If you’re going to make a logo for some kind of lady group, you have four leitmotifs to choose from: squiggle, tree, ribbon or spiral. In her entirely .jpg-based essay, artist Shana Moutlon looks at how we reinforce gender stereotypes through bad logo design.
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Most logos are created in Adobe Illustrator nowadays…and shapes like that are extremely easy to create with the “pen tool” provided with that software. 5 or 6 clicks…poof, instant logo. Everyone’s a designer nowadays.
And apparently everyone’s a writer, when all it takes to write an “essay” is to take a bunch of graphics done by other people, and put them in “Semi-Particular Order”. Wow.
There was supposed to be an order?
Honestly, this was probably the dumbest link I clicked all day. As my high school English teacher would say, this presentation fails to answer the question “so what.”
lol, exactly. I sat there perplexed wondering what I was looking at and why in the world I was supposed to be looking at it.
“Everyone’s a designer nowadays.”
…which is the bane to REAL designers.
Look, if marketing determines squiggles, trees, ribbons, and spirals appeal to women and thus effective in marketing/advertising, then it’s not really a stereotype, is it? It’s reality. If it wasn’t effective, they wouldn’t be using it. You can’t call something a stereotype unless it goes against what research or statistical data determine is accurate.
if that’s all we have to choose from, no wonder it’s all we wind up choosing.
Bingo.
Who are they polling to come to the fact that those shapes appeal to women? Certainly not me, and I’m a woman. I hate all those dumb lady shapes.
That implies all stereotypes are false. Why can’t a stereotype be true? IE, Asians are good at math. It’s not insulting, it’s not hurtful, and it’s true. It’s a stereotype none the less.
Plenty of logos in the actual article aren’t just spirals or ribbons.
Not to mention, she didn’t actually WRITE anything. So the “essay” can’t be about reinforcing gender stereotypes unless that’s what YOU see in it. There’s nothing wrong with gender roles. Women are feminine. OH GOD NOOOOO
Not all asians are good at math. People of other races are good at math.
How is “Asians are good at math” true? And if it is true, why isn’t “hispanics are good at math” true?
There are two kinds of people, you know. There’s the kind who divides people into two disparate groups based on some really trivial criterion, and there’s the kind who doesn’t bother wasting time on irrelevancies like that. (And yes, I know which kind I am.
)
Look, there’s three types of people in this world. Those that can count, and those that can’t.
/humor attempt
I’m trying to figure out what you are implying here. Are you saying that gender differences are irrelevant? That the criterion between male and female are trivial? Men and women are much different from each other, from physiology to psychology. To choose to be ignorant to those differences doesn’t make much sense to me.
Joke. Just a joke. I know, it’s like totally unbelievable coming from a nerd like me, but it was actually an attempt to be jocular. It won’t happen again. (*snif*)
Stop stereotyping people who stereotype.
stop stereotyping people who are stereotyping people who stereotype.
to infinity.
I tend to view it this way: If a vast majority follow a hyperbolic stereotypical statement (Ex. Asians are good at math) then I consider it true. I understand that no social situation exists where 100% will fall into a particular statement, but I consider it “true” when the vast majority do.
That is exactly what I call a stereotype, yet in your statement above you said a stereotype is the opposite.
The question being posed, then, is a stereotype indeed a stereotype if it’s true, or true nearly all the time?
Yes! That’s my take on it. I’m curious why you equate stereotype with false (or not accurate for the majority)
somehow i knew this would be your stance.
Asians suck at driving.
There… I said it.
But you can say “Asians are good at math” because the majority are. You can find statistics to show that easily. I didn’t say “ALL”.
The rest of your logic makes no sense. How does saying one thing make another false in the example you gave? You’re completely missing the point.
A stereotype can be an accurate, or inaccurate statement. It can be positive or negative. That is the point.
And the majority of Americans are white. That doesn’t mean it’s accurate to say “Americans are white.”
You can’t simply ignore a well-sized minority just because it’s a minority, especially when you’re making blanket statements equating a race with a quality.
Sorry, if you said it in English, “Asians are good at math” means “All Asians are good at math”. Using the implied ‘all’ and then pretending offense because gawrsh, you never SAID all is a rhetorical trick and not a particularly subtle one.
When I was in college, I had a classmate who was Japanese-American. She said that she HATED math and sucked at it (her words, not mine), and her strength was in her writing. She said it felt like people didn’t see her for *who she was* – they just had a stereotype and couldn’t believe/accept that she didn’t fit the mold.
Why can’t a stereotype be true? Did you actually ask that?
Maybe because there’s more difference between any two people of the same group than there is between any two groups of people in general.
They can be true and in fact are usually based on something that is at least semi common, just often they are far too general and hence are not universally true.
If it’s only true some of the time and never enough to be useful, then you and I have a very different definition of the word, “true”.
It is hurtful because the underlying assumption and unspoken word is “all” and it’s just not true. I may be Asian but I’m not representative of ALL Asians, just like they are not representative of me. I would rather not be looked at as an ethnicity with all of the stereotypes and the baggage. And in fact, I really suck at math. But anyone who assumes otherwise because I’m a certain ethnicity is harmful because it then detracts from what people observe of me as a person, not as an ethnicity.
And because people think “oh but it’s totally awesome because it’s great that people think you’re good at math” it IS hurtful. It implies that I’m good at one thing, but not at another.
Like driving?
Jesse Jackson is not the king of black people!
Stereotyping is bad, whether you believe the statement to be positive or negative, no matter what because it always makes you assume something about someone you don’t know and puts them on the spot. Even if, using your example, a lot of Asians are good at math, what about the ones that aren’t? And are you talking Southeastern Asian or East Asian? Are you grouping all those people together just because they live on the same continent?
Based on your name, I’d say you’re female. Does that mean that you are a terrible driver? Does that mean that when you menstruate you are a gigantic bitch? Do you like doing housework all the time? Do you make your boyfriend pay for all of your meals and buy you presents? Do you constantly gossip about people behind their back, but are nice to their face? Check out the Wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype), it has a lot of good links and I think that you should really give it a read.
Well…most of those things you mention are for me, as a female, true. haha.
All white people hate minorities.
It always amazes me how some people think there are no such thing as masculine and feminine, as if the whole thing has been made up for as long as human history.
Agreed.
If you want a good laugh, go read the comments on the “essay”. Hilarious.
I thought every poster was being ironic. But then I realized its not very likely that 100% of respondents felt like being ironic.
Agreed. I dislike the movement of de-genderizing everyone. There are certain traits that each gender has, that mostly compliment each other. It’s not true for every person – we’re all different – but it is true for the majority. And by forcing us to de-genderize each other, we’re repressing our own base instincts which we then lash out in inappropriate ways.
We need to get past the idea that all women NEED to be sexual objects and that all men NEED to be testerone-driven tough guys. But, we shouldn’t criticize the men and women who happen to take on these classic portrayals.
This.
Well said. There are certain gender stereotypes that can be harmful, but by and large we are consistently very different in very ways. And that’s OK.
I’m not really even sure what this ‘essay’ (?) is trying to communicate. Sure, many of the logos look similar. Is that a bad thing? Yes, you can tell the squiggles are women because they are slender, graceful, and has pronounced hips. Guess what? The female body is (in general) more slender, graceful, and um, ‘hipful’ than a man’s body, and we all know what the female body looks like next to a male’s. It’s not ‘reinforcing gender stereotypes’, it’s making your logo recognizable as a woman.
It takes a seriously radical feminist to pull anything negative out of this photo collection. To me it portrays women as beautiful and elegant. What’s wrong with that?
I would say that all women have a vagina and all men have a penis… but not even that’s true….
YOU CAN’T STEREOTYPE ANYTHING NOW A DAYS!
darn.
To quote a great president, it depends on what the definition of “is” is.
If you’re arguing over whether masculinity and femininity exist, it depends on what it means to exist. In some ways, they do exist, but in some ways, they don’t.
It’s similar to race. I can tell you that genetically, there’s more variation among some people within a race than there is among some people in different races (or any number of genetic ways to prove that race doesn’t exist). Then, I can show you that the average black household makes $x per year less than the average white household. Does race exist?
Except for the part that is all just stuff we made up. Everything aesthetic is an interpretation, which is why there are cultures that cannot interpret line drawings without being taught. The idea of curves being “inherently” feminine misses the fact that there’s no reason this is so beyond our common cultural tradition which isn’t shared among all of humanity without exception. It has nothing to do with “degenderizing”. It’s about recognizing that gender, like race, is completely made up. Not that it’s unimportant.
Gender is made up? Oh, ok.
Yes, of course it is.
So, the whole “boys have a penis, girls have a vagina” thing is, what, a huge conspiracy purported by the government?
That’s called “sex.” “Gender” is the social, “sex” the biological, word.
I like to date people with girl parts, but I have a Lady GaGa song on my iPod. What does that make me.
Chopped liver.
Someone with bad taste in music?
I only downloaded a GaGa song that one time in college. And I was really drunk when I downloaded it.
a lesbian?
those are organs, not gender.
Actually, there are numerous biological and phsyical differences in the brain that differentiate men from women. So no, its not just society. Women, in general, have evolved in a different way then men. Read the books “The female brain” and “the male brain”
Which are both composed of psuedoscientific hooey. There are claims involving aspects of the brain that we don’t understand in general much less having to do with any specific differences between male and female brains.
I hope she’s not a Masters student, resting on this as her thesis…
What is she talking about? That green one in the center top is TOTALLY a dude!
This one is practically NSFW: http://www.artfagcity.com/wordpress_core/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/goddess49-copy.jpg
And this one is totally a fat lady with stretched-out nipples: http://www.artfagcity.com/wordpress_core/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ResourceGuideLogo.jpg
By God, we need a “bad lady” logo. One with which I can identify. Screw swirls and dancing.
Oooh, I like that! Maybe the figure could be giving the finger, or drinking straight from a wine bottle?
Or just standing in a commanding posture usually reserved for the lords of the universe.
What BS… Some of those logos are clearly pagan/neo-pagan and probably came from sites that cater to that particular demographic. Some of those logos are derived from ancient goddess or triple-goddess images and are perfectly appropriate for their use in this case.
I will be sure to market my new brand of sanitary napkins with a chainsaw logo
That would work, I think, given that it’s a good approximation of how I feel when I’m on the rag anyway.
Exactly. Make it a chainsaw made of chocolate and I’m there.
Funny, the “essayist” didn’t happen to use this iconic logo
http://slowmuse.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/strongwomen.jpg
While Rosie is awesome, she is not a logo. A logo is a pictoral representation of a particular brand–a company, an organization. No one company “owns” Rosie; she is an icon, a symbol.
Ah, I disagree.
Logo: A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition.
It’s promotes instant recognition.
1. This seems to be about current logos, not historical ones. 2. I disagree about your definition of a logo. While the image can serve the purpose of a logo, a logo can’t be overly complicated or have too many colors. Logos have to be reproduced at many different sizes and remain readable.
I went to school for illustration and only had a few design classes but that is the gist of it. I have design a logo or two for clients in recent years.
Those are pretty common elements for logos in general, not just gender-specific ones. Just google image “fitness logo.” Squiggles, trees, ribbons & spirals are not restricted to just female audiences.
Umm, Popken sez: “artist Shana Moutlon looks at how we reinforce gender stereotypes through bad logo design”, but where on the linked page does Shana actually say that? I didn’t see anything suggesting what Ben said she said. Did I miss it?
God forbid women have things called curves and logos are marketed as such
This is just uncreative lazy and safe, Don Draper wouldn’t have approved.
I sort of laugh at the Earth Spirit logo she has there…I think she has missed the point of *that* logo entirely.