Why is the kidnapping of Nigerian girls of more interest to the mainstream media and governments than the slaughter of Nigerian boys?

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Mike Buchanan

In conflicts in developing countries it’s common to see even young boys carrying firearms. Little interest in the boys’ plight – let alone sympathy for them – is ever displayed by either the mainstream media or politicians. We thanks L for pointing us to a piece concerning Nigeria. Of course we hope every effort is  made to return the kidnapped girls to safety. We just want proportionate concern to be shown towards boys who generally suffer worse outcomes.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/why-did-kidnapping-girls-but-not-burning-boys-alive-wake-media-up-to-boko-haram/

The article ends with this question:

Why did the press spring to action when young women were kidnapped, but were virtually unmoved when it was young boys who were being slaughtered and burned alive?

About Mike Buchanan

I'm a men's human rights advocate, writer, and publisher. My primary focus is leading the political party I launched in 2013, Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them). I still work actively on two campaigns I launched in early 2012, Campaign for Merit in Business and the Anti-Feminism League. In 2014 I launched The Alternative Sexism Project, aiming to raise public understanding that the sexism faced by men and boys has far more grievous consequences than the sexism faced by women and girls.
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  • Mike Porter

    Because female lives are worth more. One of the great (real) inequalities is that being a man means it’s ok if you’re killed. – Why not make all soldiers female? If young women started coming home in body bags war would quickly become impossible.

    Mykter

  • The burning of boys alive by Boko Haram has been going on for at least a year, perhaps several years. Until a month or so ago they simply let the girls go. The Western media sat up and took notice only when girls started to be abducted. Now every time I turn on Radio 4 I hear more reports about the girls but I have yet to hear the BBC mention the boys even in passing. The lovely Deborah Orr in The Guardian on 9/5 complained about the time it had taken the media to report on the girls abduction (a few days), suggesting that it was because “females don’t matter” – this in an article which again made no mention of burning boys alive – probably over a thousand boys by now – and no mention of the length of time that this murdering of boys has been going on. If you can stomach it, watch Michelle Obama’s video on YouTube. Straight out of the feminist propaganda instruction book, ranting about the education of girls – and no mention of boys being killed. These vile people are using the atrocities of Boko Haram as a propaganda opportunity for feminism. The deaths of boys is being presented by the British media as violence against women.

  • Yes this story combines two common themes. A age old desire to protect , and be seen to protect , girls and women. Hence the somewhat disturbing parade of ” statesmen” offering somewhat late ( and for the Nigerian Gov. irritating ) help to find the abducted girls. And the narrative linking this particular event , in a war of vicious events , with the much less desperate ” whines” of western ” feminists”. Sadly the 21st. Century presents many such vicious local wars with terrorism and squalid acts . If ever there needed to be proof of the animus to protect and serve females the huge efforts and even more the hot air expended ( with no actual serious assistance) on this case should reassure females the “west” really does value them. I do have sympathy for the Nigerian government now faced with a series of western groups of ” experts” wandering volatile areas and needing protection. And this a nasty little war gets coopted into the politicking of smug western political elites .