- Science
- Not Exactly Rocket Science
Why Have Female Hurricanes Killed More People Than Male Ones?
Here’s a simple fact with an uncertain explanation: historically, hurricanes with female names have, on average, killed more people than those with male ones.
Why?
The names certainly don’t reflect a storm’s severity, and they alternate genders from one to the next.
Jung team thinks that the effect he found is due to unfortunate stereotypes that link men with strength and aggression, and women with warmth and passivity. Thanks to these biases, people might take greater precautions to protect themselves from Hurricane Victor, while reacting more apathetically to Hurricane Victoria. “These kinds of implicit biases routinely affect the way actual men and women are judged in society,” says Sharon Shavitt, who helped to design the study. “It appears that these gender biases