Quote:
Originally Posted by jammies
The sentence implies, to the reader who has no knowledge of Jyoti, that she is a visible minority because she is a woman. It is poorly worded, sure, but that's my point - the wording wasn't corrected when reviewing and editing most likely because the author thinks of women as a minority.
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Or it could be the sentence is a list of 3 things that make the candidates unique among Calgary mayors
"both visible minorities" - this is correct they are both people of colour
"one the city’s first Muslim leader" - this is also correct, and depending on your opinion of whether or not being Muslim makes one a visible minority, is likely/at least possibly separate from that distinction
"the other the first woman" - this is also correct, and separate from her distinction as a visible minority
Looks pretty likely to me that that is a list of 3 distinct descriptions of the last 2 mayors, not one description followed by explanation of what it means for each person.
Hell, let's say he did mean Jyoti was a visible minorty because she is a woman (and not because she is actually a visible minority), in the sense of civic politics, both historically and currently, women are underrepresented which might lead some people to consider them, in terms of representation on city council, to be a visible minority.
I don't see a lot in there that is, as you call it, "Deceptive" or "insidious distortion".
But yeah, you're right, this is functionally the same as white dudes who think they are oppressed because they think they are technically a minority.
Realistically, it couldn't be further from the opposite of that, in that White men, while technically a minority, are not oppressed nor do they typically face any institutional/systematic challenges.
Women on the other hand, while technically a majority, are to some degree appressed, and do face institutional/systematic challenges.
So while it's not technically correct to refer to women as a minority, in a functional way, they often are.