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Child Item

...including women and children

RobertKK

Are the lives of men somehow viewed as being somewhat lesser when it comes to reporting the deaths of people in conflict zones?
I see at the moment on Sky news 500 Yazidis including women and children killed and buried in a mass graves.

Does it really matter if there are women and children included given all the people are innocent and did not deserve what happened to them?

As a man I wouldn't view my life as being lesser to that of a woman or a child. I would view my life as having the same right to life as a woman or a child.
Surely it should be reported as 500 Yazidis killed which included men, women and children, or are we meant to believe when figures are given for deaths that they are automatically men who have been killed?

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spook_house

Diego Simeone wrote: »

I think a lot of feminists would object to the "women and children" reporting. It often implies that women are more vulnerable and in need of protection by men/others, a situation reminiscent of patriarchal societies in the past.

No the sisterhood are not too pushed about gender quotas when it comes to cannon fodder and sewer workers

Shakespeare's Sister

Lol at the babble above. :pac:

But back on topic: the inclusion of women in this phrase makes it an old-fashioned expression - from a time when it was ok to deem women as more vulnerable and all men as well able to defend themselves, which we now know is not true. The "women" part should be done away with IMO - not because women can't be vulnerable, but because men can be.
Saying "including children" though - I don't see an issue with this.

conorh91

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/d4/d4e2fa196e8415d4ac758a20ec9c7d9b38464cc69194577cc516050593cd806b.jpg

ardle1

Wibbs wrote: »

Biologically males are generally the "disposable" gender. Females are biologically more valuable and offspring are gene packages for the future. For all sorts of reasons. Take a small tribe of a couple of hundred people in a jungle somewhere. Imagine war or disease kills off all but two or three of the women and most of the children. That tribe is now essentially extinct. Now imagine war or disease kills off but two or three of the men. There will be a period of cultural and sociosexual rejigging with more women pairing up with the remaining handful of men, but the tribe is far less likely to die out.

HUH!

Czarcasm

ardle1 wrote: »

HUH!

Basically, if you take two women and two men and drop them on a desert island, and one of the women dies, the odds of the propagation of the 'tribe' is reduced by 50%. If the other woman dies, then the odds of propagation of the 'tribe', drops to 0%.

Now, take the same four again, and this time one of the men dies. The 'tribe' can still propagate and prosper, as the odds of propagation are still 100%. However if the second man dies, well, then the odds drop to 0%.

I think I actually remember hearing something like the minimum number was 7 to repopulate the earth? Don't quote me on that though as it doesn't even sound right to me, simply because there wouldn't be enough genetic diversity among the 'tribe' without getting into Texas Chainsaw Massacre territory a few generations down the line.

jester77

Banjo String wrote: »

Indeed.

The selfish pricks always get called first for lifeboats on a sinking ship too. :mad::mad:

That's why I only ever fly. They even tell you at the start of every flight to look after yourself before attending to children. Proper order

Wibbs

Czarcasm wrote: »

Basically, if you take two women and two men and drop them on a desert island, and one of the women dies, the odds of the propagation of the 'tribe' is reduced by 50%. If the other woman dies, then the odds of propagation of the 'tribe', drops to 0%.

Now, take the same four again, and this time one of the men dies. The 'tribe' can still propagate and prosper, as the odds of propagation are still 100%. However if the second man dies, well, then the odds drop to 0%.

That's it in a nutshell CZ. Men are the disposable sex on that score. Though on the other side of the coin women are the perishable sex. They have a limited timeframe to reproduce. Male disposability is offset by male's having a much wider reproductive timeframe. Sought after socially powerful men can still be having offspring into their 60's. You can see that in some tribal setups where 60 year old chiefs have 20 wives and a gaggle of kids, but some 25 year old men are childless. So in the desert island scenario if the women are over 50 then extinction occurs(and anything much over 35 and it's more likely). If the men are over 50 then there's no change to the outcome.

I think I actually remember hearing something like the minimum number was 7 to repopulate the earth? Don't quote me on that though as it doesn't even sound right to me, simply because there wouldn't be enough genetic diversity among the 'tribe' without getting into Texas Chainsaw Massacre territory a few generations down the line.

IIRC you need 30 individuals. Under that and it's banjo playing time. Modern humans went through a severe bottleneck around 60,000 years ago(volcanic eruption is one theory) and our number was down to around 10,000 individuals, hence we're quite narrow genetically. Though because of the influx of other archaic human genes we're not that narrow. If we had gone extinct then chances are one of the other humans around may have made it, though we were noticeably different in behaviour, so maybe not.

NipNip

Sky news currently have a little Palestinian girl being interviewed who is paralysed though they haven't told her yet. A little piece of my heart breaks everytime I see the clip. Don't ask me why but I would not have the same reaction if it was a man. I suppose it's the absolute innocence of a little child. They are inherently vulnerable and should never be collateral damage. It shows the ferocity of the aggressor if they can not see the barbarity of attacking a child. Much like the op!

I Heart Internet

Diego Simeone wrote: »

No such thing as female soldiers or combatants? All the highly trained and professional women in the Irish army and others wouldn't like to hear you saying that.

The number of frontline female military, even in western militaries, is vanishingly small.

99.5% of all warfare ever has been done by men. That's a sad, sad fact. Nothing to be proud of as a man, just a fact.

The "women and children" thing is OK - as it flags the fact that - "heh, this isn't just armies killing themselves, innocent civilians are being killed." If we stopped using the "woman and children" line, I'd be afraid that we had become accepting of it.

RobertKK

I Heart Internet wrote: »

The number of frontline female military, even in western militaries, is vanishingly small.

99.5% of all warfare ever has been done by men. That's a sad, sad fact. Nothing to be proud of as a man, just a fact.

The "women and children" thing is OK - as it flags the fact that - "heh, this isn't just armies killing themselves, innocent civilians are being killed." If we stopped using the "woman and children" line, I'd be afraid that we had become accepting of it.

But it is as easy to say men, women and children.

I saw the pictures of crucified Christian men, from Syria I think it was, crucified for being Christian by Islamic State/ISIS.

I know very well you don't think that is acceptable but for those men their lives were every bit as wanted as any woman or child who had not done anything to deserve such an outcome to their lives.

Women want equality and rightly so, but men should have it too. It is like the media is accepting of innocent men being killed, given women in particular get a special mention.

Czarcasm

RobertKK wrote: »

Women want equality and rightly so, but men should have it too. It is like the media is accepting of innocent men being killed, given women in particular get a special mention.

Men being killed in wars is taken as a given, women and children on the other hand - not so much.

It's that simple really.

takamichinoku

In general, isn't the point that whoever done the attack either didn't care or recklessly didn't check whether children and other innocent civilians were around?
I dunno, I mean it's obviously a way of saying "including very innocent sorts" that hits the emotions effectively. The phrase is pretty ingrained to include the women part so "including children" just doesn't have the same immediate emotional response, throwing in men completely muddles it too. Is there a more general alternative that pushes the same buttons?

RobertKK

Czarcasm wrote: »

Men being killed in wars is taken as a given, women and children on the other hand - not so much.

It's that simple really.

Taken as a given belittles the lost of any innocent life.

We should have reporting that gives equality to all innocent life in conflict zones and do away with the including women and children only bit to include men with that.

Shakespeare's Sister

It shouldn't matter that 99point9whatever (where are these figures coming from?) wars are started by men. They're still only started by a minority of men, and plenty of men have nothing to do with them, as well as being victims of war.

Czarcasm

RobertKK wrote: »

Taken as a given belittles the lost of any innocent life.

We should have reporting that gives equality to all innocent life in conflict zones and do away with the including women and children only bit to include men with that.

Then it becomes a question of who's innocent and who isn't -

Civilians? Soldiers following orders? Their Commanding Officers? Rebels? Guerrillas?

Innocent' is very much a grey area in a war zone.

I don't believe at all that it belittles the loss of life in a conflict zone as most people understand the meaning of "including women and children", and IMO only someone struggling to be offended by the implied sexism of the phrase would have an issue with it.

Honestly, getting offended about sexism when people are killing each other, shows a rather disjointed perspective from reality.

donfers

Diego Simeone wrote: »

I think a lot of feminists would object to the "women and children" reporting. It often implies that women are more vulnerable and in need of protection by men/others, a situation reminiscent of patriarchal societies in the past.

You're correct in stating that they should be pointing out this kind of inequality or sexism but the simple fact is they don't tend to highlight issues where sexism either benefits them or confers upon them some elevated sense of victimhood, worth or humanity. Thus their equality agenda is exposed and they are revealed as just another discriminatory bunch of self-interested power grabbers (which is fine, go for it ladies but don't pretend you're some kind of revolutionary warriors fighting some injust patriarchal tyrant, in the Western world at least your forefathers and mothers have already won that battle, in so far as it's possible to win it anyway for the average joe/joanne on the street)

Bipolar Joe

First off, it's 2014, we're far passed "Biological imperative." We've reached a point where you don't really have to worry about more gender being killed than another, so that point is moot.

Second, "Women and children first means innocent people are being killed" implies that the men killed were not innocent by virtue of being male. It having a more emotional impact on you says a lot about your character.

pickarooney

takamichinoku wrote: »

In general, isn't the point that whoever done the attack either didn't care or recklessly didn't check whether children and other innocent civilians were around?
I dunno, I mean it's obviously a way of saying "including very innocent sorts" that hits the emotions effectively. The phrase is pretty ingrained to include the women part so "including children" just doesn't have the same immediate emotional response, throwing in men completely muddles it too. Is there a more general alternative that pushes the same buttons?

Non-combatants? Civilians?