That’s it. We’re cancelling HEX Science to have babies and socialise and get lost in very simple hedge mazes. We never liked science or maths much anyway.
Rest assured, dear coven, we jest. We’re of course side-eyeing that (hopefully soon-to-be-retracted) paper by two male authors who claim the lack of women progressing in STEM has nothing to do with discrimination and socialisation, but is because they aren’t trying hard enough. Women, as they explain, are also not very good at science because they don’t actually like it. (They should try writing a paper saying [insert any other marginalised group] isn’t good at science, see how well that goes down...)
To spare your eyeroll muscles, here’s the TL;DR version: this entire “paper” (essay…) is a big pile of steaming nonsense designed to conclude that women are just bad at science, that they’ll be unhappy if they get that STEM career they think they want, so they should stop being encouraged. These dudes also claim that poor men are being discriminated against because they’re not offered all the initiatives that women are. Fucking spare us.
Well, would the passage of time even be marked if some ill-informed men hadn’t said some stupid shit? Read on below and enjoy some less stupid shit instead.
Jog on
Another week, more sensationalised research about the evils of being fat – why the findings can be taken with a big pinch of salt
By Rosalind Frankly
BREAKING NEWS: apparently “fat but fit” is a myth when it comes to cardiovascular health. An observational study claims that exercise can’t compensate for the negative effects of excess weight; note “apparently” and “claims”. Diving beyond clickbait headlines and glib quotes (‘One cannot be fat but healthy’🙄), the study is, well, not “fit” to make such a concrete conclusion. Why? Settle in.
Dr Natasha Larmie, GP and creator of The Fat Doctor, was quick to label the published findings “lazy science at best.”
Click here to find out why in the full article
TIT BITS
Keeping abreast of the latest news, views, and research
Blood moon
As we long suspected, women are like werewolves. Is it the howling, the tearing off men’s limbs, the eyes lit with the fires of Hades?! Nah – just that we’re all slaves to the moon. Recent research suggests that women with cycles longer than 27 days could naturally synchronise to cycles of moonlight intensity and gravitational pull. But before you rejoice in the handy excuse to smear yourself with menstrual blood by the stark moonlight, the researchers point out that the effect reduces with ageing and exposure to artificial light at night. Just like the legend of werewolves, another thing the modern age has shat all over. 😆
Grandma, we love you
Next time your gran slips you a fiver, give her an extra squeeze – anthropologists have gathered new evidence suggesting that grandmothers played a crucial role in our evolution. The theory goes that by supporting mothers as supplementary caregivers, they helped increase chances of infant survival (ours certainly bandaged broken heads a few times), PLUS interaction with them helped our species develop bigger brains and more advanced social skills. Grandmas: not just good for cleaning your face with spit and a hanky.
Good news for the squishterhood
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of a mammogram, you should know it can be a fairly uncomfortable experience (spoiler: like your tit being squished in a vice). Sadly for our poor knockers, it’s not really something we can skip out on; as women get older and breast cancer risk increases, regular mammogram screening becomes more important. However, one team has developed a new deep learning model to better predict cancer risk in women, which could potentially reduce the need for screening in the future. They need to do further research, but watch this space – your boobs might be in for the less-squished future they deserve.
TO THE KRAKEN 🦑
PSA: No cats or vulvas were harmed in the making of this newsletter... just a few useless tw*ts
This week, our unholy hell beast will be unleashing aquatic carnage upon this ridiculous cervical cancer prevention campaign from healthcare app myGP. We don’t even know where to start with this, tbh. Who thinks that the best way to talk to women about a potentially life-saving medical test is by making pussy jokes?? (Yes, we see what you did there. No, we’re not laughing).
Because their survey suggested women may be put off attending their smear test if they haven’t waxed, they want women to post a photo of a cat that resembles the current look of their “undercarriage/flower/bits” (is the copywriter 80 FFS?)... Yup, that’s right, show us yer pussy for cervical cancer. We wish we were making this sh*t up.
When the women of Twitter pointed out that the campaign is crass, patronising, and inappropriate, the company immediately removed the campaign and apologised. LOL, just kidding! Instead, they doubled down, congratulating themselves on “getting people talking” and claiming that their “cheeky campaign” is necessary because “3 in 5 women have put off attending their cervical screening because they've been unable to get a wax with the salons being closed.” (Except that is BS – the survey ONLY included women who rely on professional waxing services - less than 10% of women according to this slightly bizarre scientific paper.)
This campaign could have been spared its mortifying watery death if instead of giving a false impression that getting waxed before a smear is the norm, it had reassured women that doctors and nurses give zero f*cks about your lady topiary. But no. Therefore, Ms K has decided to take matters into her own tentacles and remove this whole campaign to the ocean floor, where she’ll enjoy some WAP of her own.
Oh, and in case you were curious about Ms K’s grooming regime for her own “undercarriage,” that remains a mystery (since no-one who’s seen it has lived to tell the tale) but we’ve heard she keeps her vulva teeth nicely sharpened at all times.
FEMINISTS RUIN EVERYTHING
Add this to the long, long list...
Usually, in this section, we like to get snarky about books, films, TV.. .stuff like that. But now it seems we’ve gone TOO FAR. Yep, turns out as well as ruining kids films, classic literature and Christmas, it’s apparently feminists’ fault that dickheads stormed the Capitol the other week.
According to some more dickheads on Reddit, this all started to take root a while ago… when women were given the vote. Or perhaps we should have spotted the red flag when that stupid bitch Eve ruined Paradise by...eating an apple. Could it be our uncontrollable emotions that have irrevocably damaged American politics? Maybe, mused one, it’s because women secretly want to shag Obama.
Get with it, fella, it ain’t that much of a secret.
More things not waxing our flowers this week:
Six women over 70 defying aging stereotypes AND looking excellent | Is my MP a prick? | Our own Rorschach Tess doing a Lunch Links guest edit | These cinnamon buns – worth the effort 🤤 | The Bernie Sanders meme continues to grow | Finger traps made out of newspaper
The HEX Science team
🧬Jean Splicer | ☢ Marie Fury | 🧠 Rorschach Tess | 🔬 Rosalind Frankly