I’ve been catching up on Project Runway, and I finally noticed that Volvo’s logo is the symbol for male.

Really?! In 2017?!!

The Volvo Owners’ Club website’s account of the logo’s history reads:

At the same time as VOLVO was reactivated, the ancient chemical symbol for iron, a circle with an arrow pointing diagonally upwards to the right, was adopted as a logotype.

This is one of the oldest and most common ideograms in Western culture and originally stood for the planet Mars in the Roman Empire. Because it also symbolised the Roman god of warfare, Mars, and the masculine gender (as every bird-watcher can tell), an early relationship was established between the Mars symbol and the metal from which most weapons were made at the time, iron.

…. The iron badge on the car was supposed to take up this symbolism and create associations with the honoured traditions of the Swedish iron industry: steel and strength with properties such as safety, quality and durability.

The Volvo logo’s association with masculinity is not an accident. The company intentionally linked its brand with “the Roman god of warfare, Mars, and the masculine gender.” In doing so, they imply that cars, steel manufacturing, and everything associated with them are only for cisgender men.

And yet the company claims otherwise. A consumer emailed asking about the symbolism in the wake of the logo’s redesign. (The redesign minimized the arrow portion, making it easier to overlook the association with masculinity. It remained essentially the same.) A representative for Volvo responded:

We don´t associate the symbol with the male symbol – we associate the iron mark with the symbol for iron.

This is disingenuous. Volvo insists that you look at its logo and only see “iron”, not the much more common meanings “male” and “Mars”. Brands draw their power from all the associations their trademarks invoke. Instructing concerned consumers to ignore very valid readings of their logo’s symbolism compounds the insult to most genders and is bad business.

Put simply, Volvo’s logo is demeaning to everyone who is not a cisgender man. Their logo supports the patriarchy and defines car ownership and driving as male pursuits. Car culture is clearly male-dominated, but other genders have been making headway in transforming the love of cars into a passion for all. Examples include female NASCAR drivers like Danica Patrick and VW/Volvo mechanic Mercedes Thompson (zing!) of Patricia Brigg’s paranormal romance series (sidebar: if you like werewolves and strong female characters, you’ll enjoy this excellent series. Don’t let the romance angle turn you off; they’re mostly action). Unfortunately I’m not aware of non-cisgender folks making a name for themselves in this arena, but I’d love to learn about them!

In this day and age it’s inexcusable for Volvo to reject gender diversity. If they wish consumers to view them as a modern, cutting-edge company, they must redesign their logo. And when they do, they should keep gender out of it.