Why is the Pioneer Plaque so sexist?
My home page for the last while when Firefox starts has been the wikipedia start page. Just a few minutes ago, I was greeted with this:
This is the Pioneer Plaque, a gold-engraved image sent out on the spacecrafts Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11. For those that didn't know, these were two spacecrafts that were launched in the mid-70s to take advantage of the gravitational slingshot effect of the solar system's planetary alignment in that decade. The Voyager spacecrafts were launched later for the same reason.
Presumably, some intelligent race of creatures will find this plaque and be able to decipher all sorts of things about the human race, including the location of Earth (oh no! cylons!) (Un)fortunately, it will take the age of the galaxy already at least for the spacecraft to get anywhere near a habitable solar system, so chances of the plaques actually being seen are slim.
ANYWAY
What I'm getting to is that the engraving is horribly sexist. The male stands strong, waving one hand at whoever gazes on the engraving, while the women slumps to one side, doing nothing other than being present, and not really even having a facial expression. Come on! This was the seventies!
PS. "AI for Game Developers" just came in the mail today. Oh man!
2 comments:
That plaque is Pluto's legacy.
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