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Few of us relate to that little, familiar female bathroom sign—the one with super-stiff arms and a bulky A-line dress—but the majority of restaurants and businesses still use it to point us in the direction of the powder room (a term as outdated as the image). An amazingly inspirational campaign called It Was Never a Dress, which created this superhero female bathroom image, got us thinking about other ways the most famous female restroom symbol in the world has been messed with.
Tania Katan, the curator of code at an Arizona software company called Axosoft, is the driving force behind It Was Never a Dress. She says her aim is to change our strict gender binaries and shift our perceptions about women. By using this new symbol of a woman wearing a cape, she is forcing the world to acknowledge an "insightful" woman who isn't a compliant little thing in a triangle dress.
Axosoft is a main sponsor for the Girls in Tech conference and has also partnered with CodaKid, a coding school that will begin teaching programs this month.
In other words, they aren't simply putting out a cool new female image and calling it quits. They're making a real effort to help empower women in careers in which they don't often feel their voices are heard.
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We love this new bathroom sign. But it also got us thinking about similar times when people and companies have "messed" with this female image—for better or worse.
Image via Itwasneveradress.com
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
