I was really surprised by how blatantly sexist our road signs are.
To be honest, I have never really noticed how gendered these signs are before (which means I should probably be paying more attention to my surroundings while I drive instead of putting on epic country music concerts for my Hyundai). Apparently, however, there are federal laws saying that the signs must be gender-neutral, and some cities have taken them down and replaced the gendered ones once people complained. I highly encourage you to do this if you see sexist signs in your town!
Because women do construction work too. And these signs only make that work invisible and perpetuate the myth that construction is a male-only field. Moreover, they perpetuate the idea that men are the only ones capable of doing physical labor, and to an extent convey the notion that men are the only ones capable of doing labor outside the home. The only time I've seen signs that say "women at work," they're sold to be hung in a kitchen or they say, "mom at work" and are meant to be hung somewhere in the house. They assert that the home is the space where women work, and they claim that space for traditionally feminized work such as mothering and cooking. We're left with a paradigm where we see "Men Working" signs in public spaces, and "Women Working" signs in private.
Certainly, work within the home is work. But women also
**I know I should have a more recent statistic for you dear readers, but have I told you yet that I'm late for work?
