[Barry Scrotada]

Even an ostensibly inoffensive field like meteorology can be sexist.
Washington Post link.

But the reasoning does give a chuckle. Basically, when people hear that 'Hurricane Julie' is coming their way, they think, "Eh no big deal it's just a girly storm". Then they stay put and get slammed.

[mikado]

(06-03-2014 07:41 AM)Barry Scrotada Wrote:  

Even an ostensibly inoffensive field like meteorology can be sexist.
Washington Post link.

But the reasoning does give a chuckle. Basically, when people hear that 'Hurricane Julie' is coming their way, they think, "Eh no big deal it's just a girly storm". Then they stay put and get slammed.

[RexImperator]

Maybe should name them after famous generals instead.

"Hurricane Rommel is coming."

"Oh shit!"

Also, a lot of stuff sounds more scary in German.

[Hades]

I'd be cool with naming hurricanes after famous rappers too. Nobody would mess with Hurricane DMX the Notorious Hurricane B.I.G.

[Mage]

So..even female hurricanes exploit female privilege and get a pussy pass.

[polymath]

Call them all Bertha.

Problem solved.

[DjembaDjemba]

I thought this was an onion article headline.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

(06-03-2014 09:01 AM)polymath Wrote:  

Call them all Bertha.

Problem solved.

Not amongst Deadheads. They'll just think of the mellow Garcia/Hunter tune that was a concert favorite (and opened the "Skull & Roses" album) and be lulled into a false sense of complacency.

[lurker]

As a lot of commenters have pointed out, this bit of idiocy was debunked within hours.

Hurricanes received female names only until 1979.
With the exception of Katrina, the most deadly hurricanes occurred in the 1950s and 60s, when accurate forecasting was unavailable.

Thus, the most deadly hurricanes had female names by convention and meteorological limitations, not any inherent sexism by people in their path.

[LaserBear]

[Foolsgo1d]

I personally want to experience a hurricane with as few of my possessions on my person as possible.





So she doesn't take it all.

[Virtus]

Well, now I know why they don't call them himmicanes

[BlurredSevens]

I never understood the tradition of naming hurricanes after people in the first place.

It's kind of fucked up to name a natural destructive force after a person. Makes it unnecessarily personal. Like, imagine if we call AIDS "Sally's Sufferfest" ? That would be weird. Why not just call it a hurricane? There aren't really that many of them. And the truly destructive ones are memorable on their own. Do people really have trouble remembering that a hurricane wrecked New Orleans in 2006?

It's also inconsistent - we name hurricanes after people, but not floods or earthquakes or forest fires or tornadoes?

The whole thing just rubs me the wrong way. It's almost like a form of attention whoring - nobody cares that you survived a hurricane, but tell someone you went through Katrina and they're like OH MY GOD. People are so desperate to assign meaning to their lives that they have resorted to naming storms.

[xpatplayer]

(06-03-2014 09:20 AM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  

I thought this was an onion article headline.

Speaking of which....

Has anyone else who doesn't follow the news closely noticed how Onion-like Washington Post, Time Magazine and a few other progressive news outlets have become?

[puckerman]

What about hurricanes with no names?

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nameles...ying,2273/

[Borealis]

I would also like to know why hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones all refer to the same weather phenomenon. They are all the same shit except they occur in different places. We don't call tornadoes something else when they occur in a different place.