The death toll at the Turkey mine disaster has now reached 232, and “hopes are diminishing” for the many others still trapped. Women aren’t mentioned, so we can assume the dead are men.
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First: Thoughts and love to all those who have suffered and are suffering right now in Soma, Turkey.
As demonstrated with the gone viral #BringBackOurGirls campaign, and the lack of mention about the 59 boys who were burned alive at the hands of Boko Haram just a few months prior, the genderfication of tragedy often has a serious impact on the world.
For starters, language matters. A tragic event’s emotional impact is immediately intensified by use of the phrase “girls,” “women” or a combination of the two. When there’s simply and only a mention of “body count” though, or a “death toll,” or when there’s just a number… it’s often because the dead are men. There’s an unspoken assumption that our society has accepted—that when the dead are men there’s no need to genderfy and no need to heighten the emotional nature of the event. It’s heartbreaking but it doesn’t pull our hearts out.
Many of the issues I wrote about in The Disposability of Boys apply equally to men. When it comes to sheer numbers, men over 18 are quite possibly the most disposable human beings on earth. Unfortunately the mine disaster in Turkey is yet another example of this.
Consider the following:
Soma Komur Isletmeleri A.S., which owns the mine, said in an article on Al Jazeera that the accident occurred even despite the “highest safety measures and constant controls” and they went on to say that an investigation is being launched to find the cause. That very same article ends on this note:
“Mining accidents are common in Turkey, which is plagued by poor safety conditions.”
Upon further thought on these disparate statements on safety I realized that the final line is just a politically-friendly way of saying two things:
(1) That men are disposable
(2) …and likewise (as I applaud The Guardian for rightly pointing out): That the lack of strong unions has “…led to massive pressure on workers to produce as much as possible for as little cost as possible.”
Regarding the likelihood of “an investigation” being launched I found an article in The Wall Street Journal that said:
“Following a series of accidents and deaths last year in the same Soma region where Tuesday’s accident occurred, Ozgur Ozel, a lawmaker who represents the region with the main opposition Republican People’s Party, in October submitted a proposal to investigate the incidents and identify those responsible. The measure was defeated by the governing Justice and Development Party in the Ankara parliament on April 29.”
Justice and Development Party? Really? JULIET appears above at a window: What’s in a name?
Slavery runs supreme in places where workers have nobody to stick up for them. This has been the case in every country where I’ve researched slavery, and it’s a major theme that runs throughout Disposable People, the masterpiece by Kevin Bales that gave rise to the modern anti-slavery movement. But what about the ideology spreading throughout the US which states that we should crush unions so Americans can truly prosper? It’s an absolute shame and is a result of many variables— from excluding labor union information in our history textbooks and living privileged lives without thought about where that privilege came from all the way to the American superiority complex and the Koch brothers’ propaganda money machine that fuels more union-busting commercials, lobbying and shop meetings than we may ever realize.
Since I started writing this piece six more miners have been declared dead, bringing the total human deaths to 238, which means 120 more humans remain trapped. Whether they are men and/or women we don’t know, but we know. We know they are precious human lives who loved and were loved and will be loved.
I’m reminded of our need to better embrace this philosophy:
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–Feature Photo: AP
If you want an example for media bias against men, there’s a good one on feminist critics.
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2014/05/17/more-workplace-gender-lies-from-huffpo-noh/#more-5166
No doubt our culture, as all cultures, is plagued by infuriating and destructive double standards. We need to fight all of them and not rest until equality of all humans regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, orientation or any physical and mental attributes, is the norm. However, there is a larger overriding issue here and that is the disposable nature of human culture mixed in with extreme wealth in the hands of a few and the misery and desperation of the extreme poverty of billions. History is filled with stories of the rich and powerful abusing the poor and helpless. But… Read more »
There is a companion complaint you might be interesting in looking for when reading media reports. Look at the genders of the rescuers. They’ll (probably) be all or nearly all men, but their genders will be hidden. Stories won’t use policeman or firemen. It will use police officer, trooper, or fire fighter. When men are the bad guys though, gender is sometimes stated. They’ll use gunman instead of shooter, etc. The media has gotten better at that and I suspect there are probably some instances where you’ll see the reverse, but if it occurs, it will most likely be men… Read more »
Look at the genders of the rescuers. They’ll (probably) be all or nearly all men, but their genders will be hidden. Stories won’t use policeman or firemen. It will use police officer, trooper, or fire fighter. When men are the bad guys though, gender is sometimes stated. They’ll use gunman instead of shooter, etc.
But at the same time if the rescuer is a woman there’s a chance that her gender will be a part of the story.
You cant possibly think that women are put in a good light by the media. The media paints most people negatively because negativity sells… they tend towards portraying women as victims and maybe you are confusing that with positive but the media is horrible in its representation of women generally speaking. I feel what some people seem to be missing is that in the media “Men” are the assumed to be the “norm” in the same way that white or straight is assumed when not specified. To not specifying male is not a lable of less valuable and more that… Read more »
I feel what some people seem to be missing is that in the media “Men” are the assumed to be the “norm” in the same way that white or straight is assumed when not specified. To not specifying male is not a lable of less valuable and more that people who are not male are others and need to be pointed out as such. Its not that its missing its just that we know that that doesn’t explain the way male victims are treated in the media. If men being the norm is why male victims aren’t specified by gender… Read more »
They say the actual number of the people trapped in the mine is over 500. Not all the workers are registered. There is even a 15 year old boy who lost his life. The government has neglected the safety if the operation. The company which runs the mine has other business deals with the government. God! I don’t know where to begin and end! Horrible! Not just this tragedy, we live in a different kind of tragedy every day!
The Nigerian terrorists are just applying a lesson that the world media taught them. Kidnap boys, shoot them in the head, burn them alive, and the world doesn’t rgive a damn. Based on this feedback, they felt pretty confident they could kidnap girls without any repercussions, either. Taking 60 kids was no big deal. They were probably emboldened to try a bigger operation. I suspect what’s happening is a total culture shock. Total incomprehension. The Boko Haram are from a society that values boys more than girls, while the Western media values girls over boys. The terrorists figured if outsiders… Read more »
I have been curious if the public reaction would have been different if the response to the Nigerian kidnappings was about “our children” instead of “our girls.” Yes, the kids most recently kidnapped were all female, but the gender-specific language seems very odd. “They could be my daughters” is all well and good, but wouldn’t a campaign reach more people if it said “they could be our children”? The gender specificity seems selective, because you’d never know from the media coverage that it’s not just men who might sell girls into slavery — women also sell daughters into slavery. (Women… Read more »
One of the big reasons for the push to “save the girls” is because people who are still alive and sold into slavery have a much better chance of being saved than those who were already burned to death. I believe the story would have been different if the girls were dead. Secondly boys are not systematically denied an education around the world in the same way that girls and women are so there is inherently a much more loaded dynamic at work there.
Boys may not be the one’s excluded from education. They are the ones who are often killed, given AK 47s & forced to fight in wars, the last people mentioned in all tragedies. Please go espouse your sexist nonsense somewhere else.
Thanks very much for this article. God bless u