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A few problems with this Washington Post magazine cover

A few problems with this Washington Post magazine cover

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Obviously there are some issues with today’s cover of The Washington Post’s Express magazine. The big, obvious one is that the people on it are arranged in the shape of the standard symbol for male. The cover story is about a women’s march scheduled to take place in Washington, DC the day after the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who notoriously suggested that men can grab women by “the pussy” and get away with it if they’re famous enough. (Apparently he was right.)

Some other things:

  • “Today’a cover”
  • The male symbol is pointing at President Obama. These ladies sure aren’t marching because of him!
  • This marching formation seems overcomplicated and more trouble than it’s worth, aside from being off-message.
  • If I’m the person in the tip of the arrow I’m feeling way too much responsibility.
  • Most of the people in the image are not women.
  • This is a poorly Photoshopped image built on top of some stock art from Shutterstock.
  • Pink.
  • Later, Express tweeted an apology, loosely spell-checked.
  • Then with remarkable speed they tweeted a new version of the cover, with the teeny tiny marching people rearranged into the woman symbol.
  • In this version, the lower half of the image is full of half-people and random body parts piled on top of each other to fill out the shape. Congratulations, women!
  • The cover story that this terrifying image of ritualistically arranged severed limbs points to is actually really good.