ambiguous sexism

by dawn ~ October 29, 2007

I love typography. There is something about the ways that letters and words fit together to make a beautiful design within themselves. Leading, kerning, serif or sans-serif — they are all elements that I love to play with and to use to make something original and appealing.

I was quite excited to find an introductory video via viz. that explains typography in an easy and straightforward way. Except…

Well, you watch it and see if you catch it before reading any further.

Did you see it? When the video defines who uses typography, it showed only men’s images when saying typographers, graphic artists, and art directors.

It’s a little thing, right? But it isn’t. It’s this type of inconspicuous sexism that can be the most damaging. When we see those images, we think, subconsciously, that only men will be in those positions. That’s simply not true. In my department, our lead graphic designer is a woman. A woman who oversees a staff of nearly a dozen people. Within her staff, many of the student workers who are majoring in graphic design are women. The student graphic designer who did the graphics for the class I’m teaching is a woman.

I’m not going out of my way to find sexism in the things I research. When it is there, though, I’m going to point it out.

Subtle things like these types of images are the things that I look at when I’m researching rhetorical placement of images. What kinds of messages are they giving out? What colors, fonts, images, and sounds (if any) are being used? How do these affect an audience and, what kind of an audience are they trying to reach?

It may seem innocuous. It can be just the opposite, though.