Thread by @ScienceNelson

🧵After a day wearing headphones audio editing yesterday, I’ve only just seen The Lancet’s tweet proudly showing its cover consisting of a quote referring to women as ‘bodies with vaginas’…

It’s a particularly bizarre quote from a medical journal considering, just a few days ago, it recently knew the sex of ‘bodies’ with prostate cancer. So let’s look at where that cover quote is from…

The article is about a new exhibition from London’s Vagina museum. Thankfully someone posted it so we can read the quote in context.

The piece begins by referring to a few recent books (and a doc) on periods and menstruation and the first paragraph actually uses the word ‘girls’ referring to the effect periods can have on the education.

The first instance of a using a word to replace women or girls is found within a quote from the Vagina Museum’s director. We get ‘body’ instead. The director is a woman with a science background who also describes herself as a scicommer and comedian on her website.

The second disembodied reference to women or girls is ‘bodies with vaginas’ - the cover quote and is by the author of the review, also a woman. But note - it’s from a para where the word women does appear.

*People not body

For first quote…

The author, a senior editor at the Lancet, has a background encompassing philosophy, biology and the history of science. She also ends the article with a specific reference to women.

So the editor’s choice quote for the cover is deliberately provocative (no, I don’t like it either). Because it doesn’t reflect the full article - which doesn’t ignore the reality of biological sex throughout. So it’s clickbait, gender ideology virtue signalling, or both.

And I will add that as editor of The Biologist magazine for five years (I put the first woman on its cover), I do have experience of choosing covers and pull out quotes. The Lancet is making a political statement.