Women/Men Restroom Sign: How symbols are embedded in landscapes
At a young age we are taught how to speak and understand a common language. In addition to learning and interpreting a language, we are also taught how to acknowledge and interpret common symbols. The symbols we come to learn are visible, physical manifestations of either organizations, or in respect to the restroom symbol in McMillan Hall, indicators of organizational life. In regards to organizational life, one form of everyday life’s managerial structures, are restrooms within buildings. Restrooms are essential components of buildings. Universal symbols like a restroom sign are rooted in meanings that have been defined by social and cultural conventions and interactions. What is unique about many common symbols such as a restroom sign, is that they do not rely on the projection of verbal language, but instead, are experienced with our senses; such as sight, sound, touch, and smell. Due to a restroom sign being a symbol—specifically an image of a man and a woman—and not written words, the organizational coding that it represents can thus be interpreted by numerous cultures, whereas words/language may not. As a society, we have been constructed to understand which symbol is male and which is female based upon the symbols’ physical gender performance. Historically, females are understood to be women, and physically, women display their femininity by wearing dresses. Whereas males are assumed to be men, and display their masculinity by not wearing dresses, but wearing clothing such as pants. In a restroom symbol, the female is wearing a dress, and the male is assumingly wearing pants—thus one experiencing the symbol should properly correlate their expected gender performance to one of the symbols. Specifically, the restroom symbol in McMillan Hall is experienced through sight, and it provides significant organizational meaning for the landscape that it is embedded within. For instance, the restroom symbol of a woman and a man constructs the groundwork to an organizational landscape—a form of landscape that directs and controls human activity within a landscape. Symbols like such, organize people within that landscape by non-verbally constructing them into two separate spaces: the male restroom, or the female restroom. Halbwachs explains that some symbols like the McMillan Hall restroom sign stand about us a “mute and motionless society” (Halbwachs, 1). While these symbols “do not speak, we nevertheless understand them because they have a meaning easily interpreted” due to historical cultural notions as mentioned prior (Halbwachs, 1). The interpretation of these historical meanings allow for the overall acknowledgment and understanding of symbols like the restroom sign. Overtime, these historical meanings have developed into cultural norms and expectations that have become ingrained and displayed through human behavior; males/men are required to go in one door, while females/women must proceed through another.
Citation: Halbwachs, Maurice. "Space and the Collective Memory." The Collective Memory.1950. 1-15. Print. |