Some icons for Facebook

Did you realize that Facebook has redesigned it's "friends" icon? Here are the old and new icons side by side, the old one on the left, and the new one on the right.


Caitlin Winner, Facebook's design manager explained,

As a woman, educated at a women’s college, it was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon; the woman was quite literally in the shadow of the man, she was not in a position to lean in.”

Janet Bloomfield at the Judgy Bitch blog writes,

If a man at the forefront means the person behind him is in his shadow, and not in a position to ‘lean in’, does that mean the woman at the forefront is placing the man in her shadow and impacting his ability to ‘lean in’?

Of course it does.

Facebook is not making a business decision – our demographic skews heavily female, so we have changed our friends icon to reflect that – they are making an ideological one: men’s proper place is in women’s shadow.

Why do friends need to be gendered anyways? Why can’t they be neutral? Isn’t Facebook the home of 7000 gender options anyways? Why so cis-focused, Facebook?

Here’s the new icon Facebook should have so people can express what they think of the friends icon:

Read more here.