If you listened to 90s indie group Space, you’ll remember them sing ‘the female of the species is more deadlier than the male.’
It seems that the same can be said for hurricanes in the USA, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Statistics show that storms with female names – like the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans – kill more people than those with male names.
Research since 1950 shows that in 47 of the most damaging storm events to strike the US, those with female names caused an average of 45 deaths compared to 23 deaths with those given a bloke’s name.
Why the hell is that, you might ask?
According to new research it is because Americans don’t take hurricanes as seriously if they have a feminine name like Katrina or Audrey.
This contempt for dangerous storms with girly names appears to lead to more deaths because people don’t consider them as risky.
“[Our] model suggests that changing a severe hurricane’s name from Charley … to Eloise … could nearly triple its death toll,” the study says.
It’s all down to ‘implicit sexism’ the study claims, which means that people infer that a hurricane will be less strong or devastating because it has a female name.
So, so stupid but apparently true
