#WTF?!: London Newspaper Calls Female Fire Commissioner “He” In an Article About Sexism

The Evening Standard ran an article about the London Fire Brigade fighting sexism campaign referring to female commissioner Dany Cotton, as “he”.

The article referenced the LFB’s “Firefighting Sexism” campaign, and included comments Cotton had made before to the Standard, but referred to her as “he”. The fire brigade said that the use of the incorrect pronoun highlighted the importance of the campaign, with too many people automatically assuming that the commander would be a man.

London Fire Brigade Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jane Philpott told BuzzFeed News:

“It’s a bit of ‘facepalm’ moment but it outlines how important our #FirefightingSexism campaign is.

Too many people assume that firefighting is a job for a man and that our commissioner is also a man! We have used the term ‘firefighters’ for more than 30 years.”

Several individual firefighters also criticised the newspaper on Twitter, and demanded an apology for the mistake.

Yes, it is a face palm moment compounded by the fact that her name was Dany. (If a man was named Frances, would he get called “she”…?) Hey, whatever happened to that thing called “fact-checking”.

Evening Standard, YA BURNT!