Arty on the New Yorker’s embarrassing collapse:
The New Yorker has finally chimed in on the Lia Thomas debacle, and it’s a disgrace. The cult-like language used throughout is a stain on its reputation. Remember, The New Yorker is renowned for having the most prestigious and respected fact-checking department in the world.
Exactly. They’re famously, even notoriously picky. FACTS.
They make a blunder on the fact front.
The N.C.A.A. allowed a path for people like her to join the women’s team, but it was not quick or easy. In general, élite male athletes have considerable physical advantages over élite female athletes.
Whoops, you’ve just acknowledged that “people like her [sic]” are, in fact, “élite male athletes” who “have considerable physical advantages over élite female athletes.” That should put an end to this article, that fact right there.
Oopsy.
What should it say instead? Maybe…In general, women with the bodies of élite male athletes have considerable physical advantages over élite female athletes. No, make that: In general, women with the bodies of élite male athletes have considerable physical advantages over women with the bodies of élite female athletes. Ok?
A nice little aphorism:
If a few months without testosterone literally rearranged a man’s pelvic bones, we’d have heard about it by now.
Read the whole thing – it’s admirably furious and thorough.
Comments
5 responses to “We’d have heard”
Does that make me an élite athlete with the body of a very mediocre athlete?
The same can be said of middling male athlete too. And what is with this accented é? The word has been in English for many years without it, this strikes me as the New Yorker putting on airs.
The New Yorker loves to put on airs. One way to know that you’re reading the New Yorker is if you see a dieresis in words like “coördinate”.
More to the point, most sports are designed to bias physical advantages men have on average over women. Though there are exceptions (women’s gymnastics, for example).
Another way to know you’re reading the New Yorker is if the cartoons aren’t funny. They used to have great cartoons and now…they’re just awful. (Roz Chast is the exception.)
Thomas, Hubbard, McKinnon/Ivy didn’t need to be ‘élite’ to dominate women’s competitions. The winners in most boy’s high school track events are at at least the same level as female Olympians. The 462nd male swimmer becomes the number one female.