Life & Style

Facebook friend request logo gets feminist makeover

Female silhouette is no longer in the shadow of the male in the friends icon

Web Desk July 09, 2015

VIA FACEBOOK

If you’re a female and have gotten a friend request recently, you may have noticed something different as the icon has been altered shifting the female figure in front of the male one.

The change comes after Facebook designer Caitlin Winner noticed that previously “the woman was quite literally in the shadow of the man” and decided to give it a makeover.

VIA FACEBOOK

“Much to my dismay, not long into my tenure as a Facebook designer I found something in the company glyph kit worth getting upset about,” Winner said in a post on Medium.

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The first thing she noticed was that “the iconic man was symmetrical except for his spiked hairdo but the lady had a chip in her shoulder,” and that the chip just so happened to be “exactly where the man icon would be placed in front of her”.

VIA FACEBOOK

“I assumed no ill intentions, just a lack of consideration but as a lady with two robust shoulders, the chip offended me,” Winner said.

“…It was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon,” she added.

VIA FACEBOOK

Further, after filling the shoulder chip, Winner also gave the female icon a “more modern” bob haircut and smoothed the male’s hair.

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The Facebook designer also altered the 'groups' icon, so the woman no longer appeared “in the back left behind the larger centered man”.

VIA FACEBOOK

“Here again, I placed the lady first,” she said.

While women on Facebook may notice this change, it is not the same for men. After examining various Facebook profiles of men, it appeared that the male icon was still in the front.

COMMENTS (9)

knuckleduster | 9 years ago | Reply soooooo sick of feminism /facepalm

lecram | 9 years ago | Reply Feminists problems in the first world... So much for equality.

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Alee | 9 years ago | Reply Hi Why woman picture before a man? Isn't that against feminism, I think it should be equal...

J | 9 years ago | Reply Why can't they be side by side? This doesn't make anything better. It doesn't remove any bias that may or may not actually be there. The fact that she's upset about this suggests that she shouldn't be working on things that potentially affect the way over a billion people interact with something. If we're going to consider the original icons as "biased against women," then the new ones are biased against men since it's now men who are in the shadow of women.

Johnny West | 9 years ago | Reply Why does one of the genders have to be in front at all? Why not just design the icon so that both are equally represented? This designer has now symbolically put the woman in charge and in front. It's just as sexist as the old logo. I have no problem with feminism, but the two sexes should be equal, neither one should be "in front". It took me two seconds to simply white out the dividing line and BOOM, nobody is in front or in back. I think someone's over-thinking this thing a bit too much. Job justification big-time.

W | 9 years ago | Reply I am not sure many people noticed and or read it so symbolically. I am sure many corporate hours were wasted on discussion and review of these new awesome icons (not). I felt the economy surge forward with this epic contribution.

Carl | 9 years ago | Reply Is there anything about Men that doesn't "Offend" Feminists? No one including me cares about Facebook's stupid logo except for the always offended Feminist. You should have just changed it instead of thinking you had tell the world about your disdain for anything Male. Facebook is a place where family and friends keep up with one another. Fathers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons, Husbands and Wives, Boyfriend and Girlfriend and Old Friends who are far apart. People who you love and want to keep in touch with and share your life with. People who actually love the men in their life. Please forgive my micro-aggression as I noticed 3 of the 4 instances in my last paragraph I listed the masculine in front of the feminine. I didn't do it to offend, but I'm sure you feminists will find it offensive.

Matthew | 9 years ago | Reply id suggest it is sexist to assume that short hair indicates gender but if we are looking at from the the tradional sense why is it blue and not pink? This country needs to redesign public bathroom signs too. Women wear pants and some men where dresses. Why are there even separate bathrooms? Gender equality and what about lgbt? My point is that at some point this stuff gets out of hand. We have it to easy if we are so worried about such things. In all seriousness, I can imagine from the designer's perspective that when you look at that icon of the man in front of the woman that she started thinking about the decisions that led up to it and figured she needed to do something about it. To go through the trouble of this update and this new story is a little excessive/trivial.

Mitchenvar | 9 years ago | Reply I think that this is a pretty trivial thing to get upset about. I don't think that the inequality, that noone can deny exists, runs so deep that things like this even need to be changed. I'm not saying to change it back, I'm just saying I don't care, and I doubt many people will.

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