The Subtle Sexism of Icons
As a designer, you have to pick your battles. This is one worth fighting.
Icons, which may seem like a small part of the digital landscape, reveal larger issues of unconscious bias in tech and beyond.
In many instances I can recall, ranging from company presentations to popular apps and websites, the main icons displayed were obviously representative of men. At best, this shows that women were not taken into consideration when the product team designed and developed the product. At worst, it isolates women to feel like they are not the intended audience or priority.
Perhaps I’m more cognizant of this because gender imbalance is important to me, and as a designer, I’m observant of details. But it’s something that more stakeholders need to be aware of when choosing icons. And I say “choosing” because it is, in fact, a choice. Whether conscious or not, someone, at some point, made the decision for the icon to appear as a man.
There are so many other ways to approach this that it seems silly and archaic not to make the change. Why not have male and female icons together to be more inclusive, or use a gender-neutral icon, or even have different icons appear depending on the gender of the user? Another element to keep in mind is not just having more icons representative of women…
