Gender-neutral stick figures

[jack]

I've been playing a lot of draw something[1] and this has led to drawing lots of stick figures.

And I realise that I fell into the traditional trap of using an unadorned stick-figure for for a generic person, but also for "man", and using a stick figure with a skirt for "woman", because those are the most recognisable.

And I really don't like doing that. What SHOULD I do?

One thing is to find some way of indicating "male stick figure", even if it's still gender-stereotypical, eg a hat. That way, at least I'm not contributing to the assumption that generic stick figures are men, even if I'm not fighting it.

Another would be always draw a stick figure with a gender marker, so at least I send a message of "stick-figure world contains people of all genders". But in some ways that makes it worse, making it look as if (a) gender were important for stick figures and (b) there were only two genders of stick-figures.

Probably the best would be to draw stick figures with a coloured rectangle instead of a line for a body, because that way you can vary the drawing a bit without being ostentatious about it. But I'm worried that it stretches my art skills too far :)

Is there a "right" way of drawing stick figures?

I also find it difficult to draw vikings without drawing helmets with horns on them, but I'm sure most people I know know the truth of the viking helmets, so I'm not perpetuating misinformation (and even if I am, it probably doesn't matter as much).

[1] As "cartesiandaemon". Anyone else want to play, tell me your username!

Comments

[liv]

It does record how long it takes to guess a drawing, so in some ways there's an incentive to create something that will be guessed as speedily as possible. But since they've made the really interesting choice to make the game collaborative rather than competitive, you can easily choose to play it so that it's just an exercise in seeing how well you can communicate with a friend without using writing. Or even to try and see how artistic you can be drawing with your fingers on a touchscreen - some people aim for detailed, beautiful drawings rather than speed.

If you're drawing a specific person, I agree you don't need to show what gender they are, if your friend knows who the person is they likely also know their gender and certainly know what gender presentation markers they do or don't have. Eg I wouldn't randomly put a beard on Justin Bieber just to communicate the fact that he's male, because JB doesn't have a beard!

But sometimes you're drawing, like, a category of people where the gender is relevant information. Eg if you're drawing "mother" or "bride" you need to convey that the female parent or spouse is intended. And if you're drawing "policeman" or "man-trap" it is arguably helpful to the guesser to tell them that your stick figure is male.