14 year old female activist and BBC-Blogger shot in Pakistan
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Were the article simply "blogger shot for blogging" would anyone be questioning whether it belonged here? I doubt it.
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Many of the comments seem to indicate a faulty English parser.
The fact that she is 14, and her gender, are presented as identifying information in the title. It's not a reference to what she advocates for, any more than the fact that she is 14 identifies that she advocates for people aged 14. Her sex is presented in the title because a 14 year-old girl being shot tugs at the heart strings more than a 30 year-old man being shot, so you will click the link.
One of the Taliban's aim is to oppress women. In addition, many stories come from Pakistan about attacks on women by the general population.
So yes, the reproductive organs of the victim are a key part of the story and should be reflected in the headline.
Maybe you should read the article before posting?
I agree with other commenters who question whether HN is really the place for this post, but that the regime over there would do this to a 14-year-old girl to enforce their ideology regarding women makes both her age and her gender extremely relevant.
Sexual inequality isn't just an injustice of the commons over there - it is both the letter of the law and the spirit of the law in many (though certainly not all, it should be said) parts of the middle east.
If she were protesting/blogging/what-ever in Moscow, London or New York then you might well be right to question the significance of gender - but not in this case IMO.
Can you elaborate, with specific examples, of which parts of the middle east have gender equality, or some approximation thereof?
And anyway those changes are slow in coming as the "moderates" have to be very careful not to push too far too fast and risk having the traditionalists who are often significant in number twanging back and undoing the good work for years to come. So maybe my "but not all" was overly generous to those in power out there who are more progressive than the norm.
But there are places where the law is at least heading in the right direction with women being officially banned from less things, and I wouldn't want to tar them with the same brush as those areas that are definitely backwards in all matters.
Oddly enough Iraq, pre Bush2 and his mate Tony, was one of the freer places in that region for Women, by quite some margin (they could be educated with few threatening to stone them for their efforts). Unfortunately the current unstable state of the region gives the zealots a significant amount of sway so women who want to be more than a trophy/utensil now have more fear in their lives. How easily the instability there enabled that situation to change so markedly shows how fragile such progress can be.