Photo : Ronald Martinez ( Getty Images )

Sports Illustrated is looking to hire an entry-level news writer—an hourly position for 40 hours a week—but Ed Werder is explicitly not allowed to apply for the job, and if he does he’ll be chemically sterilized and thrown into a lion pit, as per company policy.


That’s how Werder interpreted this pretty standard tweet from SI writer Charlotte Wilder, anyway:


Werder, an NFL reporter who was laid off by ESPN in 2017, could not fathom the idea of encouraging women to apply for a job:


ESPN journalist Mina Kimes tried to helpfully explain to Ed that Wilder’s tweet would be helpful and productive to women who aren’t well-represented in the industry. That didn’t work:


Werder urged his critics to think of the children (who are white, male, and have a disproportionately higher likelihood of getting an interview and/or a job than non-white, non-male candidates, which is the entire reason to encourage women and people of color to apply for jobs, so that sports media doesn’t reach its inevitable conclusion and morph into a homogenized Bruce Springsteen fan forum populated by people who believe that the enjoyment of middle-shelf whiskey is interesting enough to be a personality trait):


Some of those males do not have the same chance as anyone else, Ed. They have a much better chance.

Update (2:03 p.m. ET): Okay, Ed.