Revelando estereotipos que no nos representan | Yolanda Domínguez | TEDxMadrid

Translator: Fabiana Lorena Zuccatto Reviewer: Silvina Katz We have fooled the aliens. It was unintended, but we sent them a completely wrong message about who we are. Think about this: How would you explain to these intelligent beings from other galaxies what the human race is? Does it look like this? This is the drawing we sent them in 1972 in the Pioneer 10 space probe. It's estimated it will reach its destination in millions of years. In the meantime, if an alien happens to find it, it can in

fer that in our planet there are two types of beings: those who do things (Laughter) and those who don't do anything. My question is: Why did we decide to send this drawing and not this one, for example, or this one? Or even this one. If we intended to represent human life on Earth, none of these two drawings should have Caucasian traits, as there are more people with African or Asian traits in our planet. However, we decided to send the one with the white man raising his hand and the woman next

to him. Today, these two figures are spinning around the universe and we don't know what will happen to them. Something similar happens with the images sent by the media, images they cast off, adrift, without really considering if they represent us or if they have any affect in how we would be in a million years. These images, the ones in the slides and the ones we see every day in the media, do not represent reality, they are simplifications, signs that we use to summarise information and to c

ommunicate in a fast manner. To picture it better, our mind works like a computer. What do you usually do when using a computer? You don't just keep all your files in the desktop, right? You create folders of similar files, and you name each folder and select a preview image for it. This preview image of the folder is the sign that help us understand the content. In these words, it seems to be logical, as a summary helps us to better manage our time and resources. But it is also dangerous having

only one preview image that represents a whole group of files, especially when we apply this to people. Our biggest computer, our greatest window to the info about the world, is the media, and it is the media that decides the preview image of our folders. These images are not innocent, they are not objective, and whoever has the power to select them, can also usually add their moral perspective towards what is being previewed. For example, "Woman: Human being whose only duty is to serve as deco

ration." These signs, which are often spread by media and have an implicit ideological bias, are stereotypes. Let's have a look at the images that appear by default in the "Men" and "Women" folders of the media. Let's take a closer look at the "Men" folder, where there are standing figures, all dressed up, with a powerful look, all low-angle shots. And in the "Women" folder, things are slightly different. We can see they are beings that feel a little bit warmer, as they have fewer clothes on. (L

aughter) They fall on their asses on whatever horizontal surface they see. They fall on their backs, they collapse. And if you look closely, you'd also see that they cannot keep their legs closed. (Laughter) We don't know why for us, women, it's so hard to close our legs. Maybe this is why we cannot stand up, maybe that's the reason. This diverse way that media has to represent different genders appears also in the portrayal of different cultures, religions and sexual tendencies. And every time

they have to refer to someone specific in this group, they never open the folder to choose a picture in it, they just always use the preview image. As a visual artist, I understand that my job consists of creating images. I've always wanted to know how these images influence people; how images are capable of stripping our lives of meaning if we don't buy a specific product. How they can move us to the verge of tears, or, on the contrary, how they can make us oblivious to someone else's suffering

. How they transform us to the point that we even change our own body to look just like them. Or they make us even hate our body so much that we stop eating. My job consists mainly of revealing these control mechanisms with which images function, of turning them upside down to see those things that go unnoticed. In this piece of work, "Poses", I asked different women, of different heights and sizes, to strike those poses they see models do in magazines, but within the context of daily life. (Lau

ghter) In the streets, in the supermarket, at the queue in a museum ... (Laughter) The result was pretty much revealing, because people asked them if they were OK, (Laughter) some asked for help, and they even called an ambulance ... Something very serious must be happening to those women. (Laughter) Some of them even called the police, as they were so worried, that they thought it might be dangerous. (Laughter) Imagine if we had sent this image in the Pioneer 10? (Applause) I am certain that if

we'd sent these photos, none of the aliens would have wanted to come into contact with our planet. (Laughter) Stereotypes are established in the collective worldview by repetition. They come to our lives at a very early age, even before we can develop a proper judgment to question them. All narrative is created with the same discourse: Girls are princesses, and they need to pay attention to their beauty. Boys are beasts, they kick, they punch, and they solve everything with violence. Successful

people are fair-skinned. Unsuccessful people are overweight, Latin, or African ... We have listened to this message so many times that we believe it's true. We even ascribe this, and this is my favorite explanation, to biology itself. Of course, if this is all about economizing language and mental energy, saying "it's in our nature" is much easier than saying "maybe we are so used to seeing and imitating this that we are incapable of considering other perspectives." Yes, this certainly requires

too much effort. The media is riddled with stereotypes and it is basically impossible to escape from them. The reason for this is solely commercial. The media's objective is to reach the highest number possible of people to make a profit, and to achieve this, they have to speak to us in a language we all know, the folder language, because if they use a different code, we might not understand them and they will lose audience. Or they might train our brains a bit too much, and that's not good for

them, as we may start thinking and rebelling. They'd rather have us entertained and malleable. What consequences can stereotypes bring about in our daily lives? A lot, and they can affect us in many different levels. The most direct consequence of stereotypes is that they suppress everything they don't represent, therefore, they stigmatize it, they transform it into an anomaly. I don't know how many women here are mothers, but what do you think about these images in the net of women that have j

ust given birth and have a flat abdomen? Can you imagine if the only representation of women that just gave birth were these images? What would happen to those women with stretch marks and a little belly? They would be frowned upon. "Look at that belly!" The same happens with hairy legs or armpits, wrinkles and grey hair, all frowned upon because the media doesn't show them. Everything that's shown is normalized, but what is not shown is rejected. However, stereotypes can also have the opposite

effect and they can normalize, via representation, aspects that are not necessarily positive for people. This is something fashion photography masters, as they have been using violence for many years now to get people's attention and now they've created this very dangerous trend. They think they are creating these super impressive images, but they are actually normalizing violence against women through scenes that are meant to be glamorous but which tell horrifying stories. Let's listen to the o

pinion of some people that are still not very much exposed to the language of fashion and let's see what they think about the last campaigns. Yolanda: Tell us what you see in this image. (Music) Children: She seems to be ... scared. She seems to have an illness, because her arm is here, but her shoulder is here. (Laughter) Yolanda: How do you think she is feeling? Children: She feels ... lonely. Scared. And hungry. Here they are throwing a girl into a trash bin. And the lady is laughing, I don't

know why. Here, they look like ... heroes. They are studying to go to university. Three girls have had a fight and ... one of them just passed out. These are two dead girls on the road, because they were run over by a truck or something like that. If I were there, and I was passing by, I would help them and take them to the doctor. She's like this ... with her eyes closed as if she was dead or passed out. She could be starving ... and she might die. I would tell her to cheer up and not to be sa

d. (Laughter) (Applause) Well, I think there's no need to say that violence is not normalized at birth, as children clearly reject it. It is so difficult to avoid stereotypes that we start internalizing them and we even get to assess ourselves according to that simplified image that does not represent us at all, and we are capable of doing anything to stop being who we are and to resemble that image, as we do not want to be left out from the folder. This happens because there is a whole industry

that feeds on our fear of not belonging to a group to sell us all types of products. There's this example that is paradoxically funny, and it's all these creams there are to change your skin color. In some part of our planet, they are certain that successful people have a fair skin and there's a whole range of products to bleach the skin that can even pose a risk to your health. In some other part of the planet, they are certain that successful people have a tanned skin, and this means they hav

e money, resources, and free time to go to the beach, and there is a whole range of products to keep our skin tanned throughout the year. When we are scared and have complexes, we can be manipulated, and we lose control over ourselves. What can we do -as there's always a solution - to free ourselves from all these stereotypes, this oversimplification and this disinformation? Let's start by reflecting on the idea of freedom. I have attended some advertising symposiums and it's very normal to hear

advertising agents say: "I have freedom of expression, so I can create whatever discourse I want." And they are right, that's true. But what happens with the freedom of the people that see their images? It is to these people that take pride in their individual freedom as communicators that I always say something that's actually a question: Does the exercise of your freedom give freedom to other people, or, on the contrary, does it limit their freedom? Freedom means having the opportunity to cho

ose. Those who create stereotypes have this opportunity, but not those who get them. I suggest we change. Not change, but broaden this concept of freedom of expression towards a responsibility of expression. This is the only way to give real freedom to everyone. It is not about censorship or imposition of a specific discourse, that's what stereotypes do. It's about putting into practice a conscious and committed expression. When creating my next image, I can stop and think: Is this image reinfor

cing a limiting model, a normative model? Or, on the contrary, is it bringing diversity to the people that see it? This is what I tried doing in my last project called "Little Black Dress." I've tried to represent the diversity of female bodies through stereotype. The stereotype would be that short, tight, M size, black dress. With that same dress, I have shot photographs of women with different size, age, and skin color. For some of them, it ran small; for others, it ran big, for some of them i

t fitted, for others, it didn't. But all of them posed straight, showing pride in their bodies, and certainly none of them were laying on the floor. The result was a big installation with the purpose of making its audience feel included in this diversity. Not excluded from any folder. The project is still open, and I urge all women who want to participate to write to me and wear this dress to become part of it. Images are the main means of communication these days, and they are a powerful tool o

f social transformation that we can all make use of. It may be that millions of years ago a well-built, aggressive male had more chances of reproducing and this might have been even good for the species. But today, our situation as a species and as a society has changed. Why don't we create other models that satisfy our current needs? We must demand expertise from those that generate images, and consciousness on their work. That's a nice word, right? "Consciousness: the state of feeling, thinkin

g and acting with knowledge." All those companies that only want to sell a product or expand their audience, will be isolated and obsolete, out of our folder with projects we want to support. Communication must be a means to getting closer, understanding each other, and it shouldn't isolate us or build walls between us. Let's create images that would make us feel happy with our own bodies when we stand in front of a mirror, whatever shape we have. Let's create images that make us want to talk to

people that are different from us, and get to know them. Let's create images that stimulate our imagination with new perspectives. Let's create images that make us free, not as individual beings, but as a whole race. Thank you very much. (Applause)