[Actionchix] Re: OLD old LinuxChix logo and Brazil

Val Henson val.henson at gmail.com
Wed Mar 29 18:32:28 EST 2006


On 3/28/06, Clytie Siddall <clytie at riverland.net.au> wrote:
>
> The Vietnamese logo might have some European people saying, "but she
> looks demure, obedient, is wearing old-fashioned clothing, people
> will think she's some kind of servant, or pin-up girl". That will be
> _their_ assumption, not ours. To a Vietnamese man or woman, she looks
> what she is: a lot of power in a cool package. ;)
>
> I just discussed this with Trinh, who said, "Most Asian women are
> very, very powerful, so others shouldn't assume, they shouldn't
> assume at all."

One of the ways to excuse gender inequality is to claim that women are
actually very powerful, but they just don't have the overt appearance
of power.  Such as, "A man gets paid all the money, but his wife
decides how to spend it, so she's the one who really has power."  This
is, quite simply, a big fat lie.  Actually, it's his money, and he
decides whether to give it to his wife or spend it himself, and
frequently he does spend it himself.  So it is with all these claims
for women being powerful in spite of the fact that men hold the
positions of power, own most of the property, and have more legal
rights.  I am no expert in Vietnamese culture, but I am educated
enough to know that Trinh is wrong when she talks about Asian women in
general, and I would be shocked to discover that Vietnam is any
exception.

I get your "Girl power, go! Who cares what they think?" kind of
attitude.  It's one way of being very positive about being a woman. 
But it's also ultimately pointless and self-defeating.  When you
separate yourself entirely from the judgements of society, you don't
win respect, you just become irrelevant.

I think a group like LinuxChix needs to conform to prevailing society
enough to attract followers, but push the boundaries enough to promote
change.  When it comes to a logo, I think this means we should have a
logo featuring a woman who is reasonably attractive but not
ultra-feminine in a stereotypical way, and who is clearly using Linux
in some way.

I think the old old logo might actually be pushing boundaries in
Brazilian culture - after all, Sulamita thinks she looks geeky!  Maybe
because she's wearing sneakers?  I don't know.  We can't stop the
clash of cultures over the Internet; maybe we'll just get more
tolerant.  After all, I know more about Brazilian culture than I would
have without the Internet.  I just wish that people didn't have to
learn tolerance by seeing the LinuxChix Brasil logo, judging it in
their cultural context, and assuming bad things about the rest of
LinuxChix.

-VAL


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