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
I meant not all feminists are women. Mammothing while working is hard.
Well, I mean, do we need an excuse to post pictures of hot peeps? Like, really?
…
Do I have to make an excuse?
I’d just like to point the irony of Orion complaining about how mean and unforgiving we all are when a disagreement in the Ellen Pao thread literally just got peacefully straightened out.
Shout-out to Alan for not being a doubling down jackass!
Wait. Am I doing man hating feminist wrong?
Is Orion going to fuss at A Mad Cow for posting teal deers that take up too much space?
No, Orion is going to complain about me posting the same gif after every essay of a post.
Yes. Let me explain….
😀
Honestly, I think the reason that the vitriol exploded so much when the academic studies entered the picture was the shock of white female privilege being exposed in such an important institution. We’re simply not used to reading paragraphs like this:
Yet the literature on this, written almost entirely by liberal women researchers, is inescapably full of statistics like this. Consistently, over and over again, without fail, the following hierarchy of privilege is exposed in the criminal justice system:
WHITE WOMEN
BLACK WOMEN
WHITE MEN
BLACK MEN
The data are so clear and so consistent that it is undeniable that there is zero male privilege when it comes to facing the criminal justice system. White privilege is barely a factor for men. Female privilege is present even for black women. And white women sit at the very top, always enjoying a unique advantage over all other groups, in every study, everywhere. For decades.
We know what often happens when someone’s privilege is put in the spotlight. They explode.
So you’re not going to answer my question, then?
I wasn’t hoping people would forget my history; I was hoping they would, because I view it as an asset. I’ve made several comments over the years that were offensive enough (either in themselves or in context) that people started calling me a troll, a bigot, and a stealth MRA. I can recall three incidents.
–I said that it would be useful to reserve the word “pedophile” for people who are primarily or exclusively attracted to prepubescent children, and that it would be better to call adults criminals who target teenagers something else, like “child rapists.”
–I said that Anita Sarkeesian is good at criticizing existing art, but that she stumbles when she makes prescriptive claims about what good art should be
–I said that it’s normal for people to mention in passing their opinions about an artist or media figure’s work when that person is the topic of conversation, even if that work is not strictly on-topic.
Most of these incidents got worked out. The pedophile thread ended when the regulars persuaded me out of my original perspective; I recanted my opinion and also apologized for aggravating the problem with unclear and sometimes extreme language. Dvaerghundpossen said that once I managed to explain myself clearly, she did think I had some good points. The first Sarkeesian thread ended when someone told me they respected my opinion, but I shouldn’t have shared it in that thread. I apologized for the misstep and stopped posting.
Each time this happened, I really hoped I had convinced people that even though I do put my foot in my mouth, I’m here in good faith and I’m a reasonable person. I find it upsetting that every time I make a faux pas, I immediately get the same accusations of all over again. It’s also vexing that within those threads that ended in reconciliation, virtually none of the people who called me an MRA ever apologized or even acknowledged they were wrong.
Mad Cow, go fuck yourself.
LOL! What happened to this thread? I thought the post was about Judgy Bitch’s reaction to the new Facebook friend icon! Orion-This thread has been completely derailed by Mad Cow, who has been posting long tl;drs on a completely irrelevant topic to this post. Precisely how is posting gifs and tl;dr memes an inappropriate response, especially considering how we have put up with this shitty behavior from Mad Cow just a couple days before? They are called tl;drs (too long; don’t read) for a reason. Don’t you think it would be more appropriate to put the blame on the person who derailed this thread in the first place? We are tired of this bullshit from Mad Cow and we are under no obligation to actively engage with him or indulge him in any way.
I’m about to get on an overnight train, so I’ll be out of everyone’s hair. I’ve modified my behavior about as much as I’m willing to for this community, but I recognize that I don’t own the space, and my conduct might make me a poor fit. If you take a straw poll or something and ask me not to come back, I’ll respect that.
I do wish I had time to recant some of what I said about “respect,” and elaborate the rest of it. As I’ve just demonstrated, I don’t care about showing respect for a troll’s person. Bring on the condescension and the profanity. Ask they where the fuck they got their fucking terrible ideas and why they’re conceited enough to think they impress us. I was trying to communicate something about respect for the truth or for intellectual content. If someone’s earned your contempt, ignore them, mock them, or make a serious rebuttal — that’s all fine. It bothers me when people make dishonest or sloppy counterclaims. It’s actually Starr who I think was disrespected, not Mad Cow. I think it’s a worthwhile study with some enlightening results, and that it’s not kosher to call it ridiculous drivel just because Mad Cow used it to support ridiculous drivel.
“Oh, don’t be mean to Mad Cow, guys! They totally don’t deserve it.”
Five seconds later.
“Fuck off Mad Cow.”
[Maleficent gif]
Lol. You really tipped your MRA hand there. If you aren’t an MRA, you really don’t understand how intersectionality works.
White privilege? Absofuckinglutely. Female privilege? Hell no. Just because men get longer sentences, doesn’t mean that women are a privileged class. Now you’re just trying to play oppression Olympics. That’s not how it works.
I’m definitely going to print this one out so I can enjoy it over and over again.
[Maleficent gif]
The Mad Cow-
http://dumpcast.com/wp-content/uploads/Funny-Facepalm-Collection-Pic-6.jpeg
http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2011/10/facepalm.jpg
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QM8zdrY8HHA/maxresdefault.jpg
@Mad Cow
Can you say “willful misunderstanding?”
Women having it better in *that one specific way* does not make women as a whole a privileged class in society. Privilege is something that can have specific instances, but it is not privilege to have things swing the way of an oppressed class for once.
@WWTH
Dunno if I got exactly what you were saying, but I hope I got close?
Hey, Mad Cow?
http://i.imgur.com/n2l7xwZ.gif
I made this one just for you. =3
So much drama to finally come to the conclusion that mad cow is a troll. Too bad you didn’t actually listen to us in the first place.
We know when a troll is a troll. We really do. I’m not a hysterical lady Or a man hater. If I’m rude to someone, there’s a reason.
Imma steal that gif when I get home.
Scented Fucking Hard Chairs-That is awesome! Well done. 😀
I think WWTH meant privileged class as in, you know, privileged class. Not ‘privileged within the criminal justice system’, as I hope you’re taking it.
However, if you’re actually mocking the idea that woman are privileged in comparison to men (as a general point) then please, do confirm.
[Popcorn gif]
I think prion disease is trying to say that white women are the most privileged class. Which of course ignores the fact that the men who are oppressed by the criminal justice system are always in a marginalized class separate from gender like black, poor, homeless, mentally ill, immigrant etc. Because the kyriarchy classes black men as dangerous thugs, immigrant men from predominantly Muslim countries as terroristic, mentally ill men as scary psychos, etc.
He’s ignoring the fact that some suburban white guy who goes to work in a suit is never going to be oppressed by the criminal justice system.
The fact that the prison industrial complex makes huge profits off the prejudices against MOC, poor people, immigrants etc. does not mean men based on gender alone are marginalized. Because women of color, queer and trans women, poor women and immigrant women are often oppressed in different ways. But, while white straight, cis, Christian, middle or upper class, abled men face no class oppression, women who fit all those categories do. Like rape, street harassment, domestic violence, workplace discrimination, body policing/fat shaming, reproductive rights denied, etc.
I only took the time to type all that out because I’m on the bus and am kind of bored. I’m certain troll will not take this in. But just in case any one else wants to jump in and defend them, here’s why they’re full of shit.