what I want (well, one of many things)

[kaigou]

Recently I saw a news bit about an upcoming convention for, I think it was, women game-writers. There was, of course, the inevitable bit about how women don't need their own gaming convention, and leaving out the menz, and the usual. (Uh, maybe it was comics? Great, my mind's going and it's barely only 1pm.) I'm all for safe space, but now I want one in my industry. Someplace where I could post this, and know I'm talking to people who won't act like I'm seeing things, or practically pat me on the head with the patronizing, or tell me it's not a big deal (or that it doesn't bother them so naturally it shouldn't bother me) and I should get over it, or whatever. But since I can't find that locally, it's all y'all instead who get to share my pain. I mean, this shit really is insidious.



Note the icon titles. GEE, THANKS FOR CLEARING THAT UP FOR ME.

Comments

[annotated_em]

...

*calmly* Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[kaigou]

I will, when I'm done beating my head against the desk.

[law_nerd]

Cockroaches can likely survive nukes. I'd suggest heavy duty steel toed work-boots applied firmly and repeatedly to wherever the critter that designed that keeps it's excuse for a brain.

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

But there might be a lot of them, and you can spend too much of your own valuable time finding and stomping every one if you need to do it all by hand. Or by foot.

I suggest hiring the job out. To supernatural evildoers, if necessary: dragons, demons, whatever it takes. Less time-consuming than stomping them; less collateral damage than nuking from orbit.

[kaigou]

Or perhaps, just hiring better icon-makers. Or in the case of a free set like this one, encouraging more icon-makers who don't play the same old pink-blue-and-white-people game.

[brainwane]

FUN. (She said sarcastically.)

This is one reason I'm on the Systers email list. Safe space, soooo needed.

Would you mind if I grabbed that and posted it at GeekFeminism.org? In fact if you ever want to guestpost there about something geekfeminist, you'd be welcome to submit a guest post - msg me.

[kaigou]

I can't think of any brilliant to say other than gnashing my teeth, so feel free to repost. I will add that this is a subset of a larger set, which is mostly 16x16 icons (which I try to avoid using unless absolutely necessary), and the full 16x16 set does have a decently large variety of user icons, although it retains the boss/gray/white/male and the assumption that "female" icons have to be called out as such. But in the sub-set that's 24x24, that just makes it even more noticeable to me that the icon-maker chose these four as the user icons to enlarge, over the variety of options present in his overall set.

But if I ever come up with something appropriate for geekfeminist, I'll definitely msg you!

YEARS LATER

[brainwane]

When I repost, do you want any particular guest blogger bio? (e.g. "kaigou is a cultural critic, UX designer, and kdrama enthusiast living in North America")

Re: YEARS LATER

[kaigou]

You got two out of three -- I'm actually a fullstack dev. But I'm fine with or without a bio, up to you.




...though if possible, to just repost this elsewhere, rather than link to here? I know it's findable if someone really wanted to, but that doesn't mean I want to prop the door open. Hrm. Too many long days recently, brain not working.

Re: YEARS LATER

[brainwane]

I could repost as anonymous guestblog, if you prefer!

Re: YEARS LATER

[kaigou]

I just didn't want a link back to here, is all. But anonymous works fine, too. Thanks!

Re: YEARS LATER

[brainwane]

Thanks! It'll go up on the 11th. Sorry for the delay.

It's up

[brainwane]

Here you go. A couple of folks have posted comments, in case you want to respond.

[nagasvoice]

Well, no STEREOTYPING there, huh?
(Somehow, now I feel like going off to AO3 and reading extremely, extremely blatant PWP slashy fic. Go figure).
I suggest global climate instability will deal with all of it. What? A climate like Venus, you don't even have roaches left.

[kaigou]

Yeah, no stereotyping in this or any of a hundred other icon sets. I've actually started assessing icon sets based on several different criteria, and one of them is definitely the options for users. Not that a set should have a greater variety, although I appreciate the ones that do have more than just white women with a flip wearing pink and white men with business cut wearing a suit, but let's face it, "user" is a generic label. Give me a simple dark-colored circle for the head and a half-circle for the shoulders and call it a day. It's not a freaking avatar; it doesn't need to be personalized.

(And if it were an avatar, there's no way I'd settle for only being 16px tall. Don't freaking miniaturize my internet representation!)

[onthehill]

Wow - who'd have thought that a set of icons would give me THE RAGE!?

[kaigou]

No kidding. Rage is the last thing I expect when going through my work stuff, but... come to think of it, this is actually common. It's just usually one of any of a number of topics -- gender, religion, assumptions about color associations. Like "religion" being illustrated by a church or a xtian cross (though I did recently find a set where there's a Japanese torii, a Buddhist temple, a mosque, a synagogue, AND a xtian church, and I don't know who designed the set but clearly they're aswesome for not leaving anyone out, although I'm baffled as to what I'd ever design that would require those icons at all). But uh, anyway, usually, yeah. Rage. Even from something only 16px high.

[smw]

Hell, those are all sorts of hideous. Could they not at least label the one "user-male"?

[kaigou]

Ah, but see, it's simply a reminder that "male" is DEFAULT and therefore needs no label! Only "female" is unusual (as is, oddly, "boss"), so therefore its different-ness must be called out. I know, I know, you've never realized this before, but this icon set is here to educate you.

[smw]

=O

How did I live without this knowledge? Clearly this is the source of all my social awkwardness.