Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, has made a public act indicating its support to gender equality. The site has recently redesigned its logo which included new icons, including the "Friends" icon with a woman placed in front.
Before the change, both the 'friends' and 'groups' icons portrayed the women figures behind the male shapes, which was pointed by many, including feminists. After the initiative of designer named Caitlin Winner to make the changes, the company's logos have now been modified.
Facebook's design manager explained what led the company to pursue redesigning the icon. On Winner's post on Medium, she stated that noticed something on the logo that is worth feeling troubled about.
"As a woman, educated at a women's college, it was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon; the woman was quite literally in the shadow of the man, she was not in a position to lean in," wrote the design manager.
Winner's observations led her to work on the symbols. She first started drawing two people having equal sizes and not specifying who was in front would somehow remove the concept of inequality. However, the designer found it difficult to create such design and took a different approach to it.
After a series of trial and errors, the young designer came up with a new design for the 'friends' icon putting the lady slightly smaller in front of the man. For the 'groups' icon, Winner placed the woman in front of two men which looks fairer.
The change gained much attention especially to the media due to its symbolic importance as soon as the social media platform went live with it.
However, reports say that Facebook has made a little trick showing different icons to different users as the display varies depending on the user's registered gender on the site. The tech company has not confirmed yet this information, but that does not devalue their move to promote gender equality on the Internet.
