The author here is the woman who made the graphic shirt for Matt Taylor, the ESA Rosetta scientist who made headlines recently by wearing it during the historical landing of Philae on Comet 67P. I wouldn’t criticize her for making the shirt in the first place, and the fact that there was a significant number of people attacking her is terrible and misguided.

The question of whether the shirt is inherently sexist is a more complicated question than whether it was sexist to wear it in that context. The fact that she made it, and the fact that she as a woman didn’t have a problem with it, doesn’t change the fact that wearing it during the landing, a moment when the scientific world was transfixed on a singular event, was offensive and off-putting to at least half the world.

I’m sorry to her for having sustained that kind of abuse, and in some ways, I’m sorry to him as well. He took responsibility for the mistakes he made and apologized for them. It’s unfortunate that the agency hasn’t done the same for failing to see this as a problem earlier.