[Gendergap] Visible female faces for Wikim/pedia

[Andreas Kolbe]

--- On Sun, 20/3/11, carolmooredc at verizon.net <carolmooredc at verizon.net> wrote:

> Come up with male and female wikipe-tans and put those up.

Thinking out loud here:

Having images that contain both a female and a male figure might actually 
be useful for young men, on a subliminal level. 

Having the two figures drawn in similar ways makes it more difficult to 
objectify the image, because there would be a natural tendency for men to
identify with the male image. It's harder psychologically to objectify and
identify with an image at the same time. To the extent that the viewer
identifies with the image, they then also identify with the female figure 
in the image somewhat; the message becomes one of sameness and shared
characteristics.

I am obviously not talking about romantic depictions here. And it would help
if the female figure weren't dressed like a maid. ;)

If it's well done, it might convey an implication of comradeship, and a 
reminder that this is a joint effort involving both sexes.

Wikipe-tan is pure objectification. For the male viewer, she is "other".
The ones showing knickers and so on are in grossly poor taste. Males viewing
those images are not encouraged to picture women working side by side with
them, doing the same job they are doing. The whole vibe is of a boys-only
environment, where the (falsely assumed) lack of actual female presence
is compensated with a stereotypical fantasy girl. (That may also carry 
through into article illustration preferences sometimes.)

It's good for men to be aware that they are in mixed-gender company. As the
study on collective intelligence posted by Joseph the other day suggested, 
social behaviour and group intelligence generally tend to improve somewhat.

Andreas