No, don’t run away. She wants to tell you about herself:

These people are becoming gender-soup. 💀
pic.twitter.com/mgZRiyCAV2

— L G B (@L__G__B) January 9, 2024

And remember, competitive complication is the name of the game.

Also open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Come, dear reader. Let us visit the publication now laughingly referred to as Scientific American. In particular, an “analysis” piece by Juan P Madrid, in which we’re told,

Dr Madrid, an assistant professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, begins his attempt to persuade with a tale of poetic drama:

I know. The very stuff of amazement. Brings a tear to the eye.

Apparently, the word collision is, for Dr Madrid, much too brutal and masculine when referring to the unstoppable convergence of two galaxies, and the ultimate merging of the supermassive black holes at their centres – an event that will entail the sling-shotting of countless stars and their orbiting planets, and which may release energy equivalent to around 100 million supernova explosions, and subsequently be detectable halfway across the universe.

A mere hug, you see. All that kindness.

Here, Dr Madrid’s own use of language – specifically, the word reconsider – is somewhat misleading and just a little coy. The reconsidering he has in mind would of course be enforced by those suitably enlightened, much like the author himself – as hinted at with enthusiasm later in the piece:

So, not so much a reconsidering, then, as a coerced neuroticism. A mandatory affectation, on which career progress may very much depend. But hey, where’s the fun in being a pretentious and neurotic scold if you don’t have the power to make others jump through hoops?

And so, when not detecting neutron stars and gravitational waves, astronomers will be expected to submit their findings to someone of “a different gender or ethnicity” to sift out any language that may conceivably cause distress to those determined to seek it out. “This type of conscious engagement,” we’re assured, “can only be beneficial.” And not, say, a farcical waste of time that’s better spent elsewhere.

Terms deemed “needlessly vicious,” and which render Dr Madrid indignant and reaching for tissues, include cannibalism, harassment, starvation, strangulation, stripping and suffocation:

It’s all terribly oppressive – for the implausibly faint of heart, I mean. And should a colleague carelessly refer to a planet being stripped of its ozone layer by a catastrophic gamma-ray burst, this is obviously “misogynistic language” and a basis for the sternest of hands-on-hips chiding.

Given the unequal distribution of interest, aptitude, and cognitive wherewithal, one might wonder why. Alas, as so often, the mystery persists.

The implication being that hearing an occasional use of the word cannibalism or stripping in reference to astronomical phenomena will somehow, in ways never quite specified, deflect an otherwise promising astronomer from their calling, despite an uncommon focus and years of study. Because female astronomers, and brown astronomers, and especially female brown astronomers, are so immensely delicate and likely to be traumatised by such descriptive terms.

At which point, readers may wish to ponder whether the best people to be doing astronomy, or teaching astronomy, or to be making workplace rules for astronomers, are the kinds of people who mouth dogmatic assertions without any trace of supporting logic, and who are distracted, even distressed, by hearing the word collision being used to describe a collision.

The strange trajectory of Scientific American has been mentioned here before.

Update:

Before anyone quibbles, the phrase “halfway across the universe” is merely a figure of speech. The actual estimate for how far away the gravitational waves could be detected by beings with technology comparable to our own is 3.25 million light years. So, for a hug, plenty of oomph.

Via Darleen, in the comments. Which you’re reading, of course.

Judgement promptly validated. || Ice-cream scoop insertions and other medical emergencies. || Somewhat related: Things done to penises in 2023. || Recovered Kodachromes of New York in the Fifties and Sixties. (h/t, Lancastrian Oik) || Like conkers, I guess. || On crime and incarceration. || Question asked, answered. || Being so clever, he doesn’t believe in sky daddy. || Lion relocation. || If you got rid of the toaster, you’d have space for one of these. || Suboptimal road surface. || Set-up and payoff. || The progressive retail experience, parts 526 and 527. || Pressing oil. || For enthusiasts of diecast model cars, The Little Wheels Museum. (h/t, Things) || I laughed and I’m not sorry. || A little artistic licence. || At last, a shower-toilet combo. || And finally, a hawk encounters a kitten with a force field.

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In politically-charged fashion news:

Why yes, since you ask, I am reading the Guardian. Specifically, a piece by Mr Phineas Harper:

Possibly because it tends to look contrived and rather silly, even when celebrities do it. A contrivance that suggests, not so much a high-minded “dismantling” of “gendered fashion,” or “a small step towards gender equality,” as Mr Harper would have us believe, but something closer to tedious self-absorption. The kind of thing one might expect from a disingenuous, noodle-legged Guardian columnist, say. But apparently, this craving for attention, for being the skirt-wearing star of any social gathering, will somehow liberate British women from their supposedly grim, downtrodden existence.

Those of you with an urge to behold Mr Harper in a skirt – complete with tights, trainers, and dickie bow – can do so here. A second ensemble, featuring a bold leaf print, also awaits your applause. Readers are welcome to say whether the word panache – favoured by Mr Harper – is one that comes to mind. Though it occurs to me that the author’s own carefully curated fashion statements rather solve any mystery as to why said garment hasn’t been widely adopted by the menfolk of the nation.

Despite this setback, further attempts are made to entice male Guardian readers into the realm of “floaty Toast midi skirt combos,” including:

Because every man, in every household across these islands, wants to be complimented on his skirt.

And,

Or perhaps the thing being signalled is something else entirely. Like insufferable twattery.