The Term "Women and Children" is sexist.

[Hexen]

Everytime I read articles/comments about innocent causalities in wars, I get annoyed hearing the term "women and children" as if they try make it sound like that women are defensless thus put them in the same category as innocent defenseless children while excluding men while trying to make it sound like they are capable (or more like socially expected) of 'defending themselves' despite there's also innocent male victims aswell while Women pick up weapons to fight in vice versa which Patriarchal societies (such as ours) seems to be exclude in order to keep the "strong male" image within the male gender while ignoring the women defending themselves which would the destroy the entire terms meaning. Another thing that bothers when they actually do add men to the innocent list they put it like "men, women and children" if you could notice there's a comma next to men as if separating the category what our society defines "innocient" which is another trick that our society uses to separate male and females from being equals.

In closing, in order to keep things gender neutral here, I think "men, women and children" should be replaced with either the words "unarmed" or "innocents".

thoughts/opinions on this issue?

[TC]

I think you're wrong with the comma thing (thats part of a grammatical convention) but otherwise I agree that the grouping of women and children as essentially subjects and men as essentially agents when reporting on events is wrong.

Moreover I think the position that children's issues are women's issues or should be grouped with women's issues is sexist and it reveals the sexism inherent in pro-natalism.

The attempt to define humans as by default male, but women by default as mothers, reduces women to biological determinism and use value rather than respecting women's personhood and agency; it is precisely what the feminism emerging in the 50s and early 60s opposed (as opposed to the faux-feminism of female identitarians who came later).


In a non-sexist society the phrase 'women and children' would sound as exceptional or circumstance specific as 'men and children.' "Women and children" has 8,710,000 google hits, "Men and children" has 404,000.

[Mujer Libre]

The attempt to define humans as by default male, but women by default as mothers, reduces women to biological determinism and use value rather than respecting women's personhood and agency; it is precisely what the feminism emerging in the 50s and early 60s opposed
You know, I've always been bothered by news reports in Australia that refer to any women in any story as a "mother," whether the story had anything to do with her kids or not.

I've never heard a man referred to in the same way.

Way to define us by our reproductive systems, arseholes.

[Dean]

You know, I've always been bothered by news reports in Australia that refer to any women in any story as a "mother," whether the story had anything to do with her kids or not.

I've never heard a man referred to in the same way.

Way to define us by our reproductive systems, arseholes.

Somehow I find that last statement extremely ironic.


Back to the topic, I agree that "women and children" is a bad phrasing. I used to say that sometimes, but it started to make me uncomfortable because it leaves out men, as if all men were warriors and women and children are distinctly defenseless. So I just say things like "innocents" now.

[Module]

In what way is it ironic?

[Dean]

In what way is it ironic?

think: defining people as body parts.

[Mujer Libre]

Oh come on- calling someone an arsehole is clearly different from reducing women to baby factories...

[ManyAntsDefeatSpiders]

And of course, both men and women have/can be arseholes...

[Qwerty Dvorak]

Yeah, it would have been more apt if she had said dicks, which she hadn't.

[Dean]

Oh come on- calling someone an arsehole is clearly different from reducing women to baby factories...

I wasn't disputing your logic, I was just pointing out that the statement was ironic.

[Revolutiondownunder]

This sucks. I know as a fact that some of the teachers in my school are totally sexist. They allways seem to make it out that men and women are somehow "different".

One teacher {male, but it doesnt matter} came out and said that girls are naturally better at school that boys!

Considering all the old days when women were considered too "weak" and "stupid" to even have a vote that is pretty F*cked up....

[ManyAntsDefeatSpiders]

I was thinking about this the other day when I was watching Titanic, and how there was a woman and children first policy.

Interesting statistics:

http://www.anesi.com/titanic6.gif

http://www.anesi.com/titanic5.gif

And commentary on those statistics here. (http://www.anesi.com/titanic.htm)

Does that policy have a sound underpinning behind it?

I mean, generally society sees a dead child as more of a 'tragedy' than a dead man. The thinking, I suppose, is that a child is (1) innocent or less culpable over any wrongs he/she has done and (2) the child has not had the chance to even 'grow up' yet.

To put it in utilitarian views, an old man has already lived most of his life, yet a child still has many more years to go. So I think there is a basis when we put more emphasis on the deaths of children, than say, the deaths of a middle-aged man.

Of course, this has implications for the abortion debate which I won't go into here - but generally society sees the murder of a pregnant woman as more hideous than the murder of a woman generally.

Although, this may not be so much to do with viewing the foetus as a 'baby.' For instance, we still feel quite sorry when a mother gives birth to a dead baby or she miscarriages, not necessarily because we view the baby as an individual person, but rather the mother had made the choice to have a baby, and that medical tragedy (or conversely an act of a murder) obviously violated that choice...

However, why should women be given preference over men?

Well, I'm not exactly sure, but I think it would have something to do with a paternalistic view of 'protecting our women.' I'm not sure if there are similar policies today (anyone work on a passenger ship?!). Of course, it may also tie into the view that women are 'breeding machines' and that one man can impregnate half a dozen women, fewer women means, obviously, fewer pregnancies...

However, what we are discussing here is lumping 'woman and children' into the same category. I agree with TC and ML that it is a rather demeaning view. If innocents are killed, I'm not really concerned with what gender they are, but concerned that they were 'innocents!' Further, like the OP said, it has exhibits the socially expected view that women are 'innocent' and, conversely, that men are more 'guilty' when fighting in wars. Likewise, it defines women in reference to the default man.

But I agree with TC on the comma thing - that is an English grammar rule.

[ManyAntsDefeatSpiders]

For what (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7358448.stm) its worth.

[RoterAnarchie]

Wanting to save women and children is just historically grown
when a tribe almost ran out of men, a small group of men could get alot of women pregnant to repopulate the tribe
and ofcourse the children were the future of the tribe anyway
when a tribe would ran out of women and children, well, when the men died, the tribe died too then...


when not at war it is ofcourse absurd, but it's a historical reflex (instinct perhaps?) to protect women and children, for they are more necessairy then men for the future!

[welshboy]

The reason that the press says 'women and children' is that women and children are generally non-combatants yet make up the larger numbers of casualties of war.
It is not sexist merely a statement of fact. Such as 'we live in a male dominated society' is a statement of fact, this is not a sexist statement but an observation.
Also it would not be possible to replace 'women and children' with innocents as, for all we know, they could have been harboring and/or arming one side or the other.
Not sexist, just a horrific statement of fact.

[Hexen]

The reason that the press says 'women and children' is that women and children are generally non-combatants yet make up the larger numbers of casualties of war.
It is not sexist merely a statement of fact. Such as 'we live in a male dominated society' is a statement of fact, this is not a sexist statement but an observation.
Also it would not be possible to replace 'women and children' with innocents as, for all we know, they could have been harboring and/or arming one side or the other.
Not sexist, just a horrific statement of fact.

I disagree since there's also non-combatant/unarmed male causalities in war aswell along with combatant women if they ever found a weapon to start fighting with.

[welshboy]

Yes but the majority of casualties in war are women and children. The fact that they also make up the vast majority of non-combatants means that it will be commented upon.
Also I'm pretty sure I have noticed the press starting to say 'among the dead were many children' or similar of late. No mention of women, not saying it's always true just something I noticed.
Do you live in the UK or elsewhere? It may just be a different style of media reportage that I have seen. I've seen how over dramatic CNN can be with certain things and report things in a manner that the UK broadcast media wouldn't.
Also you must remember that dead kids sell stories, women and children implies two generations of a family are killed, the women obviously being mothers.
I can't imagine that you would ever hear a news report saying 'many of the dead were women'.
So actually I can see your point.
No accounting for lazy journo's though. w+C is a really easy shorthand for, and is more emotive than, saying non-combatants. Lazy jounalsim.

[AutomaticMan]

I think the OP is quite right, although it depends on the context. It is mainly used in a way which is sexist, a form of sexism known as benevolent sexism. I think it is chiefly used for it's emotive/sensational value, but usage doesn't alter the fact it does indeed perpetuate old stereotypes of men being the warriors and women being equivalent to children, which is clearly infantilising them. Non-combatants would be a better term, all round.

[KrazyRabidSheep]

In closing, in order to keep things gender neutral here, I think "men, women and children" should be replaced with either the words "unarmed" or "innocents".

thoughts/opinions on this issue?
The term you're searching for is "civilian"

[jake williams]

TC dead on.

There is of course the point however, in reference to war, that men are assumed to be non-combatants. It's a similar logic of when Moses tells the Israelites to go into a village and kill all the men first, and only after kill all the women (except for the virgins, whom Moses instructed them to keep for themselves). (I was skimming through the bible today. There was one in my math class, it was weird).

Also, I think in the specific case of the Titanic the expectation was that everyone would get the chance to get off eventually, but if things got hairy men would be in a better place to jump off at the last bit. That sort of thing.

[AK-1917]

I think that the term stems not from the idea that "Women and Children" are helpless, but from the fact that in war, most soldiers are generally men. So when you hear about events in the Middle East killing and/or maiming "Women and Children," It's supposed to connote the killing of innocents.

Just to play devil's advocate, maybe it's sexist in that it says men are more deserving of being killed? :lol: