The phrase "innocent women and children" is sexist, racist and inaccurate

DarkBehindTheStars · 2026-03-27T20:05:41+00:00

Felt the progress flair was appropriate for this but if the moderators feel different they can re-flair it. I felt it counted as progress for this saying to be called out for being blatantly sexist.

Good article that's well worth a read. What's refreshing is that it was a woman calling out and criticizing this phrase, and she's right on the money. I've ranted many times before how I've never liked this phrase for clearly being sexist to men and exclusionary of them. The notion that men make up the majority of combatants and women/children don't, what about the majority of men who also aren't combatants in war zones? They suddenly don't matter? What about the innocent non-combatant men who are killed during terrorist attacks or natural disasters? It's an archaic phrase long overdue to be stricken. Props to this woman for this. This is gender equality, both men and women sticking up for each other and helping each other out when either faces injustice. And as a very liberal person, this is also a nice example of being liberal, which is acknowledging and inclusive of all, not just a select few.

Specific_Detective41 · 2026-03-28T04:10:25+00:00

Good article. I'm glad someone is calling it for what it is. Apart from the blatant racism and sexism when using that phrase it's also dehumanising. It implies that the lives of non white people and men are not important.

POO_IN_A_LOO · 2026-03-28T11:51:24+00:00

Exactly. I live in London, and in the most recent London terror attack, Theresa May talked about innocent people. And we often talk about innocent civilians, innocent men, women, and children, if we're talking about our own population being under attack. We don't just highlight women and children as the lives that are worth grieving, or the lives that we care about.

Innocent men? The usual reporting is that this is how many people died, including women and children or some roundabout way but I have never seen or heard the words 'innocent men'. But now that you're talking about refugees, a topic that sparks empathy, you had to come up with some excuse or justification for not having paid attention to this before and all you had was "oh yeah we totally talk about innocent men all the time in the west". Way to miss the mark.

Fluffy_Anything_3559 · 2026-03-28T16:25:24+00:00

A few years ago in my country there was a case where a soldier punched a woman in the street and it was treated as a national emergency. Government officials were talking about it for weeks.

On the same day a homeless man was beaten to death in a random attack and I saw exactly one headline about it.

This is my primary issue with feminism. Random assaults are an issue that disproportionately affect men (but really it can affect anyone so there's no reason to make it a gendered issue), but feminists made it out that it was men as a whole constantly assaulting women.

The issue should not be portrayed as "men vs women", it's "violent scumbags vs everyone else". But they just don't care when men are the victims of violence. I don't even think it's malicious, it just doesn't even register with them that men can suffer.

SKRyanrr · 2026-03-28T13:24:59+00:00

Men are disposable to society while women treated like cattles. Shits fucked up for everyone.

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papyup · 2026-03-27T20:58:48+00:00

While I feel the same way, there is still a reason to use it in war reporting: “women and children” pretty indisputably shows that non-combatants have been killed.

If men are included in the count, then the assumption most people will make is that combatants were killed.

And there’s no way to change that.

Title	The phrase "innocent women and children" is sexist, racist and inaccurate
Author	DarkBehindTheStars
Upvotes	200
Comments	36
Date	March 27, 2026 8:02 PM UTC (3 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1s5eyxi/the_phrase_innocent_women_and_children_is_sexist/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/the-phrase-innocent-women-and-children-is-sexist.1576535 https://theredarchive.com/post/1576535

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