To think that the ITV headline 'unemployment - women suffer more than most' is outrageous

[zipzap]

Was listening to the headlines being read out on ITV this lunchtime and Alistair Stewart (?) just said that in this time of increasing unemployment 'women suffer more than most'.

If he had said women who were young/old/black/blue/in the north/did badly at school/etc were more affected than most I wouldn't have minded.

Or if he said they were more affected than men I wouldn't have minded.

But to just dismiss half the population by excluding them from being included in 'most' seemed to be an indication of how many people think of men as being normal and women as being an annoying little minority.

I'm not expressing this very well sorry. I'm not usually a strident feminist but this just got my goat. Even dh needed me to explain a couple of times why I thought it was bad.

But somehow it was the very casual usage that made me despair about the entrenched views and lack of realisation as to what was wrong with what they were saying.

Or am I just overthinking this?

[zipzap]

Squeaky I know it is bad that women are suffering more than men regarding unemployment at the moment and yes it is very bad, but it is for a different thread, feel free to start one to have a discussion about it.

But i started this thread was because the sloppy word usage on the lunchtime news made me think how sad it is that even now after all these years of men and women supposedly being equal, usage of the language shows that this is not the case. Yes we all know what they mean but the fact that lots of people don't notice it or do t see anything wrong with it is part of the bigger problem.

When you are comparing two groups if figures like this then it is highly unlikely that they will always run equally and so mist times the figures are released it's likely that most times there will always be one or other of the two halves of the population that is suffering more. But I bet they will never run with the headline that men are suffering more than most because that way round it makes so much less sense than the other way round.

And maybe if they were more precise about their use of words then society would become clearer in its thinking and maybe that would help to even out the differences between the number of unemployed men and women because employers wouldn't be looking at them as 'women' and 'people'...

[InfestationofLannisters]

"Slaves" would have conveyed the horror to men because men have seen male slaves in cinema and / or read about them.

[LineRunner]

Indeed, Infestation, because the trade WAS in people - slaves - that were comprised of men, women and children.

[InfestationofLannisters]

"commodities such as wine, beer, hunting dogs and women"

So what's wrong with qualifying the word "women" with "shockingly - actual people"?

[TeamDamon]

There are more women than men in the UK.

[BooyHoo]

[squeakytoy]

But women have been affected more by current job losses.. they have been affected more than men.. why are people not addressing THAT rather than picking holes in a sentence, when everyone knows what was meant.

[BooyHoo]

but squeaky the reporter didn't say women suffer most. he said wmen suffer more than most. so acordingto your example it would be the same as saying, women suffer more than the greatest in number- meaning they are implying men are greater in number.

[LolaRennt]

I think the real issue (not that any of us can be sure what the person really meant) is that in genberal journalist seem to spout a load of shit without thinking what they are saying/writing/repeating for the cameras.

The headline in the OP has been used a million times since the recession to denote every group, public sector workers/private sector workers/ poor people/ young people/ black people/ the head line gets trotted out without anyone thinking of the wording. I'd by my cat on it that this was just sloppy grammar, and I know sloppy grammar just re-read any of my posts!

[LineRunner]

Squeaky. The statement would then have been, 'Women suffer more than the greatest in number'.

Why not say, 'Women suffer proportionately more than men in this round of job losses'?

[Insomnia11]

DH reckons that when men think about "people" they default to only considering "male people", wrongly. I thought that was interesting and scary

I think a lot of men do think like that - quite a few male writers even today don't write properly about female characters and just use them as a two dimensional plot device. There are a lot more female script writers these days (and enlightened men) - witness how much better written and varied female characters in TV dramas, sitcoms, soaps are these days than say in, the 1980s.

The moral, to parents of sons is not to bring them up to believe the sun shines out of their a* and that they are superior to women.

[squeakytoy]

If you want to be pedantic. The word most can mean "greatest in number"

So, the reporter could have said "women suffer greatest in number"... it is hardly being negative about women.

Why not address the actual problem, rather than trying to pick holes in a phrase just for the sake of creating an issue.

[robotlollypopman]

''There's a documentary on Discovery where an ancient historian talks of 'The Romans' and 'The Celts' trading in commodities such as wine, beer, hunting dogs and women. Straight-faced.''

But women WERE commodities in ancient days. To deny that for the sake of feminists would be a lie. I'm not saying that it was right of them, but it's how it was unfortunately.

[zipzap]

Must admit by the time I'd harangued discussed it with DH and then started to write this I missed the actual report in the main body of the news.

DH had tried to turn the argument all technical he used to be a statistician at the ONS and worked on these sort of figures so he knows more than most about these sort of figures and how badly they are reported usually. And as a result so do I!

But that wasn't really what I was getting him to see other than they would never report it the other way around - as in 'men suffer more than most'.

Squeaky I know that he is using it to say women suffered more than men - but he was being sloppy because he didn't. If 'most' was referring to men, pit ponies and aliens then it would be fine. But in this case when there are two supposedly equal groups it's just sad when they don't treat them equally.

[LineRunner]

robot, But this is The News. Words matter. We can't just hope that we have worked out 'what they meant'.

If ITN are reporting on emprical data it's surely not too much to ask that they report it accurately, clearly and without bias.

[InfestationofLannisters]

What a fantastic example of that Linerunner.

[ThePosieParker]

I had to read the OP a few times before I got it.

[Vicky2011]

I think its the fact that is isn't there that is precisely the point. I'm sure there will be no deliberate anti-women bias in that sentence but it's the casual use of the word "most" to mean "men" that illustrates how people can fall into stereotypical ways of thinking without having negative intentions. It may very well have been written by a woman.

[robotlollypopman]

YABU. You seem to want to be offended. You knew what they meant. And in the workplace, I believe women ARE the minority, based on the fact that there are more men in work than women. That's what minority means.

[LolaRennt]

believe there

[LolaRennt]

I think it was a bad headline because it doesn't make sense. I don't believer was a sexist element to it though. just lazy

[LineRunner]

It's an old game, keeping women out of the 'people' category.

There's a documentary on Discovery where an ancient historian talks of 'The Romans' and 'The Celts' trading in commodities such as wine, beer, hunting dogs and women. Straight-faced.

[Insomnia11]

Sloppy grammar I'd say. The point is that more women than men have recently become unemployed as more women than men were employed in the public sector.

[squeakytoy]

No.. you are of course right, I dont know what "most" means

[charitygirl]

LOL Booyhoo!