Gendered Symbols/Signs

The other day I saw an article plastered on a Metro paper (Sweden) about the introduction of a female symbol on crosswalk signs. I couldn’t find the proposed image anywhere on the internet, but it’s more or less a silhouette of a feminine figure with curves/hips, wispy hair and a dress.

While I understand the “gender-consciousness”, I feel it’s excessive to insert gendered symbols on what I consider gender-neutral territory: the crosswalk sign. The sign could, hypothetically, be modeled after the male figure. Even so, I believe it has become a present-day universal symbol that is not meant to be gendered; it is not a mark of female or male identity, but more of a people identity. That aside, I do appreciate a re-design of these symbolic signs – just not necessarily in a gendered way. For example, Taiwan introduced an animated crosswalk sign. (See the AP story, “Sweden plans to introduce female crosswalk signs“)

So I wonder then, could these symbols ever be unlabeled, or are we always categorizing? Could representative human graphics ever be gender-less or race-less? Ask my old boss who decided my pixel people graphics were too “white”, and that I should make them “colored”.