What we take for granted

The internet moves to fast, make it stop.
Cross posted from my other blog, because I'm still trying to catch up from the two days when I didnt check my email. Does anyone even breathe without tweeting anymore?


Go read this article:
Guest Post: Go Where? Sex, Gender, and Toilets

"The segregation of public washrooms is one of the most basic ways that the male-female binary is upheld and reinforced...washroom signs are very telling of the way societies construct gender. They identify the male as the universal and the female as the variation. They express expectations of gender performance. And they conflate gender with sex."

A pithy deconstruction of the way bathroom signs express both current societal norms and deeper historical interpretations of male and female. The author makes some interesting points about the assumptions and connections we draw overlook between gender identity and graphical representations of such.
The author explains, with examples, several key aspects of washroom signage:

1. Underlying assumptions of Male/Female
   
2. The diametric opposites of Sex
3. The expected actions of Gender
4. The assumptions of Sexuality
5. The way in which all four of these elements are confused, combined, and constructed

An interesting read for those interested in semantics and graphics design, or if this was just a topic you had never considered before (I find myself in all three categories)