[SciPy-Dev] removing the Lena image

[Anne Archibald]

On Sat, Aug 15, 2015 at 5:12 PM Alan G Isaac <alan.isaac at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8/15/2015 8:40 AM, Matthew Brett wrote:
> > It's a detail from a pornographic image
>
>
> One may oppose the image without exaggerating:
> the original photo was merely erotic, not pornographic.
> And as for the cropped image that has become a reference
> standard, it is unobjectionable if culturally archaic.
>

If we're being precise about language, this image is not unobjectionable:
there are indeed people who have objections to it:
http://www.cmc.edu/news/every-picture-tells-a-story
https://www.cs.umd.edu/users/oleary/faculty/node8.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-playboy-centerfold-does-not-belong-in-tj-classrooms/2015/04/24/76e87fa4-e47a-11e4-81ea-0649268f729e_story.html

An excess of political correctness is difficult
> to distinguish from censorship.
>

We could have a discussion about culture, feminism, microaggressions, and
the potential for widespread small choices to do harm. Such discussions are
often ugly and divisive, perhaps because the harms under discussion are not
apparent to some people. But this image is not being proposed for removal
for feminist reasons. It is being proposed for removal because the license
is a problem.

For my part, I think the license problem is real and reason enough for
removal. The feminist issues with the image are part of why I have no
motivation to attempt to obtain permission. (Perhaps one could obtain
permission to include the image but only with a Playboy-bunny watermark?)

Just to be clear, I am not trying to make a case
> for including the image.  There may be some case
> for skimage.data.lena() to fetch the image from
> the USC-SIPI Image Database
> http://sipi.usc.edu/database/download.php?vol=misc&img=4.2.04
> but I am not trying to make that case either.
> I am merely addressing an issue of the debasement
> of language.
>

Please don't play devil's advocate or language-lawyer with social-justice
issues. It makes the discussions more stressful and unpleasant without
actually raising substantive points.

Thanks,
Anne
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