Pour one out for logic, common sense, all of humanity and basically everything that ever existed because there’s really no point anymore.
According to a new study, female-named hurricanes kill more people because no one takes them seriously. Because they have feminine names. Like Linda. Linda’s such a bitch.
AND I AGREE. What woman could knock down a house? That’s a man’s job. To do with an axe.
I wish I was kidding about this, but six decades of research apparently proves the trend.
Researchers at the University of Illinois and Arizona State University examined six decades of hurricane death rates according to gender, spanning 1950 and 2012. Of the 47 most damaging hurricanes, the male-named hurricane produced an average of 23 deaths compared to 45 deaths for female-named hurricanes, or almost double the number of fatalities. (The study excluded Katrina and Audrey, outlier storms that would skew the model).
Okay, but that could just be a coincidence, right? Nope. Nep. Nein.
To test the hypothesis the gender of the storm names impacts people’s judgments about a storm, the researchers set up 6 experiments presenting a series of questions to between 100 to 346 people. The sexism showed up again.
Respondents predicted male hurricanes to be more intense the female hurricanes in one exercise. In another exercise, the hurricane sex affected how respondents said they would prepare for a hurricane.
“People imagining a ‘female’ hurricane were not as willing to seek shelter,” Shavitt said. “The stereotypes that underlie these judgments are subtle and not necessarily hostile toward women – they may involve viewing women as warmer and less aggressive than men.”
HA. HA. HA. HA. HA. HA. HA.
How the fuck can people build iPhones and still be so dumb?
I should also note here that some people think this study is bunk. Derive your own conclusions.
[Image via Shutterstock]