Politicians in the German city of Dortmund are proposing the replacement of 50% of pedestrian 'green man' crossing lights with female crossing icons to address gender inequality.
'With the German government’s plans to introduce quotas for women in company boardrooms seemingly stalled, equality of the sexes could first make advances on the streets: in Dortmund, politicians are debating the introduction of a 50% gender quota for traffic-light icons.
In a joint application to the city council, local politicians from the Social Democratic and Green parties argued that “since we give equal treatment to men and women, it would be consistent to partially modify traffic-light men to traffic-light women”.
To save costs, the quota would be rolled out slowly over time, with icons being replaced only when traffic lights are broken or damaged.
The bid for replacing so-called Ampelmännchen with Ampelfrauen, has as much to do with road safety as feminist principles: since the proposed female version would wear a skirt, it would release more light and be much more visible.
A similar application was rejected by the Berlin senate in July, partly because some politicians felt that the proposed design, of a girl with pigtails and flowing robes, was too old-fashioned and cliched.
The use of Ampelfrauen is already widespread on the streets of Bremen, Cologne, Dresden, Kassel, Magdeburg and Zwickau. The most common pedestrian icon is a modification of the East German Ampelmännchen, which was designed by East German traffic psychologist Karl Peglau in 1961 and has since attained cult status across the country.' http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/14/german-city-traffic-light-women-dortmund
Similarly in New Zealand's capital, Wellington, a number of traffic light icons have been temporarily replaced with images of suffrogette Kate Sheppard, whose campaiging in the late 1800s culminated in NZ being the first nation to legalise voting for women. http://wellington.govt.nz/your-council/projects/green-woman-pedestrain-traffic-lanterns
If, as a society, we are serious about addressing gender inequality then is this something for more countires to consider and on a permanent basis?
The costs of implementing this change would be significant. Would the cost be justified? Is it an important change to make?
What do you think?
Image source
It is proposed that a 50% gender quota for traffic-light icons should be introduced in our country