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| Most 12-year-old girls are not superheroines. |
One of my favorite dopey complaints from the Men’s Rights crowd is that action movies featuring ass-kicking women are “unrealistic” because real women are too dainty to do all that ass-kicking shit. On The Spearhead today, W.F. Price aims his withering contempt at the new film Hanna:
The ass-kicking chick flicks are getting more and more ridiculous as time goes on. In “Hanna” a girl is raised by her father to be a vicious killer somewhere in the arctic. Hanna is played by Saoirse Ronan, an Irish girl with a sweet smile who looks about as tough as a bunny rabbit. Nevertheless, we are supposed to suspend disbelief and accept that this waif is capable of breaking necks with a single blow.
Even worse, in the trailer for the film, young Miss Ronan is depicted doing … pull-ups! “In general, women can’t do pull-ups,” Price complains, “and the vanishingly few who can don’t look much like Saoirse Ronan.”
Price does have a point. Real women can’t do the things that female action heroes do in films. Angelina Jolie may be a deeply scary woman, but I’m pretty sure she can’t take out entire boats full of trained assassins by herself, or jump from truck to truck on the highway to escape pursuers in cars, as she did as super seekret double (triple?) agent Evelyn Salt. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Sarah Michelle Gellar has never really slain even a single vampire. And there is no such thing as an indestructible cheerleader.
But here’s the thing, guys: All that crazy shit that male action stars do? Real men can’t do that either. Matt Damon is pretty buff, and I’m pretty sure he could take Angelina Jolie in a fight, but he’s not actually Jason Bourne. Christian Bale doesn’t put on a batsuit at night and run around town taking out baddies with his bare – well, gloved — hands. Toby Maguire can’t swing from building to building, or stick to walls; if he were bitten by a radioactive spider, he’d need to go to the hospital. Arnold is not the Terminator.
Also, and I hate to be the one who has to break this to you, guys: professional wrestling is fake.
I know it might be tough to take all this in, guys, so here’s Captain Kirk fighting a very slow-moving alien monster on planet Not-Very-Far-From-The-Studio. Kirk has a little trouble with this one but in real life, I’m pretty sure William Shatner could take down an alien monster, provided it moved as slowly as this one.
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>Yep-I think that is why archery stopped being an Olympic sport-women were outperforming men and their delicate little egos were unable to handle the strain.
>Yep-I think that is why archery stopped being an Olympic sport-women were outperforming men and their delicate little egos were unable to handle the strain.If they'd listened to those legends about the Amazons they would have seen it coming.
>There's no reason that women and men can't compete directly in many sports—-except for one thing: dudes don't want to be beaten by women.(ginmar)I dont like getting beat by anyone. That's just my competitive spirit. As far as women competing with men I think that would be a great idea. But once you reach a certain level the playing field would definately not be equal, well, at least in the vast majority of sports, archery excluded of course.
>I would imagine that SF soldiers generally have less to prove–when you walk the walk, you don't have to talk the talk so much.
>The thing that was so notable at Basic was how many women had had these huge taboos beaten into them about doing guy stuff. Couldn't hit, couldn't stand proudly, couldn't do pushups, pullups, all that stuff. Most of the women and girls had never done so much as a single pushup in their lives. Why? It's a guy thing. Girls aren't supposed to do that. That's a life time of inhibition beaten into them. And I noticed that the short women had an advantage in pushups, too: it's easier for shorter women and men to do them well than it is for tall macho guys—-think about the position you're in when you're doing them. That's a lot of real estate to support on four points. If men are so strong and all that, how come women have to be trained from birth to weaken themselves and keep themselves weak? By the end of Basic, everybody was doing a minimum of good twenty pushups, bouncing off the ground and feeling strong.
>So Tit for Tat knows that men are just naturally better than women, despite not reading anything or offering a cite. I already recommended two books. See, some of us bother to read shit instead of just going along with the status quo. Again, if men are so much stroner and faster wouldn't that tend to prove that women are not lying when they say that men have attacked them? Power corrupts and all that.
>Notice how competition is set up to meet a male standard, with men as the model, that women have to meet. Let's see women set the standards and men meet them then, shall we?
>@Cynickal.Actually, I do know about Aikindo, Kung Fu, Tai Chi.I watch these movies, I never see any women using any martial arts moves.It is called wire-fighting dumbo.
>S/he wasn't talking about movies alone, dumb ass.
>Again, if men are so much stroner and faster wouldn't that tend to prove that women are not lying when they say that men have attacked them?(ginmar)Yes it would. I never said or implied that wasnt the case. Just because certain men believe that doesnt mean you should paint us all with the same brush. Now if you dont like some men lying about that then why not acknowledge the truth that on average women cant compete equally with men in the majority of sports. Why try to perpetuate a false premise. Oh here is one example, I could find more if you would like.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_metres#Top_ten_all-time_athletes.E2.80.94menhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_metres#Top_ten_all-time_athletes.E2.80.94womenNotice the times for the most elite of both sexes. Not quite equal, is it?
>You're citing Wikipedia? Really? You do realize that women were not allowed to compete in the Boston Marathon till 1976, right? That's a lot of ground to make up for. Womens' sports programs had to contend with concerns about 'ladylike' outfits and behavior, which inhibits performance. Yet what are you worried? The threat to so-called male supremacy, which is gained only after centuries of corsets, foot-binding, high heels, pregnancies, and so forth. Let's see your ass run a four-minute mile if every single one of your ancestors had to contend with all that shit. And stop whining about painting men with the same brush, blah blah blah. When somebody talks about women being attacked and men being guilty, and your first response is to whine about men and make some accusation about women, you just revealed that you don't think attacks upon women bother you at all.
>ginmarThe more you talk, the more you sound like the MRA you so despise, wow.
>Boston Marathon – ResultsBoston, MA USAApril 19, 2010Finishers: 22540, Males – 13072 , Females – 9468 Male Winner: 2:05:52 | Female Winner: 2:26:11Close result, very competitiveI dont think either one ran it in heels though. 😉
>Women are better equipped than men to handle scuba diving, space flights, and extra G-forces. Perhaps we should re-organize things so that the Navy, the Air Force, and NASA are predominantly female, while leaving the rest of it to the men. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567569/Women-divers-outdo-men-study-claims.htmlhttp://www.redorbit.com/news/space/112399/why_women_are_better_astronauts_than_men/Though, to be fair, it does seem like a great deal of men's disadvantages underwater spring from socially learned behaviors rather than biology. Much like the differential in spatial reasoning between men and women, it could easily be corrected for with a little bit of education.
>Even if men, on average, tend to be able to lift more weight or complete a marathon 20 minutes quicker than a woman… Who fucking cares? I don't know *any* person, male or female, who can shoot sticky webs out of their wrists, fire two weapons simultaneously while somersaulting through a return barrage of gunfire, fight with light sabers, is long lost royalty or once managed to beat the Nazis to a mythical artifact. If you want realism in film, stick to documentaries. Otherwise, complaining about superhero women being 'unrealistic' while you happily sat through the Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies without once bitching about them being 'unrealistic' just makes you look like… wait for it… it's coming…. a misogynist
>Whatever physical differences exist on average between men and women aren't as important as people make them out to be anyway. Take a situation I've long been interested in: physical standards for joining the military. They have a different set of requirements for men and women. Predictably, this is one of the things MRAs moan about – in their view, the feminazis are grabbing the military by the balls and forcing them to lower their standards because otherwise those inferior wimminz would never be able to get in. Of course, if MRAs were right about women in general, you wouldn't have women even trying to join the military, but leave that aside. (con'td next post)
>I have a solution that would make everybody happy (well, everybody who's being intellectually honest about why they're unhappy): Keep the two sets of physical standards, but remove the gender differential. Now everybody is measured by *both* sets of standards. Those who break the first threshold but not the second are eligible for support roles (which is what most servicemen and -women are anyway). Those who break both thresholds are eligible for combat roles. Regardless of gender.Everyone's complaints are addressed: women are no longer held to a different standard. Women are now allowed in combat. And men can't complain that women are weakening combat units because the women in those combat units had to measure up to the same standards.
>Perhaps we should re-organize things so that the Navy, the Air Force, and NASA are predominantly female, while leaving the rest of it to the men.(Sally)Maybe. If there not equal in abilities then maybe they shouldnt have the job.
>T4T, the overlap in ability between genders is so enormous that it renders the idea of sex-specific service ridiculous anyway. Like in basketball, if you did it just by height you'd certainly get a preponderance of men but there's also be a few giant ladies in the mix as well. With space flight, if you did it just by physical ability to handle the extra G's and the lack of gravity, there'd be a preponderance of women but it defies reason to think that such standards would end up excluding all men.
>T4t: I notice that everybody who's so concerned about women and their lower standards never display any concern about older male soldiers in combat. They're sure as hell not passing the eighteen-year-old male physical standard, yet not one person who bellyaches about women ever mentions them. And the fact is, gender is no measure of fitness for combat. I've seen grown men break and young girls square their shoulders and tell the CO that they're volunteering to take the place of female soldiers killed that very morning.
>What's up, Ginmar? I assume you're the same Ginmar who left Jezebel more than a year ago… I'm Valkyrie607. SallyStrange is my other 'nym. Well-met on the internet!
>Yeah, as a law student, I know societies settle all of their differences with foot races and arm wrestling competitions. I do not take four hour exams or civil procedure and do well, instead I loose in sprints. Might as well drop out…PS tools like levers, guns, and vehicles are for manginas.
>They're sure as hell not passing the eighteen-year-old male physical standard, yet not one person who bellyaches about women ever mentions them.(ginmar)Actually I bellyache about this all the time. Have a standard and stick to it. Dont dumb down for fat out of shape men or weaker men, and dont dumb it down for weaker women. Unfortunately that sometimes happens in certain industries. That is where the problems arise also.SallyIm not sure of an industry in the west where ALL women are excluded either. Do you?
>Im not sure of an industry in the west where ALL women are excluded either. Do you? Hmm. Let's see, law, medecine, teaching (university level) research, accounting, business, politics… that is, up until 50-100 years ago. But that doesn't have anything to do with anything, really, just another case of you demonstrating how grindingly awful you are with reading comprehension skills and logical reasoning. Seriously, it's like nails on a chalkboard.
>Well not since 1991 when the Supreme Court said quit it when barring women of child bearing age if men are not being excluded.