It’s April 1, meaning that it’s time for technology blogs — and it’s always technology blogs — to pull out that tiresome old canard of making their site women-friendly. It wasn’t funny when Slashdot did it, and it’s not funny now that PetaPixel has done it. Yes, how hilarious to market technology sites towards women! After all, we know that the internet is for the menfolk!
On a related note, many sites nowadays have user icons. But what if you don’t upload one? What sort of “default” icon is provided for you? In most cases, it’s a male icon. Sites with male default icons include, but are not limited to:
- Amazon
- Television Without Pity
- The Consumerist
- BeyondMegapixels
- PetaPixel (even in their silly girly pink theme for today!)
- Jezebel (which is “for women”, for chrissake).
It is possible to have gender-neutral default icons. Flickr uses an emoticon. Twitter has a bird. Typepad has abstract designs. Why have a masculine default icon when you could have a neutral one? Clearly no one — not even Jezebel — would ever have a feminine default icon.
This is why I cheered when Nancy Pelosi said, “Being a woman will no longer be a pre-existing condition.” Because I’m tired of the meme that the default status is male, whether in health care or on silly blogs online.
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