Should reporting of things that men do become less gender neutral?

27 replies

BrewsterToo · 19/01/2016 10:55

I noted, after looking at the picture in this report, that the caption underneath says "Crowds with ISIS flags march past the provincial government offices in Mosul". In the photograph a crowd of men is seen walking on a street, not a woman in sight.

I was wondering whether it would help if captions like this actually state that these are crowds of MEN, not just crowds. Would it make it clearer and raise awareness that Isis is mainly a group of men, who do awful things to women, and not just some gender neutral crowd. Would it help men to see that it is men waging war and using terror and violence to abuse women, not some gender neutral institution like a state or movement or death cult. That it is a problem of MEN when women are systematically abused? Would it help to name it?

OP posts:

FreshwaterSelkie · 19/01/2016 13:26

Hmmm, I'm not sure about your example there, though I do see what you're driving at.

There is one example like this that I'd definitely like to see changed, and that is the phrase "a woman was raped". I'd like to see it routinely changed to "a man raped a woman", which you almost never see. That weasely passive voice for this drives me NUTS. Let's put the responsibility where it lies.

(and yes, in terms of UK law, if it's a rape, the perpetrator is a man but #notallmen etc etc etc before anyone starts).

Original poster

BrewsterToo · 19/01/2016 11:05

Just to avoid confusion, the title of this thread would be clearer if the word "become" were replaced with "be". This better reflects my hypothetical pondering. Become is a bit odd perhaps.

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