Sexism Meets Ableism

My local newspaper aired a short article (or a long obituary?) today about a mentally handicapped 25-year-old woman who wandered into the highway and was hit by a car. I found the whole situation very upsetting, but I was even more troubled by the way my newspaper reported it.

The journalist repeatedly refers to the deceased woman as a “girl”, while all other news articles and obituaries clearly call people over 18 “men” and “women”. I understand that someone with significant cognitive delays may seem childlike to her family and caregivers, but I think it’s really inappropriate to write about disabled women as if they are children. Even if her intellectual capacity was limited, that isn’t a reason to posthumously insult her by insinuating that she isn’t an adult.

Even more annoying– I dug through the newspaper’s online archives and found at least one article where they refer to a mentally handicapped 19-year-old as a man, rather than a boy.

Methinks a letter to the editor is in order.