Migrating cells and the new science of microchimerism

The interesting bit is that almost everyone has a bit of there mother in them, and mothers have bits of their children in them - long after birth.

Language is odd - all depends on how you read a phrase - so some feminist's pushed to replace the phrase 'women and children' with 'women and girls' because they felt women being lumped together with children was demeaning and enforcing stereo-types.

However there are uses of the phrase 'women and girls' which seems to erase boys from the conversation completely - and actually strengthen stereotypes of weak women. For example - the number of women and girls killed in Gaza.

https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/news/2025/05/un-wome...

Aren't small boys likely to be just as innocent ( in fact more so ) than women? Is the death of a 5 year old boy not worthy of counting?

Why not count civilians and children?