What Is This?

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

In the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and seventeen, Wired published an(other) entire issue of its magazine in which every single feature was written by men.

Instead of not doing that in the first place, or acknowledging it with a serious editor's note reflecting on the regrettable lack of opportunities extended to women, the men-only issue was published instead with a cringe-inducing "humorous" note recognizing the women who made the issue possible, even though there are zero bylines for women.

Wired just published another issue in which all the features were written by men. It includes this note 1/https://t.co/9Smu8iNUKy pic.twitter.com/rDFnhw0NAH

— Christie Aschwanden (@cragcrest) August 3, 2017

The note reads: "WONDER WOMEN WHO HELPED GET THIS ISSUE OUT: My eight-months-pregnant CrossFit coach; Michelle Obama; my acupuncturist; the one and only RBG; senior editor Lauren Murrow; the moms working at Saigon Sandwich; Lexi "Poppy Seed" Pandell; new fellowship applicants; Amisha Patel and her amazing functional tags for Copilot; Lynda Carter; Coconut the dog; departing photo editor Sarah Silberg; electronic music masters Suzanne Ciani and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith; executive editor Maria Streshinsky; Thelma and Louise; Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid's Tale; Ilana Glazer; Kim from Better Call Saul; articles editor Sarah Fallon; managing editor Erica Jewell; Constance Wu; Melissa Clark; the superheroic all-female WIRED photo department."

Mag’s exec editor, one of the most talented in the biz, listed long after Coconut the dog and the women who make this guy’s sandwiches 3/

— Christie Aschwanden (@cragcrest) August 3, 2017

In addition to equating actual living women who worked on the magazine with fictional characters and a fucking dog, the "superheroic all-female WIRED photo department" isn't even individually named. What's the excuse there — it would have made the list too long? Maybe that should have been the first clue that including "Thelma and Louise" wasn't a great idea.

Treating the exclusion of women from opportunities as so unserious that it can be addressed with a "joke," the punchline of which is that the editorial staff of Wired believes its female staffers contribute as much as a goddamned dog, is actually worse than not acknowledging their misogyny at all.

"Yeah, we know we did this shitty thing, but OH WELL LADIES!" is gross and shameful. On many occasions, I've been obliged to grit my teeth and bite my tongue in response to men who made a hee-hee silly joke in response to their misogyny in professional environments, and I take up space in solidarity with any woman who works at Wired and feels understandably slighted by this failful, accountability-dodging horseshit.