD is an important day too. Men are important too. Just because men have been more dominant that does NOT mean that we should celebrate only women now.

I too consider myself a feminist, in the original sense of the word, but won't succumb to people who place feelings over facts, notoriously those arguing for the gender-pay gap and glorifying the pro-choice movement as a right and not a privilege.

This is me, too. I consider myself a feminist if you look at the definition of the word in a dictionary - but not a third-wave feminist. I consider myself a second-wave or first-wave feminist.

Just wondering

Why does anyone assume the traffic light represents a man? Kinda confused  :P

 :)

Exactly - why is this even such a big deal? Why do we need to do this anyway? Why can't we just move on with our lives? That's what I'm saying - this isn't even a big issue so why are these feminists wasting so much time trying to fix this non-existent problem when they could be putting their efforts to actually DOING something important, like volunteering at women's shelters or something like that?

Of course there are more pressing issues, but it's also important to pay attention to the little things. The issue with male traffic lights is that it presents an unconscious bias towards men and I think this is something worth questioning rather than simply dismissing it for it's 'insignificance'.

There are always going to be these 'unconscious biases'. For example, there's an unconscious bias that boys generally like football more than women. Is that important? No. Are women stopped from playing football due to this? No. What is the problem? Nothing. Could it be perhaps that more men just like playing football and that less women like playing football, and that there is no 'unconscious bias' at all? Of course!
These unconscious biases are just the results of people being too sensitive. I played football throughout primary school. Although I was the only girl on the team, I didn't experience any sort of discrimination due to this, and played pretty well. Although I've lost the passion for it now, back then it might well just have been that more boys were more interested in football than girls, and that accounted for the male:female ratio. Why does there have to be this 'unconscious bias' thing?

 
But it does raise bigger issues - that stick figure is ambiguous about gender. Why do we assume that androgynous figures relate to masculinity?

I don't know. Maybe you should ask yourself that. Why do you assume it's a man? Are you then being sexist because you are assuming it's gender, god forbid?
 I never assumed it was a man - and even if I did, I'm not going to be offended by it. I'll be offended if a man hits me or a woman hits me or if a man assumes I can't do something because I'm a woman, or if a female assumes a man can't do something because he's a man. That's the sort of things we should be getting offended about, not that some traffic light shows an androgynous figure and some people assume it's a man.
You're asking why we assume it's a man. A lot of us don't. You were told to 'wait for the green man' to cross the road. I was not. Perhaps you should be asking "why do we assume that androgynous figures relate to masculinity?" to the people who told you that the green person was a man, and not to us, because in reality we can hardly assume its gender. And it's all a matter of opinion anyway; if you think it's a man, that's great. If you think it's a female, that's great too. If you just think of it as a person, that's also okay. But is this even a big issue? Why do feminists need to change these traffic lights? As I said before, why don't they focus on actually HELPING women, rather than focusing on an 'unconscious bias' which isn't even there - it's made up in the minds of people who are offended all too easily.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2017, 12:22:22 pm by geminii »
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jamonwindeyer

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #58 on: March 08, 2017, 01:10:34 pm »
+1
Responding to a few bits and pieces :)

Going back a bit, but I did say I would reply!

Actually, this is still true today. I only gave the Titanic example because it was quite easy to see - however even today, if a plane is crashing or a ship is sinking and lifeboats are brought out or people need to evacuate, they do indeed say 'women and children first'. Pretty much 99% of the time.

There's no basis for the "women and children first" call in any international law documents that I know of (and definitely not in Australian Domestic Law) - Do you have a source for saying that 99% of the time the call is made? Most situations I have heard of have been elderly and children, the vulnerable, which makes perfect sense. And that's what the 10 minutes of research I've just put into the issue says as well.

Quote
This is not something that happened to me personally or anything, it's society's way of thinking. It's well known that if a man hits a woman it bears more weight than a woman hitting a man. You can see that in many social experiments that have been conducted, plus the jail time that women receive compared to men for the same crime.

I'd say this comes back to a different but related gender inequality issue; that men are viewed as "the tough ones." If you define feminism, it is "the advocacy of men and women being be treated equally," so by definition feminism combats this issue as well. Like, to accept feminism (if you go by the definition) is to back the gender inequality issues that affect men as well as women. To my understanding, it's called "feminism" because the inequality went the way of the men in the first place, but as progress is made, the definition has wider consequence.

Quote
There are always going to be these 'unconscious biases'. For example, there's an unconscious bias that boys generally like football more than women. Is that important? No. Are women stopped from playing football due to this? No. What is the problem? Nothing. Could it be perhaps that more men just like playing football and that less women like playing football, and that there is no 'unconscious bias' at all? Of course!
These unconscious biases are just the results of people being too sensitive. I played football throughout primary school. Although I was the only girl on the team, I didn't experience any sort of discrimination due to this, and played pretty well. Although I've lost the passion for it now, back then it might well just have been that more boys were more interested in football than girls, and that accounted for the male:female ratio. Why does there have to be this 'unconscious bias' thing?

If 100 pairs of males and females of similar stature/build/whatever both tried out for competitive football teams, particularly in front of male coaches, I guarantee that a statistically significant number of those try outs would be affected by unconscious bias, and perhaps even deliberate bias.

Like, I totally empathise with the fact that you never experienced discrimination, and that is obviously fantastic. But unconscious bias isn't something that 'third wave feminists' are making up in a hyper politically correct crusade. It is a scientifically proven aspect of human decision making. And it does happen; perhaps not to you and perhaps even not in Australia as much as other countries. But it happens.

Quote
I never assumed it was a man - and even if I did, I'm not going to be offended by it. I'll be offended if a man hits me or a woman hits me or if a man assumes I can't do something because I'm a woman, or if a female assumes a man can't do something because he's a man. That's the sort of things we should be getting offended about, not that some traffic light shows an androgynous figure and some people assume it's a man.

I highly doubt there would be many people intensely offended about traffic lights, especially in comparison to the other issues you list. They aren't on the same level. But (and this is especially true given that the project isn't funded by the taxpayer dollar, which was the one irk I might have had with this given other things happening in Aus right now), is there a reason why dealing with traffic lights means we can't care about the bigger picture stuff too? And further, if the argument is that we shouldn't be worrying about the traffic light issue so much, then what justifies people voicing their opinion against it just as loudly (if not louder) than those for it? If they shouldn't care, why do you (meaning those strongly opposed to the change, not you specifically) care?

Quote
You're asking why we assume it's a man. A lot of us don't. You were told to 'wait for the green man' to cross the road. I was not. Perhaps you should be asking "why do we assume that androgynous figures relate to masculinity?" ...

I think Elyse's previous posts indicate that she is asking that - And indeed I think that is probably one of the more interesting and relevant things to come out of this matter :)
« Last Edit: March 08, 2017, 01:17:15 pm by jamonwindeyer »

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Re: Female traffic lights
« Reply #59 on: March 08, 2017, 01:23:57 pm »
0
Jeez do people actually care about the sign on the traffic lights? It seems like a superfluous debate??? This is the first time I actually realized that the traffic light figures are actually male because after all my primary motive is to cross the road. The only time i would give a crap about traffic light symbols is if i have to now wait longer or less to cross.