Abstract

Abstract:

This article reviews the history of the hurricane naming system between the 1950s and 1970s. Introduced publicly as a female-only naming system in 1954 by the US Weather Bureau, hurricane names and the sexualized descriptions that followed incited outrage from the first year of use. It took twenty-five years of protest, however, to officially change the naming system to the alternating male/female list used today. Through a look at three activists' stories of protest, in context with other feminist discourse about sexist language in US society, it is possible to see a larger picture of the reaction to feminism in everyday life. Ending with recent discourse on the effects of hurricane names, this article draws conclusions about the historical effects of gendering natural disaster.

pdf

Share