Washington Post Magazine ‘Embarrassed’ Over Using Male Symbol for Its Women’s March Cover Story

Rachel Grumman Bender
The wrong version and the corrected version of a magazine cover
The Washington Post Express mistakenly used the male symbol, left, for its Women’s March on Washington cover story. The corrected version is on the right. (Photo: Washington Post Express)

The Washington Post magazine Express did a cover story on the Women’s March on Washington, which will take place the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. There’s only one problem: The publication erroneously used the symbol for men, rather than women, on its cover.

It didn’t take long for people to notice the mistake.

“Shout out to The Washington Post Express who accidentally put the male symbol for the woman’s march on their cover today,” wrote Twitter user Kimberly Betsill.

“The Washington Post Express nailed it so hard this morning,” wrote Twitter user Tim Young. “Give it a second, you’ll figure it out…”

“Is this some kind of record for largest typo,” tweeted Sam Thielman.

Some questioned how many women are actually on staff at the publication, on the assumption that one of them would have caught the error before the issue hit the printers. “Hire more women,” wrote Twitter user Ashley Louise. “Or proofreaders of any gender!” added user Maria McMichael.

Twitter user Kirsten wrote, “I can completely imagine a female employee trying to correct this while a male employee talks over her to praise it.” And user Nell chimed in, “‘But it was pink’ — your all male editorial team (hire some ladies, thanks).”

To their credit, the Express staff quickly acknowledged the mix-up, tweeting, “We made a mistake on our cover this morning and we’re very embarrassed. We erroneously used a male symbol instead of a female symbol.”

They followed that up with a post featuring what the cover image should have looked like, with the correct symbol for female.

Some users on social media — who, let’s be honest, aren’t always so kind about mistakes — were surprisingly forgiving. “Appreciate the candor and apology,” wrote Twitter user Gwenda Bond. “Good job on copping to the mistake.”

Others even expressed sympathy for the horror the responsible party must have felt when they realized the epic error:

Express also shared on Twitter that it will be publishing the corrected cover image on Jan. 6.

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