I checked my mailbox this afternoon, and looked at the cover
of my Science magazine and thought: “Whoa, this should have been in a brown
paper covering like they had for dirty magazines.” I saw an image on the cover
of provocatively clothed women, the title
being “Staying a Step Ahead of HIV/AIDS.” Why did this picture need to be on the
cover for that story I thought? The image made me think that Science was trying to be incendiary, hip or edgy
or something. I put the magazine and my thoughts about it aside; then just
before I was about to have a meeting in my office, I decided I needed to put
the journal face down and out of view.
I tweeted the joke about the brown paper covering but then
decided the cover was still bugging me and tweeted. “When we said we
wanted more women in Science this is not what we meant.” and tagged @AAASmember
I thought that would be the end of it,
but then Jim Austin (@SciCareerEditor)
the Editor of Science Careers (from Science) quoted my tweet and sarcastically replied “Good
one.” Shortly after he tweeted, “Am I the only one who finds moral indignation
really boring?” I was off Twitter, but Jacquelyn Gill (@JacquelynGill) and others were luckily paying
attention. They called him out and the twitterverse went after him and the stupidity of that
cover pretty strongly. A few hours later we got a response from Marcia McNutt (@Marcia4Science)
Editor-in-Chief of Science magazine, “From us at Science, we
apologize to those offended by recent cover. Intent was to highlight solutions
to HIV, and it badly missed the mark.”
It was nice of them to apologize
especially after Jim Austin’s comments. Read more about the entire exchange
from the tweets I highlighted on Storify https://storify.com/LSU_FISH/sexist-and-transphobic-cover-of-science
The cover is still up on-line, and the
magazine is still on my desk face down. I was disappointed in Science for
publishing a cover that I thought objectified the people in the image, and I
was more disappointed by the initial response from Jim Austin. I’m glad the
head editor apologized but I was most moved by the quick response from Twitter. In
the old days (when they really did put brown paper over dirty magazines) we’d
see something like this, maybe shake our fists, maybe even write a letter (like
actually write a letter) to the offending party and maybe in 3-6 weeks
something would come of it (usually nothing). We might have thought, “well just
another example of sexism” and let it slide. Thanks to social media I’m glad at
least we all got to vent and share our collective impressions and opinions. I
found out I was not alone in being offended, and we all shared a common message
that the image was inappropriate. We even got a rapid apology from the editor. And maybe, just maybe, I think the people
behind that cover of Science will think twice next time they consider a cover
that might be sexist, homophobic, or otherwise just wrong.
