Considering her culture's attitude toward females, it may very well be that she was old enough to be married, but, being female, would be treated as a child all her life.
Yeah, I think that's one of the complications here - discrimination and abuse don't draw much distinction between girls and adult women, so it makes sense for "women's rights" to encompass both of them. I guess "female humans" would remove the ambiguity, but to my ear that sounds a bit... impersonal, maybe?
And thanks for being so understanding - looking back, I can see that it wasn't at all clear from my original post that the scope of what I was saying wasn't the same as the scope of the article that provoked it. If that makes any sense.
It was also the article you linked to that added to my angst; the first three words of the subheading are "a young woman..."
In this specific case, the victim was a girl, not a woman. This is so common.
Remember the crime in Iraq where some soldiers raped a girl and then killed her family in front of her before killing her? She was a child too, but our press insisted on calling her a young woman.
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Date: 2008-11-08 12:27 am (UTC)Yeah, I think that's one of the complications here - discrimination and abuse don't draw much distinction between girls and adult women, so it makes sense for "women's rights" to encompass both of them. I guess "female humans" would remove the ambiguity, but to my ear that sounds a bit... impersonal, maybe?
And thanks for being so understanding - looking back, I can see that it wasn't at all clear from my original post that the scope of what I was saying wasn't the same as the scope of the article that provoked it. If that makes any sense.
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Date: 2008-11-08 12:38 pm (UTC)In this specific case, the victim was a girl, not a woman. This is so common.
Remember the crime in Iraq where some soldiers raped a girl and then killed her family in front of her before killing her? She was a child too, but our press insisted on calling her a young woman.