Gender Equality through Traffic Lights!
India has largely been criticized by men and women all over the world for their glaring issues in Gender Equality! Young girls are forced to get married early, girls are not allowed to work after marriage, girls, in general, are treated a level below men are few of the general traditional horse crap India as a country has been bringing up for years! A country cannot change its history, but with the new digital age, there’s no way in hell these narrow-minded traditions continue. India has taken a step towards the light with a small step, a small change made in its traffic light system which promotes Gender Equality.
Traffic Lights in Mumbai Display Female Figures
It is a simple case of representation! For years every single traffic light in the country has displayed a male figure. Is the outdoors only for men?
What about the other half of their population? What about other forms of gender identification?
Under the “Culture spine” initiative, these new traffic lights are being installed and are being lauded as a symbolic step towards changing gender level perceptions. Currently, there are 240 installations of traffic lights with the female silhouettes around Mumbai and 13 other signage changes made at a pedestrian crossing.
Tackling the Unconscious Bias
One might ask, what does a male sign say about gender equality? What difference does it make?
We call this situation the unconscious bias. People don’t take note of the gender of the sign, but in simple words, the ‘man’ becomes the representation of everything around us! This initiative was taken in order to create awareness of the unconscious bias and gender stereotypes that exist in the modern-day society!
Other Countries with Female Silhouettes
Some cities in Germany including Zwickau, Dresden and Cologne introduced female and male figures in to their traffic lights and pedestrian crossings in the year 2009.
“Sofie” the pony tailed female figure that appeared in Amersfoort in Netherland back in the year 2000 and still remains intact! Vienna Installed same sex figurines in their traffic lights back in 2015. Melbourne in Australia soon followed these steps in 2017.
Is it going to make a difference
No! This initiative will not make a change over-night!
India is a country with a population on 1.35Billion people, with a large portion of their population being elders who we can’t mold into the new era in a day!
Will this change something overnight?
No!
Will this be a small yet significant change towards representation?
Yes!
Read the article about world’s MOST BEAUTIFUL and POWERFUL women