Today it seems I've read the phrase one too many times about the killing of women and children. This saddens me on so many levels but right now also leaves me cross, for perhaps a surprising reason.
What is it about the death of women and children that upsets us more than the death of a man? Why do we feel that men are more expendable, their deaths more legitimate and justifiable?
Conversely what are we saying by being shocked only by the death of certain parts of our population? We attribute "innocence" to women, as though they must always take the role of victims and couldn't be activists or protagonists. There's an assumption that some people maybe have brought it on themselves, and others didn't deserve to die.
I don't think ANY death is deserved, whether someone is actively involved in fighting, or a passerby. As a pacifist, I am horrified by all the current warfare, and feel a massive amount of sadness as we commemorate 100 years since the start of WW1. I am outraged at the loss of any life and think we get into dangerous waters if we start deciding that some deaths are more noteworthy than others, if we get upset by the death of some because of their gender, and are hardened to the deaths of others as if they are less significant cos they happened to have descended testicles.
And what if we stopped counting the war dead on each "side", and mourned every single loss of life as one too many?
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