So Facebook has been making some tweaks to some of its graphics. The company recently changed its already unexciting logo to one that is … even less exciting, but apparently easier to read on mobile devices.
But it’s what Facebook has done to its “friends” icon that has one lady MRA up in arms.
In a post yesterday, A Voice for Men’s still-banned-on-Twitter “Social Media Director,” known as JudgyBitch, declared Facebook’s “Feminist designers” to be “as shitty at designing as they are at equality” and offered them a virtual middle-finger in the style of Facebook’s iconic thumbs up icon.
So what has JudgyBitch in a snit this time? Well, a few months ago, Facebook design manager Caitlin Winner was struck by the fact that the site’s “friends” icon depicted the silhouette of a woman standing behind a larger man. This didn’t sit right with her. In a Medium post explaining the new graphics, she wrote
As a woman, educated at a women’s college, it was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon; the woman was quite literally in the shadow of the man, she was not in a position to lean in.
My first idea was to draw a double silhouette, two people of equal sizes without a hard line indicating who was in front. Dozens of iterations later, I abandoned this approach after failing to make an icon that didn’t look like a two headed mythical beast. I placed the lady, slightly smaller, in front of the man.
She also removed the silly spike in the man’s hair and gave the woman a cuter ‘do as well. (Scroll back up to see the old and new icons side by side.)
Facebook quietly rolled out the new icons, as well as several other icons Winner had tweaked (including an androgynous figure that can be read as male or female or neither). But not everywhere just yet: while the new icons seem to have made it into the mobile app, the old icons remain on the site’s web version. No one seemed to have even noticed the change until Winner posted her explanation earlier this week. The reaction has been mostly positive.
But to JudgyBitch, the fact that the woman is now in front of the man is yet more proof that feminism isn’t about equality at all, but female supremacy.
I honestly think a good number of women who call themselves feminists have swallowed the lie that feminism is simply about equality between men and women …
Hire a woman’s who went to a woman’s college if you want to see real feminism is action. …
Facebook is not making a business decision – our demographic skews heavily female, so we have changed our friends icon to reflect that – they are making an ideological one: men’s proper place is in women’s shadow.
Well, if you ignore the fact that the figures are now the same size, and simply look like two people standing close together.
JB also posted an assortment of generic icons of men and women to show that Facebook could have depicted a man and a woman together without one being in front of the other, or without the two looking like a two-headed monster.
Here’s one of her examples of icon equality in action:
You may have noticed that the man is in front of the woman. JB evidently didn’t.
Hey, the Men’s Rights movement needs a steady supply of phony outrages to keep itself going, and JB has provided it with yet another one.
H/T — @TakedownMRAs
That’s a terrible Photoshop job with the FB hand flipping the bird: the stroke weight on that extended middle finger isn’t anywhere close to that of the outline of the rest of the image. I’m offended as a feminist AND as someone who took one graphic design class in high school.
If it makes you feel better, I’m offended as a feminist AND someone who has a degree in Graphic Design.
To point out the obvious, every vulva is different, so femac may have one that can easily be kept clean under stone-age conditions and someone else may have one that requires constant care to avoid infection.
I got the depo shot and now I don’t menstruate and it’s the BEST.
Speaking of the depo shot, what the hell was this earlier comment about:
So in addition to arguing that menstrual blood is just somehow magically different to other bodily discharges (reasoning unspecified), femac has never heard of the contraceptive injection which does, in fact, stop menstruation. Also available in pill and implant form. My girlfriend at the time went on the injection for this very reason. She only had a period every six months and was ecstatic.
Seriously, I can’t stop reading “You can’t get the flu injection…” without facepalmLOLing.
Women also manage to ‘avoid’ menstruating for a variety of other reasons – some medical conditions can disrupt or temporarily cease the menstrual cycle, and disorders such as anorexia can also lead to cessation over time.
For someone so keen to ‘challenge’ everyone about menstruation, femac doesn’t seem to know a huge amount about it.
… I have literally only just got this.
I know this was a few days ago, but I might have phrased something non-clearly (says someone who calls herself “epitome of incomprehensibility,” but yeah): I didn’t mean to say that circumcision was more hygienic than the alternative. I’m sorry, mrex, if I sounded like I was arguing with you on that point.
…
About the word “hygiene,” I think we’ve got a problem (in North America, at any rate) with marketers conflating hygiene and cosmetics. In my local drugstore, there are “hygiene” packages that include shaving products and perfume (these are targeted at teenagers, and of course the one for girls is mostly pink).
And while the whole idea of a “who’s dirtier” contest between genders is silly, it makes hygienic sense for people who get periods to clean/change menstrual products regularly. Talking about the situations in India and Nepal isn’t to call people in poorer countries “backwards” or anything, but to point out that not everyone has this luxury. (Is that a fair reading of the discussion?)
In fairness, everyone reacts differently and some people actually menstruate more heavily after getting the shot.
But then, getting a flu shot also doesn’t prevent you from ever generating snot. (Signed, someone with allergies.)
Flu shots don’t even always prevent you from getting the flu since there are so many strains.
I wanted to get the implant so bad, but it turns out it’s almost impossible to get in the US. Some doctors haven’t even heard of it.
I haven’t heard of the implant. If I could get a medical hysterectomy that would be great.
Also, are applicators really that bad? I’ve always found it somewhat easier to insert the tampon with the applicator than without it.
@ alaisvex
“Also, are applicators really that bad? I’ve always found it somewhat easier to insert the tampon with the applicator than without it.”
Yeah, a lot of people do. I’m in the minority in that I actually prefer to use tampons without applicators because I find it easier to position tampons in just the “right” spot using my fingers. However, I still used Tampax throughout highschool because I didn’t want to get blood all over my fingers and have to wash off my bloody hands in front of everybody like I was stuck in some stupid teen horror movie. 😉 In college I discovered flushable wipes and now I use OBs whenever I use tampons, so yay! 🙂
I just find it so strange for someone who claims to have a vagina and have used Tampax to not realize that you don’t *have* to use the applicator. I’ve been in arguments with MRAs (?) over the necessity allowing female prisoners an adequate amount of pads/tampons to be able to change every couple of hours as needed, and the arguments those morons make against providing feminine hygiene products actually sound a lot like the arguments femac makes, just without the straw-feminist “menstruation is magical” bent.
Or maybe I’m wrong. /shrugs/
@grumpyoldmangina
I just reread your post and saw that you implied that UTIs/RTIs are not that serious. Generally, when these infections are quickly treated or cleared up by the body this is true, however if they are not adequately treated, and become chronic, they can spread and cause a host of problems such as pregnancy loss, kidney damage, cancer, and rarely, sepsis and death. (In fact, believe it or not, UTIs are one of the largest causes of sepsis in the US, and I actually know someone who lost a small child to a UTI decades ago). An existing Reproductive Tract Infection from poor menstrual hygiene can easily lead to puerperal sepsis, which historically was the one of the largest killers of women, and is sadly still is a large killer today in parts of the world.
@ epitome of incomprehensibility
No worries. It’s always good to debate and stretch my arguments out. 🙂
Thanks. I knew that there were definitely some people who preferred not to use the applicator, but I was under the impression that tampons companies who made tampons with applicators did so because so many vagina-havers thought that they were convenient.
Yeah, you can just pull the tampon out of the applicator with the string.
Is there no level of idiocy to which MRAs won’t sink? Maybe they were trying to defuse female complaints about really heavy flow, cramps, and the whole lot by pretending that menstruation is actually super easy and manageable for all women everywhere?
I can vouch for UTIs being serious. I had one as a toddler that turned into a kidney infection and I almost died. Not from sepsis but because my temperature went up to 107. I’m glad I don’t remember it. They had to give me ice baths.
UTIs are totally serious. A UTI can go up to the kidneys and cause sepsis. UTIs can become Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID), better known as “Toxic Shock”. Symptoms of chronic UTIs can mask other disorders or make people think “Oh, it’s probably just a UTI again” and not get checked out when they really, really should.
Chronic UTIs also increase the risk of renal failure, which is not something to scoff at.
…um, yeah. Sorry. Missed most of that conversation.
Also calling fie on “menstruation is easy” stuff. I got my last one on my first day of my weekly 4 duty days and it was super obnoxious. Like, I don’t have it half bad, but the underlying cramps, and sanitation, and…
I can still do my job. I can still do my job well enough to not have the guys notice I’m off, but it was not fun.
I want to try cups, but my periods are sporadic as it is.
@ femac
I have no shits to give about your period or how you deal with it. If it works for you, it works. I’m talking about the arguments you’re making in this comment thread and the way you’re using words. Which you well know. Because I’ve clarified it 5 times now.
@ alaisvex
“Thanks. I knew that there were definitely some people who preferred not to use the applicator, but I was under the impression that tampons companies who made tampons with applicators did so because so many vagina-havers thought that they were convenient.”
Sounds like it could be right, since a concept like “convenience” is so subjective anyway. I’m actually really curious about the reasoning behind this idea. I tried looking it up, but I just got tampon manufacturers calling their products “convenient”, people bitching that you’ll get blood under your fingernails if you don’t use an applicator (you don’t), or people complaining that there’s not enough options of the style of choice in whatever country they’re in. (My brief googling turned up a lot of opinions that tampons with applicators are most popular, and have the most variety of available brands, in the UK and US, and less popular, and have less variety of brands, in the European continent and Australia). Don’t know how true that is, but it’s interesting to think about. I’m willing to bet, that problems with fit like I have aside, most people find what the first used in high school to be the best and most convenient, because that’that’s what they’re used to.
Looking up attitudes on tampon applicators did lead me to an article on Operation Freebleeding, which is, I guess, /b/’s attempt to discredit feminists by suggesting that feminists are pushing women to “free bleed” all over themselves, or something. Honestly this crap makes me want to hide under my tinfoil hat, inside of my tinfoil box, inside of my tinfoil bunker, because honestly it sounds too stupid even for /b/.
From the linked, year old article;
“As part of its month-long vendetta, 4chan’s prank-loving community /b/ is trying to convince women that feminine hygiene products are a form of oppression and they should not be used.
It’s called Operation Freebleeding, a “new radical feminist movement.” The goal is to manufacture enough fake social media outrage over the use of sanitary pads that news organizations and feminists fall for it.”
Here’s to having some awesome booze stockpiled for the apocalypse.
“Yeah, you can just pull the tampon out of the applicator with the string.”
I don’t know if I would pull on the string; it’s been awhile since I’ve used a tampon with an applicator. Cardboard applicators come apart super easy, and while the newer plastic ones kinda “lock”, you could pop the tampon through the top, just like what happens inside of your body.
At least the larger Tampax tampons aren’t shaped the best for use with fingers, but they’re still usable. I will use the applicator if I borrow a Tampax from a friend, but I’ve also had the cardboard plunger fall on the floor on me, and I inserted the tampon just fine. That’s actually how I discovered that I like to use my fingers better, I was on my last crushed tampon when I accidentally pulled out the plunger and dropped it on the floor. I was bleeding way too heavily to skip the tampon, so fingers it was. 😉
“Is there no level of idiocy to which MRAs won’t sink? Maybe they were trying to defuse female complaints about really heavy flow, cramps, and the whole lot by pretending that menstruation is actually super easy and manageable for all women everywhere?”
I think these guys just operate in such a zero-sum world that they women getting *anything*, pads, space to talk about periods, whatever, takes “resources” away from them. I saw the same things when some feminists agitated against having taxes on feminine products a few years back. I don’t think it’s female complaining so much as these guys can’t stand the spotlight being on anyone but them.
You mightn’t get blood under your fingernails, but I certainly used to. Especially during the first 3 days or so. I _always_ checked my nails after changing tampons.
Perhaps it depends on how long your nails are or how they’re shaped?
“Perhaps it depends on how long your nails are or how they’re shaped?”
Fair point, everyone’s different. I always dig my finger tips as deep inside the tampon as I can before inserting it, maybe that’s why AFAIK they’ve always been clean?
Typical….Misogynists always love to say, “Why did you have to change it? It wasn’t a big deal?”
Well if it wasn’t a big deal, why the fuck are you freaking out over the change?