Look at the title of this news story. How could the gender matter?

[RB TexLa]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080102/ts_nm/iraq_dc_10

Female suicide bomber kills 10 in Iraq

By Peter Graff
42 minutes ago



BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A female suicide bomber killed 10 people in Iraq on Wednesday, the latest in a string of suicide bombings that has seen a major strike nearly every day of the past week despite an overall decline in violence.

The woman blew herself up with an explosive vest at a checkpoint of neighborhood patrol volunteers in Baquba, capital of the restive Diyala province. Twenty-eight people were wounded including some women, police said.

The attack came the day after a bomber detonated his explosive vest in a tent crowded with mourners at a Baghdad funeral. Police raised the death toll from that strike to 34, making it the worst in the capital in six months

[trotsky]

1. Details that are out of the ordinary tend to get reported.

Female suicide bombers are pretty rare. Not making excuses, just noting how the media works.

[Fierce]

2. Because it's unusual.

Although it's getting more common, it's still unusual.

[Captain Hilts]

3. People assume women doing this is an act of desperation by those forcing her to do so...

women are never credited with believing in the cause they die for. It's always 1) revenge for men in their lives that have been killed 2) or they are being forced to do so.

While these two motivations might be very common among female suicide bombers, at least once I'd like to see a reference to one that simply believed in the cause for the same reasons as everybody else and gave her life for it, just as men do.

[iamahaingttta]

4. I think it matters.

I think men in oppressed societies, ones that are paternalistic in the first place, tend to fall into despair and violence much more easily than women. When the women in a macho culture blow themselves up, it means things are really REALLY bad.

Think of it genetic/evolutionary terms. Males are largely dispensable. If a quarter of the males in a society blow themselves up, the ones that are left can still impregnate most of the females. If the females start blowing themselves up, and enough of them do that, that dooms the society.

I'm pretty sure that Peter Graff of Reuters wasn't thinking in those terms. Just my two cents.

[MADem]

5. Because female suicide bombers are still very rare. Female bombers are out of the norm. NT