Lowbird, 1 year ago

This is a really good article, and I like that they made their data public and put a link to it right in the article.

Also, I knew it was bad, but looking at these numbers it’s even worse than I thought. I recommend reading this one.

Like, this part:

Asymmetry in how children are covered is qualitative as well as quantitative. On October 13, the Los Angeles Times ran an Associated Press report Opens in a new tabthat said, “The Gaza Health Ministry said Friday that 1,799 people have been killed in the territory, including more than 580 under the age of 18 and 351 women. Hamas’s assault last Saturday killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including women, children and young music festivalgoers.” Notice that young Israelis are referred to as children while young Palestinians are described as people under 18.

During discussions around the prisoner exchanges, this frequent refusal to refer to Palestinians as children was even more stark, with the New York Times referring in one case to “Israeli women and children” being exchanged for “Palestinian women and minors.” (Palestinian children are referred to as “children” later in the report, when summarizing a human rights groups’ findings.)

A Washington Post report from November 21 announcing the truce deal erased Palestinian women and children altogether: “President Biden said in a statement Tuesday night that a deal to release 50 women and children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, in exchange for 150 Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel.” The brief did not mention Palestinian women and children at all.

That is so fucked up. And there are a bunch of other examples like it re. the disparity in the language these newspapers use.

Tangentially, and though this is a whole can of worms and rather beside the point we should be focusing on at the moment: I am also disturbed that it’s apparently still common practice to bundle women together with children like this - if they just mean “noncombatants” or “caregivers” then they should say that, just saying “women and children” like this demeans female combatants and male caregivers alike. I can sort of understand an argument for it in certain contexts where women are subjugated and denied a lot of rights, but this language is used regardless of social contexts.