It was recently reported that there could soon be an equal number of female and male walking signals at pedestrian crossings around Victoria.
The initiative has already begun, with 10 pedestrian lights being altered from little green ‘men’ to little green women at Melbourne’s busy Flinders Street Station intersection.
The Committee of Melbourne, a non-profit organisation comprising of over 100 Melbourne business and community groups, claims having only ‘men’ on these lights discriminates against women.
Come on now… are we really fighting for gender equality here?
Or are we merely damaging and devaluing any sort ‘gender equality’ notion with meticulous regimes that further complicate the already socially, politically and culturally complex world of the 21st century?
Can someone please alert this organisation and other officials that the walking signals are simply a silhouette of a stick figure; a universally recognised non-gendered representation of a human individual?
What does this means for brands, such as Crumpler (Australian Designed Bags), which use a stick figure as their logo?
Do we deem they are discriminating against women?
I’m sure they would hope not.
Besides, if the Committee of Melbourne is so concerned about gender equality — why would they be wasting their time trying to alter perceptions of innocent, lifeless and mundane walking signals — while demanding that the Australian public’s money gets used in a shallow way to address an important social issue?
Throwing hoards of money, time and debate towards forcefully made ‘gender equality’ problems — such as pedestrian signals — isn’t going to address the real, relevant and important issues in focus here.
We should instead address areas in education — where we can encourage women (and men) from a young age, to engage in varied activities — producing gender equality in the workforce.
Or perhaps, we can address current mental and physical health issues — by implementing successful systems to support domestic violence victims, and educate and rehabilitate perpetrators so they can re-enter society with changed understandings and morals.
There exists deeper and more important issues regarding social equality that should be spotlighted.
Address, address, address — not a dress for our pedestrian lights.
Besides, who says women can’t have short hair and wear trousers?
Now that, is discrimination.
