After I ate my delicious meal of sirloin steak and garlic mashed potatoes, I naturally had to use the restroom. The bathrooms are tucked away beside the server's station and I always get so anxious knowing that. I am afraid that I will make one wrong turn and end up in the middle of the kitchen. So, I walked cautiously to the restrooms and found myself in front of a door with a men and women's sign like this one :
http://216.92.160.187/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/bathroom-sign-mens-womens.jpgIn a moment of terror, I thought that I was entering a bathroom where both male and female could do their duties.(I don't even know if they actually have bathrooms like that) Well, I set aside all fear, because I really had to go to the bathroom, and I walked in. Thankfully, after I entered through that door there were two more doors, one with a women's sign and one with a man's sign. Those little tricksters.
Being in Mass Media in Society has allowed me to be more aware of my surroundings and the signs that are everywhere. We know that a picture of a cartoon woman on a bathroom door means that this is a women's bathroom and etc. That is the connotative meaning. But, what if we suddenly we changed the image of the picture, and instead of a woman with a dress on, it was a woman with pants on? How many times would a man accidently walk into the women's restroom?
Signs like these become ingrained in our heads. And if they were ever to change, there might be some chaos...
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true! i've thought about that before. how would they differentiate between the two? if suddenly they decided that having the woman wear a dress was too sexist, and gave her pants as well, they'd have to do something else to make the two look different- maybe give the woman boobs or something else ridiculous. i've also thought about the issue with transgendered people and bathrooms, and if the day were ever to come when transgendered people got their OWN bathroom, what their sign would be. hmm.
ReplyDeletealso, it'd be really funny if instead of men and women on bathroom doors, we had simplified images of genitalia. hee hee. or if the doors themselves were shaped differently- like the women's door was all curvy, and the men's rather boxy. etc. blather blather. happy belated birthday!