The New York Times (March 14) Fashion & Style column reports under the headline, “Walking the Walk to Increase Diversity” that Bethann Hardison, the fashion industry gadfly is to receive the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Founders Award in June, and comments “Most thorns get plucked. This one is getting a trophy. (I like this line)”
It follows;
“She then became a modeling agent, founding Bethann Management in
1984. It was, she said, a “white agency,” but it also represented many models of color, among them Veronica Webb, Roshumba Williams and Tyson
Beckford. When designers were disinclined to at least consider any but
white models, she was inclined to press the point.
OED carries “press the button,” meaning “pressing an acupressure point,” but not “press the point.”
CED carries “pressure point,” meaning “a place on the body where an artery is close to the surface of the skin, where it can be pressed to partly stop the flow of blood,” but not “press the point.”
Google N Gram shows the incidences of “press the point,” which peaked during 1920 through 1960, and has been tapering off to a low 0.0000054780% level (in 2007).
To me “press the point” is strongly associated with acupressure point because of the Asian familiarity with Chinese medicine, but what does it mean otherwise?
Best Answer
Press the point in this case means:
or
The point they are referring to is the hiring of non-white models. It is not a physical location, but rather a "talking point" or an issue that is being discussed.
It's point as in the expression, "Get to the point."