I'd like to present the idea that, in the West, there's the perception that women and children are the most helpless because we believe they had absolutely nothing at all to do with any of the decisions that cost them their lives. They truly are considered "innocent " in a way that men (the ones making the decisions that got them killed) are not. Part of this is the acknowledgment that there is a patriarchy and that it is primarily men who are the ones in charge of making the decisions about war.

I don't believe this is a hard and fast rule or anything. Women can and have made such decisions in the past, and the Vast majority of the men who are dying in Palestine (for example) didn't have anything at all to do with the choices that got made either, and their lives are no less precious. They too are someone's father, brother, uncle, and husband.