Equally Sad

This morning I was reading this news about an unusually high number of people being killed by lightning in India in the last twenty-four hours and was puzzled by the way they emphasised some of them were women. I understand the death of children may seem particularly tragic, by why would women dying be any more disturbing than men is something I really don't get.

I suppose if we were talking about civilian casualties in a war scenario it could make sense, even though a male civilian is every bit as defenseless as a female one when facing armed and trained soldiers. In a natural disaster context however, the distinction seems accidental and meaningless.