The Independent has somehow managed to conjure up a sexism row around Storm Eunice by claiming Brits aren’t as scared of the winds as they should be because the storm has a feminine name:

“there’s a bank of fascinating psychological research to back up the fact that overall, female-titled storms and hurricanes are in fact far more deadly.

Why? Because people don’t take them as seriously; so don’t take as many precautions to protect themselves, and there are consequently more deaths. That’s right: storms are sexist.”

The author, Victoria Richards, goes on to claim that Storm Eunice gives us “an opportunity: both to look at ourselves, to do some rigorous self-analysis – and, most importantly, to stay indoors.” There’s just one problem with Victoria’s culture war-stoking claim: it’s nonsense…

Richards cites a 2014 paper, “Female hurricanes are deadlier than male hurricanes”, which has since been debunked. In 2015 a review of the paper – “Hurricane names: A bunch of hot air?” – fact-checked the claims of sexism, concluding that the “reported relationship is not robust in that it is not confirmed by a straightforward analysis of more inclusive data or different data.”:

“The assertion that female-named storms are deadlier than male-named storms is not robust, evidently because it relied on the questionable statistical analysis of a narrowly defined set of data.”

Another reminder that it’s the liberal left who claim right-wingers are the ones stoking a culture war…