Where's... Willow?

February 21, 2017 7:17 PM

UN Women Egypt commissioned some adorable 'Where's Wally'-style illustrations of three workplaces, representing technology, science, and politics. There are some women hidden in the pictures, and finding them neatly demonstrates the unbalanced ratio.
posted by Joh (12 comments total)

Wow. I would love to get one or more of these in poster size for my classroom.
posted by kikaider01 at 7:21 PM on February 21, 2017 [2 favorites]

So, this is great.

Where's... Willow?

Is the female form of “Wally” “Willow”? Not “Willa”? “Waldo” would go to “Walda”.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:39 PM on February 21, 2017

I couldn't figure out what the female equivalent would be. Baby name site suggests Wally can be female too, which didn't help.

I would LOVE to get these prints as jigsaw puzzles
posted by Joh at 7:51 PM on February 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

These designs are brilliant! I find it interesting that the decommissioned space shuttle design is still so iconic that it can be an effective stand-in for generic aerospace/engineering workplaces.
posted by xyzzy at 8:05 PM on February 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Where's... Willow?
I've been asking myself the same thing on a daily basis ever since I've finished my Buffy rewatch three days ago.

On topic (kinda; minus the message), for those of you who like "Where's Wally"-style illustrations, there has been the recent release of a video game called "Hidden Folks", where you can search for various people in animated black and white pictures. The trailer merits a watch for the sound design alone. :)
posted by bigendian at 8:20 PM on February 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Super effective and very overwhelming to look at, these
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:29 PM on February 21, 2017

FWIW Wally's current female counterpart is Wenda.

Of course there's a Where's Wally wiki. Thanks, internet.
posted by a car full of lions at 10:47 PM on February 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

genius. super depressing but literally illustrative.
posted by drowsy at 11:46 PM on February 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

These are really cool! I couldn't find the women in the pictures. I do think it would have been better if the number of women in the pictures represented the actual proportion of women in the workplace. Right now it's just a picture with a ton of men and one woman, it would have been more powerful if they could say that it was representative of the actual workforce. I feel like this could be too easily dismissed as a gimmick.

Also when you only have one woman, the default depiction is using a skirt or dress, which I know is the default for women, but I still "ugh" every time I see it.
posted by LizBoBiz at 6:46 AM on February 22, 2017 [4 favorites]

Maybe my visual gender cue awareness is subnormal, but at least a third of the people in the first image look like they could be women as far as I can tell at this resolution.
posted by sfenders at 10:06 AM on February 22, 2017

FWIW Wally's current female counterpart is Wenda.

I have a pillowcase featuring Waldo and Wilma, female counterpart of the early 90s. Can't have two girls, I guess.
posted by phunniemee at 2:01 PM on February 22, 2017

Sigh, the handedness of the DNA molecule is wrong. My coworkers really freak out about that, so I can't hang it up!
posted by armacy at 5:44 AM on February 23, 2017