White Hand’ll Be Gone Today

As promised, City Desk is here with an update on washingtonpost.com’s big white hand.

As discussed previously, seven anonymous women who apparently work in the same building as the Washington Post’s web site have protested the presence of a large white hand visibly sitting at .com headquarters. They believe that the hand, a prop in a washingtonpost.com advertising campagin, represents the worst of this country’s male-dominated work culture.

Here’s a line from a bulletin that the protesters placed in an elevator in washingtonpost.com’s building:

“To see this big white male hand as we walk into work each morning is a sharp reminder of our past difficulties and, obviously, how far we have yet to go to overcome bias and workplace oppression.”

Well, soon enough, the disaffected won’t be seeing the hand anymore. According to a source at WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI), which runs washingtonpost.com, the hand is scheduled to leave the premises today. Far from a nod to the charges of sexism and oppression, the move aligns with a set schedule that had the hand sticking around from Monday through Friday of this week.

“This was supposed to be a fun morale thing for WPNI,” says the source.

The source also says that nobody at washingtonpost.com knows who these seven women are. Their protest note says that they are withholding their names “for fear of potential harassment.”

Well, angry women, there’s no harassment in our comments section. Have at it!

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