I was deep in a design job over the weekend making an infographic for a corporate client. One section depicts corporate community activities. Along with nature preservation, youth programs, and disaster recovery, I needed to find an icon for “women’s empowerment.”

It was more challenging than I expected.

What kind of empowerment? Economic? Education? Work-life balance? Since I didn’t have any details about the client’s programs, my first icon was a pictogram of a caped figure. It seemed the most empowering without being too feminine or too feminist.

But that did not fly. I got a note: Please use something more familiar to the Japanese audience.

That raised my ire. Why is a woman in a cape unfamiliar to Japanese audiences? Because women’s power in Japan is soft, communal, and hidden. We gather in the kitchen to do dishes and discuss decisions that will direct the menfolk’s thinking. Nemawashi during household tasks.

Give women capes and they will smash glass ceilings. Far too powerful.

It’s not just Japan; around the world powerful men don’t want to cede their influence. How women work around that varies by culture. Here it’s through quiet influence; the West leans toward direct action and legal frameworks. But when you look at the state of the world, neither approach has gotten women equality yet.

Returning to my search for a familiar icon, I supposed I could use Prime Minister Takaichi as an example of a powerful Japanese woman. But she climbed the ladder enabled by her male colleagues who styled her into one of them. She advocates that women stay home to raise children. She is not going to be my icon for women’s empowerment.

So in the second round, I eliminated the icons entirely and went a different direction with a text-only design. Next client note: Icons are required. Ugh.

Tod listened to my whinging and asked Gemini “Show an image representing women’s empowerment in Japan” and received this:

Here we see the Women’s Clone Army of Japan meeting in the “Empowerment Japan” building as they plot to take down the Women Laughing Alone with Salad clan. Happy times!

Tod redirected Gemini with a revised prompt to make it “less business-y and more personal.”

Now the clone army is having tea in someone’s living room; they are still cheerfully plotting. There’s one element in common with both photos. Could this be an important tool for empowerment? Give a girl a whiteboard…

In the end, I opted to draw the icons myself so that I’d have a coordinated set.

No notes yet so I don’t know if the client will like these better. I hope so. If not, I am putting the secret weapon whiteboard in the next round.