Come on in boys
Men must be protected, but women are fair game.
I doubt I’ll ever understand why the blatant absurdity doesn’t make them stop and think again. Why keep the men’s toilet for men but say “come on in!” on the women’s? And while we’re at it, why label the women’s the women’s, and then add a smaller sign underneath that says “Both”?
Also, the iconography is interesting. In the original pair, the man straddles boldly while the woman balances dangerously on her one tiny leg. Men R strong, women R dainty. That’s why it’s so much safer to invade the women’s toilets than the men’s.
The iconography is indeed interesting – cowboy vs department store mannequin. Given that we’ve known how to make non-sexist female/male icon pairs for decades it can only be deliberate. Hipster sexism at its finest!
Someone had to make the decision to make a change to the women’s toilets and not the men’s. Someone had to order the signage, and apply it. To a single door and not the other, probably right next to it. I cannot understand how that person does not notice, or if they do, how they are at peace with it.
I’ve been making a bunch of art deco posters of late, so the iconography doesn’t bug me. I’m used to seeing women portrayed with legs together, one behind the other, so that the back leg all but disappears.
It’s the stylistic incongruity that stands out to me (after the fact that the sign is only on the women’s door, of course). The original pair is angular, with clear upward directionality, really differing only in the lower half. (I think there’s a slight difference in the line of the shoulders, but it’s hard to tell.) Her lower half is an arrow; his, a bow. The unisex sign is the classic icons, and their style just doesn’t work at all with the existing signs, what with the lack of directionality and the rounded shoulders, hands, and feet.
Holms – I think the reason they’re at peace with it is that the doctrine is Trans Women Are The Most Vulnerable Of All. That means trans women are the ones who need sanctuary from men the most.
Far from being men, trans women are women++++ – vastly MORE fragile and vulnerable and at risk than your tiresome normy tough hardened women.
Nullius – I think art deco is a tad irrelevant. (For the record, I love art deco.) The signs don’t “bug me” as a matter of style or aesthetics.
Well, my point was that it’s a relatively common motif in deco, not so much in nouveau, for instance. But yes, the strong/weak dichotomy is undeniable.
I was in a cafe the other day that had ‘ladies’ and ‘unisex’ – I guess if you believe you HAVE to have a space where people who want to pretend they don’t have a sex, or that their sex isn’t what it is, can pretend to have a safe space to use a bathroom, this is better than the apparently more common alternative.