Question

13 October 2004


In the modern world are women’s lives valued more than men’s?

I ask this because I have noticed that whenever an explosion kills people (be it terrorist related, or done by some country’s army) those giving out about it state that it was terrible because women and children were among the dead or injured. And while I agree that a bomb which kills women and children is terrible, it isn’t any more terrible than a bomb which kills men and children.

The phrase is meant to evoke a sense of the innocent being murdered, and while I am willing to state that the innocent suffer in bombings, surely men are just as likely to be innocent as women?

I don’t mean to say that the women who died deserved death, but neither do a lot of the men. There have been women suicide bombers, women were involved in the Russian school tragedy. Just because someone is female, that does not mean they are innocent, or that their deaths are worse then a man’s.

Of course the argument would be that women are less likely to be involved in terrorist activities. Or that they are the primary care-givers of the children. And while that may be the case, I feel that the phrase “women and children” gives the idea that all a woman can be is a victim, while at the same time suggests that any men among the dead deserved what they got.

Surely the fact that civilians were killed is enough for us to condemn many of these explosions and killings?

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