I really like this idea. It wouldn't even have to be a drawing -- you could
use pictures of men and women editing, discussing and appearing in panels
together at Wikimania and other wiki conferences/meetups.

- Nicole/Elocina

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Andreas Kolbe <[email protected]> wrote:

> --- On Sun, 20/3/11, [email protected] <[email protected]>
> 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
>
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