Dear Catherine:

 

Thank you for your thoughts. I think that when we are envisioning women's
work, women's potential, women as breastfeeding mothers and people in the
workplace, the essentiality of women is the basic concept we are addressing,
rather than related but less central issues, such as race and ethnicity.
After all, we can't get away from body shape, type, and cultural aspects of
clothing in portraying the body.

 

As I noted, I had talked with WIT earlier, and I don't think they thought
much about their headless woman, other than as an abstract logo. I believe
they have purely good intentions and were trying to create the most lively,
fun and interesting image they could. But whether we should or should not
let images speak to us, they simply do. And an image of a headless woman,
when in most cultures we have tried to deny the value of women's
intelligence, and we have assigned women value only as far as their bodies
were concerned, causes me some deep discomfort. It wasn't long ago that in
the U.S.-to our shame--black people were portrayed as being less human than
white people, and any logo which echoed or referenced that unfortunate
perspective would make me uncomfortable, also.

 

As I said, most of these well-meaning errors I try to let slip past, but
this one I think is worth drawing to our own attention, as an example of not
being too complacent about the messages we send and the messages we accept.

 

Yours,

 

Arly


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