Visual synecdoche

The NYT front page has given me much to work with this week. Yesterday's edition offered this photograph of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan by Getty photographer David Furst:

 

As best I can tell, all four of these marines are women. I'll admit that I expected the caption to note this, but it didn't. It simply said, "American marines rested at a makeshift patrol base in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday." And I expected the story to be "about" these women, or women in the military. But it wasn't. It appears as though this photograph of marines was simply used to illustrate a story about the president's Afghanistan strategy. Female marines as visual synecdoche, parts for the whole, representative of the average soldier. Wow.

Comments

[bd]

Glory hallelujah. The times may finally be changin'. This kinda made my day.