This is like a slightly better version of https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-campaign-to-erase-th... someone wanted to pick an example PDF and picked the bitcoin one. Just like in the article above back in 1973 they didn't realize the harm in what they were selecting as the sample photo. And maybe there is no harm with this PDF selection? We'll know in 2073!
we don't know the harm, because we don't know how many women encountered this image and may have been made uncomfortable because of it.
we also don't know how many men felt encouraged in their sexism upon encountering this image.
while the image didn't make men sexist, it undoubtedly helped normalize that view among those coming across it during their work.
context matters. if you read playboy at home, that's on you, but if it is found in the breakroom at an office then it has an effect on everyone working there.
fair question. i haven't looked at the picture to closely.
how about if someone recognized the phto as coming from playboy and making a remark about that and some men laugh about it. a women knowing why they are laughing could feel uncomfortable about that.
She felt violated and wanted people to stop [ETA: Or not, see below]. Why isn't that harm? Why would using pornography in a professional context (outside of the pornography industry or other edge cases) be considered appropriate? Of course it's off-putting to people, women and otherwise.
> In her view, the photograph is an immense accomplishment that just happened to take on a life of its own. “I’m really proud of that picture,” she said.
Probably more harm has been done by the internet mob demanding she feel a certain way about her picture, than any harm done by the image itself.
My mistake on that claim, I still roll my eyes at people who say it's totally normal and okay. How many racey pictures of men have been canonicalized like that? There's a leering element to it.
The statue of David comes to mind immediately. It's been canonicalized like that for over over 500 years, yet I don't hear anybody saying that it's not ok, or talking about how it projects an unhealthy stereotype of men.
> How many racey pictures of men have been canonicalized like that?
To be fair, very few other racy pictures of women have been canonicalized like that, either; about the only pictures I can think of are paintings, specifically the Mona Lisa, which is hardly racy, and Boticelli’s Birth of Venus, which I suppose you might look at as racy, though I wouldn’t particularly. There’s a couple other non-picture works of art that are canonicalized in that way, but aren’t themselves pictures – Michaelangelo’s David as mentioned in a sibling comment is a good example. But then, even though the canonicalization makes them into something else, it is usually based on upon perceived artistic importance, the Lenna is a different and arguably sui generis phenomenon.
But the topic of this subthread is the cropped, non-racy image that got circulated. Is there anyone who actually got offended by a picture of a woman’s face and shoulder? Besides maybe people in ultra-religious societies that insist on women’s shoulders being covered?
The comment you are replying to is simply bad faith white knighting. As soon as I indicated I felt violated by their comment, suddenly it was "different."
You're trying to stir me into anger by, yourself, acting in bad faith. It's a cheap trick which won't work, and patently obvious to most any observer.
If you had a point, you wouldn't need to behave this way. (As opposed to some other people who disagree with me in this thread, who do have a point, and don't feel compelled to do this.)
The full image from which it is clipped is, at a minimum, erotic photography (where the boundary with pornography is…well, opinions differ considerably.)
But, yeah, the crop that has become known as “the Lenna” isn’t (considered on its own) even that.
It seems bizarre, she was a model and presumably the photo was created while she was doing her job? The cautionary tale seems to be "don't sell rights to pictures of yourself".
