The Glow of the Patriarchy
Via Tim Blair, who has an eye for these things, some momentous news from the land down under:
A Yarra councillor wants to see more ‘green and red lady’ pedestrian signals installed across the inner city to promote gender equality.
Well, obviously. It’s what your taxes are for.
Yarra Council announced yesterday the silhouette of a woman would be installed at a new pedestrian crossing in Richmond. Greens Councillor Misha Coleman said the initiative was a “unique and rare” way to display gender equity and she would like to see Yarra known for its ‘green lady’ signals. “I’m a mother of two young children and we always talk about waiting for the ‘green man’,” Councillor Coleman said. “From when kids are young enough to walk they are given an instruction by a man and it has never occurred to any of us that that is inherently so biased.”
The suitably empowering and bias-free signal can be beheld here. Apparently, it depicts Mary Rogers, the second woman in Australia elected to local government, circa 1920. And clearly it’s a vast improvement over the heinously oppressive stick figure previously in use, and which no doubt crushed the spirits of small girls across Australia and steered them towards lives of grinding gender conformity.
After attending several International Women’s Day functions, Councillor Coleman said women were “blown away” by the ‘green lady’ initiative. “I think the main reason was because ‘why didn’t we think of that before and why have we accepted [that] the man tells us whether to walk or not’,” she said.
Those of you picturing aggrieved feminists expressing their defiance of the luminously oppressive male silhouette by randomly blundering into the road – and into oncoming traffic – are very bad people.
Apparently, it depicts Mary Rogers,
I thought it was Mary Poppins.
I thought it was Mary Poppins.
No, you mustn’t scoff. It’s a matter of enormous gravity. Because being “given an instruction by a man” – even a luminous stick figure at a pedestrian crossing – “is inherently so biased.” And nothing says empowered modern feminist like a crude rendering of what appears to be an Edwardian lady.
I could make the increasingly tired point that the large (oppressive? Gender-prescriptive? ) skirt makes it much harder to tell whether the figure is walking or standing. Not much fun for our colour-blind comrades.
I could point out that the green man is a servant, tirelessly offering objective advice on the relative safety of crossing. Advice which women everywhere are free to ignore.
I could argue that these points say a lot about feminism’s ability to deliver real benefit to women.
I’m not sure I can be bothered anymore.
Friends don’t let friends
drive drunkvote for a Green councillor.Based on assertions like those of Ms Coleman and the other ladies she cites, and who assign strange and terrible powers to everyday objects, feminism is difficult to distinguish from magical thinking.
I notice that out of the 1,332 people who have so far voted in the straw poll in the article, 96.47% have voted a big fat ‘No’ to the idea of the Mary
PoppinsRogers Green Suffragette signal.If that isn’t proof of systemic Patriarchal oppression, why I just don’t know what is.
of the 1,332 people who have so far voted… 96.47% have voted a big fat ‘No’ to the idea of the Mary Poppins Rogers Green Suffragette signal.
Ah, but being able to impose your delusional notions on other people, at their expense and against their wishes, is, for some, the sweetest plum. It’s not so much an error of the thinking, but rather a key part of the appeal. For a certain kind of person.
But David, isn’t it sexist and/or transphobic to assume the person in a dress is a woman? I need to go to my safe space and think about this.
I’m confused about the message. Do Australian women now have to wear period costume?
Why is the green lady not a native Australian? RACISM!1!
Actually, I think it looks like this picture:
Jon Powers (Johnson) is right! Why stop at the reductive binary of stereotypical male/female depiction? What we need – NEED – is an infinite multiplicity of pedestrian signals in order that every last possible configuration of human is covered. It’s the only logical thing.
A story from Oxford in the 1980s.
The city’s cycle lanes were identifed by painted silhouettes on the road surface of a bicycle… with a crossbar!
It was pointed out by the Sisterhood that this was patriarchal oppression blah blah. So the council agreed (I imagine the councillors were rolling their eyes) that future markings, as the cycle lane network expanded, would feature crossbar-less bicycles.
That wasn’t good enough for the Sisterhood, so the Council ended up sending
workmenoperatives to revisit the existing network, and chisel the crossbars off half of the oppressive symbols.Your tax money at work.
Personally I think the depiction of any humanoid figure in green or red is actively promoting extraterrestrial superiority over the human inhabitants of this planet and should immediately be changed to promote not only gender equality but also race and species equality. We should have numerous figures depicting the diversity of non-gender specific, road-crossing life in a multitude of different colours including black…….oh hang on.
Apparently, it depicts Mary Rogers,
Actually I thought the regular version was just an exceptionally skinny model on a catwalk and was causing fat shaming.
OTOH, one has to wonder about the hat on the Mary Poppins version, it is the same as the one on the East German ampelmannchen. Coincidence ? Probably not…
I suppose we could go back to the “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” signals which are sex-free . . . unless that discriminates against the illiterate.
Or, I don’t know, maybe going without the signals and just looking both ways before one crosses the street would work. Call it “Occupy the Crosswalks!”
I suppose we could go back to the “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” signals…
Sure. Marginalize the differently abled, what about those in wheelchairs and Hoverounds ?
Surely this is going to confuse the young children who have grown up with the green man? Those poor bewildered mites will be wandering into the road for a close-up peek at the ‘funny blob’.
Sure. Marginalize the differently abled . . .
Consider me suitably denounced. How about we just change to a single signal which reads, “Whatever.”
The patriarchy strikes back with a pole-dancing variant.
Via Tim Blair.
I note, in the former East Germany, there were protests after the reunification to bring back the traffic Ampelmännchen signal. Even the Marxist/Leninists thought this gender equality class warfare stuff could be taken too far.
Why ‘pedestrian’ and not ‘pedestrianess’?????
Will there ever be a end to this pC poppycock bull twaddle from these delusional fools?
“From when kids are young enough to walk they are given an instruction by a man and it has never occurred to any of us that that is inherently so biased.”
Now they’re just trying to make the rest of us look stupid.
I do like the East German Ampelmännchen. Funny, though, that they would have put so much thought into it, given that pretty much the only available car was the Trabant, a two-stroke smoke-spewing plastic-bodied death trap that was in more danger from pedestrians than pedestrians were in danger of it.
Or maybe that was the reason. STOP right there, you beer-bellied, pickel-helmeted Barbarian, and don’t wander into the road lest you squash a Trabant under your hobnailed boot!
surely the signs should be ‘walk’ ‘don’t walk’ as the americans have. that way everything is covered and the poor feminists will be able to untwist their knickers.
I think this might be appropriate.
@ al kane, 13.55
And that just discriminates against colour-blind dyslexics.
A slightly different take on the pole dancing:
You don’t really need to read beyond the first “Greens Councilor”, do you?
Over here:
Oregon Legislature Repeals Laws of Supply & Demand
http://www.cato.org/blog/oregon-legislature-repeals-laws-supply-demand
PS: I like the ones who chain and hand-cuff themselves together with cement-filled barrels, through case-hardened pipes – then whine when the bone saws come out.
You don’t really need to read beyond the first “Greens Councilor”, do you?
It does rather foreshadow what’s to come. I’m still trying to suppress memories of our own Green Party mouthpiece, the staggeringly incompetent Natalie Bennett.
But David, isn’t it sexist and/or transphobic to assume the person in a dress is a woman? I need to go to my safe space and think about this.
I don’t know what the rest of y’all are seeing. Obviously it’s not Mary Poppins because, IRRC, Mary Poppins could fly and thus would have no need to be told by a lamppost when she could or couldn’t cross a street. It’s obvious to me, quite obvious in fact, that this is simply a Irishman (not a Scotsman, ’cause it’s green and not plaid) in a lein-croich and pork-pie hat. Thus keeping women in their proper place, under the boot heel of men. Irishmen, no less. And it’s almost St. Paddy’s Day. Nobody knows where the Patriarchy will strike next.
our own Green Party mouthpiece, the staggeringly incompetent Natalie Bennett.
Wow. That’s hysterical. 😀
Wow. That’s hysterical. 😀
It’s worth following the other links there too. The interview with Andrew Neil is also quite, um, special. Like so many of her supporters, Ms Bennett has an air of woolliness, innumeracy and affable incompetence – a casual disregard for practicality and cost – and which can’t quite hide the totalitarian assumptions lurking underneath. The fluffy, kitten-soft world she wants the rest of us to want, or at least submit to, would be ruinous – economically, culturally, morally, in almost every respect. Despite the bumbling vagueness and utopian cooing, it’s a blueprint for disaster and mass immiseration. It’s evil with a cheery grin.
The “data retrieval” specialist in the baby-face mask from “Brazil”.
” Do Australian women now have to wear *period* costume?”
Ah, Jon, I see what you did there.
Looks like a profile of “Granny” on the old American TV show the Beverly Hillbillies (or is it Hillbillys.) They should have used “Ellie” with her daisy duke shorts and nice bust. That way at least the men would pay attention to the sign.
Or how about a side shot of Kim Kardashian ….
Is it any real surprise that many see Donald Trump as the anti PC candidate who is going to tell these kind of people to their face that they are mentally ill.
They should have used “Ellie” with her daisy duke shorts and nice bust. That way at least the men would pay attention to the sign.
Yes. But we might never cross the road
Or how about a side shot of Kim Kardashian ….
It is a traffic light, not a billboard.
surely the signs should be ‘walk’ ‘don’t walk’ as the americans have. that way everything is covered and the poor feminists will be able to untwist their knickers
Really?
You underestimate their capacity to detect insult where none exists.
What about wheelchair-bound feminists? Could you be any more insulting and thoughtless towards them?
You underestimate their capacity to detect insult where none exists.
Detecting insult where none exists is pretty much the point. It’s a kind of social positioning.
Oh dear – the ‘need’ for this sign would suggest its promoters are unfamiliar with trouser-clad women, who in silhouette look pretty similar to the existing sign.
Also, has it occurred to anyone that the time and money spent on this so-called equality nonsense, if spent on more of the existing signs would have likely resulted in more safe places to cross the road and potentially more lives saved? Or, if not spent on the basis not needed, would have saved public money, ie less tax or other services? But who are we to fret about not having saved lives, less taxes, more services, while there are still people suffering with the horrors of unresolved privilege?
NO-one has commented on the fact that they have designed a silhouette that is precisely a mixture of ‘stop’ and ‘go’. If you were colour-blind and a bit distracted you could easily step into the street reflexively and be killed.
Reminds me of feminists and SJWs attacking maths principles as though sheer force of will can overcome scientific reality.
PS here is a version from New Zealand (forgive us Antipodeans, clearly walking on our heads has blown a gasket in our brains):
http://wellington.govt.nz/your-council/projects/green-woman-pedestrain-traffic-lanterns
In which the green Ämpelmädchen is literally standing still.
surely the signs should be ‘walk’ ‘don’t walk’ as the americans have.
. . . . What about wheelchair-bound . . .
Meh.
STOP, in red.
GO, in green.
—For someone claiming to complain on behalf of the illiterate and other than fluent in English, that’s what the colour coding is for.
I say we abolish all crossing signs and let Darwin sort it all out.
“I’m confused about the message. Do Australian women now have to wear period costume?”
Most Australian women are incapable of dressing themselves beyond what appears to be underwear. And, no, it is rarely an appealing sight.
“For someone claiming to complain on behalf of the illiterate and other than fluent in English, that’s what the colour coding is for.”
But what about color-blind illiterate trans persons of color? 🙂
“I say we abolish all crossing signs and let Darwin sort it all out.”
Soon to be seen escalation: Pedestrians armed with shoulder-fired missiles.
So we have to let Mary Poppins tell us when to walk?
…you know, I can’t even remember what the “walk/don’t walk” signs are here. It’s because I’m in my damn car, like an adult.
“Could you be any more insulting and thoughtless towards them?”
Oh good … a challenge!
Cheers
“Florida Man”, female variety:
http://www.clickorlando.com/pets/florida-woman-fights-to-keep-pet-alligator-rambo-at-home
We just need a spot of David Prowse to sort us out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIKhaYPZEuY
Via Instapundit, Rape Culture rears its head in the darndest places.
Rape Culture rears its head in the darndest places.
It bears repeating that the ladies at Jezebel and other professional moon howlers aren’t terribly interested in whether the shirt (or whatever it is this week) actually “promotes” some mythical “rape culture.” The low credibility of their claims and strained interpretations is, for them, beside the point. It’s chiefly about appearance, not realism. It’s signalling and social positioning. They’re letting others know how pious – and therefore superior – they are and outrage, even pretentious outrage, is how it’s done. And so to continually remind us of their elevated status, which they seem compelled to do, there must always be something to feign outrage over. Any crumb will do.
Any crumb will do.
Sadly, said crumbs do not include the hundreds of Christian and Yazidi women held as sex-slaves by certain factions of “The Religion of Peace.”
The latest video by Janice Fiamengo seems somewhat relevant.
“Sadly, said crumbs do not include…”
Well, becoming a vocal opponent of some things could be dangerous, so it’s much safer to rail against, accuse and spit venom at those who are unlikely to react in a threatening manner.