So the other night I watched Lucy, a highly entertaining movie with an incredibly silly premise: Scarlett Johansson develops superpowers after a drug enables her to use more than the standard 10% of her brain. (Yes, I know, and the film’s director knows, that the idea we use only 10% of our brains is a myth. And that being super smart wouldn’t give you power over the laws of physics.)
Anyway, after watching the film I took a peek at the IMDb message boards to see if anyone had a way to explain one particularly baffling plot point. Someone did. But I also encountered this charming fellow, who started two separate topics in order to express his extreme displeasure that the main character was … a woman:
Bear in mind that this is a science fiction film. In it, Lucy does many things that would be impossible for any human being to do, regardless of gender: she [SPOILER ALERT] causes a dozen men to collapse on the ground with a wave of her hand; she learns a language by overhearing three conversations on the street; she travels through time and meets the original prehistoric Lucy; she grows an extra hand just for the hell of it; and, oh yeah, she turns herself into a tiny computer with a USB plug.
Movie heroes and superheroes, most of them male, do impossible things in action movies all of the time. But somehow I never see any of these guys complaining that Superman can fly or lift cars off the ground or turn an entire lake into ice with his breath.
Even those movie heroes who don’t have superpowers regularly do things that would be impossible for any real human being to do. I mean, have you seen the Crank movies? Or, I dunno, Rambo? Or any of the other gazillion action movies out there with male stars?
Somehow Mr. Comment-Here — and all the other guys who put forward this complaint — have no trouble suspending their disbelief when it comes to male characters doing impossible things. But the idea that a mere “girl” could win a fight with a guy — something that isn’t impossible in real life — breaks their brains.
When another commenter responded to Mr. Comment-Here with a snarky putdown, he offered this odd retort
Looking back through Comment-Here’s previous contributions to the IMDb message boards, I discovered another, er, injustice he seems to care about a lot. In the forum devoted to the 1997 version of Lolita, he wrote:
Evidently the Men’s Rights movement is leaking. .
@Dvarg,
My fairly small younger brother was actually better at pull-ups than a lot of the bulkier guys. He could do more of them, with weights attached and with better form, than the larger bodybuilders could. He might not have been stronger, though he was good overall, especially for his size, but he was more efficient.
10% of your colon. The protagonist can go a really long time without pooping. #highbrow
RE: contrapangloss and katz
If you want to prompt something at the writeathon from that, you are welcome to! Those ideas sound AWESOME! I love ’em. Weird superpowers for the win.
(Also seriously katz, Colon Man’s tag line could be, “YOU’LL SHIT BRICKS.”)
RE: weights
Ooh ooh, me and hubby have been going to the gym twice a week since October! And I’ve gotten a little stronger! It’s really exciting! The vessel will never be bulky or anything, but at least I am gaining a little strength!
@Fromafar: Possibly, but men do tend to have more muscle mass, so comparing men and women of the same weight there’s usually quite a big difference. Add to this that men tend to weigh more…
I wish this wasn’t the case, since I want to be as strong as possible, and it frustrates me that I have to train hard to reach a level that most men start on, and train even harder to become really strong. Nature is fucking unfair.
I used to work the front desk at a YMCA. Nearly every man that came in did strength training. Only a handful of women did. My awesome lady boss (the only management person there, male or female, that wasn’t a horrible toad-like dickbag; she was also like 6’2 and could bench press more than I weighed) tried to put together a “Women on Weights” class that did pretty light, low impact stuff, but ended up having to beg and cajole individual women to join in order to have enough people. Most of the women she asked said they were afraid that if they put on muscle they’d look big and unfeminine; they wanted to be smaller, not bigger.
There are physical differences between men and women. Hormones or something? I’m not a physiologist. But a lot of the differences between the actual physical bodies of men and women that you see are the result of cultural expectations, not biology.
@LBT: Isn’t your vessel pretty skinny? An upside of that is that you don’t need to have that much muscle in order to get visible muscle. It’s always encouraging to actually see a bit of muscle growth. 🙂
Dammit, now I want to draw a poster.
@Zoon: Testosteron has a pretty big impact on muscle development, so that’s the physical difference you start out with. (That’s also why steroids work; they’re similar to testosteron in their effect on the body.) But you’re right that lots of women are ridiculously scared of growing muscle, as if that happens by accident as soon as you look at a dumbell. Culture tends to reinforce the biological differences.
This is why, in my ideal (post-patriarchy) world, we wouldn’t have sports divisions based on gender, but on size/height/muscle mass indicators, like weight divisions in wrestling and boxing. You’d probably end up with mostly women in the very low muscle mass division, and mostly men in the very high muscle mass division, but you’d have both men and women in almost all categories/divisions and probably something approaching parity in the middle divisions. It would give everyone a fair chance to compete against people with similar skills.
Alas, this is not my ideal world 🙁
RE: katz
I REGRET NOTHING.
RE: Dvarghundspossen
Yup, we have a twiggy little vessel. It’s a weird contrast, since my own body is kinda stocky and a little squishy. But yes, it’s so exciting to see tiny bicep bumps growing on my arms. But I’m trying to focus on doing things comfortably, rather than the results.
I am determined to be able to do one pull-up, because I know it can have practical applications to my life. Pull-ups have always been the bane of my existence, and I want to be able to do just one.
And yes, testosterone can affect muscle-building, though it affects folks differently. While I was on T, I did gain strength faster, but I was still pretty puny. It’s not a miracle drug.
(Also, Mac’s pastor’s spouse is dual-gendered, and they mention they don’t want to build muscle mass because it’d contrast with their self-image. They are astonishingly strong and fit though. They’re in their sixties and totally trounce me.)
I think the average man is about 50 pounds more than the average woman, so yeah, in terms of brute physical strength, men are on average significantly stronger. But it’s a little disingenuous to say they’re “the stronger sex.” Men have the advantage in brute physical force and upper-body strength, but lower-body strength wise, men and women are about the same. And women have stronger immune systems, which is frankly just as useful, if not more.
Of course, all of this is bullshit when we’re talking most action movies since a lot of combat is 1) superpowers, where biological physical advantages don’t really matter or 2) weapons, and 3) virtually anyone can be trained to be stronger. (Joseph Greenstein is a good example.)
All this talk of weight lifting…
I was going to go home, play Skyrim and drink whiskey, but now I’m inspired to do some weight lifting instead!
I really should get back into it. It’s been 5 years since I formally trained :/
@Fromafar: I’ve Bern thinking precisely the same thing about sports.
@LBT
You know, after encountering some of the horrid dipshits of the manosphere, there’s times that I’m glad my brain only uses 10% of its capacity. It saves money on bleach.
As for weights, it’s true that meningeneral are physically stronger than womeningeneral – but why is physical strength automatically valued over, say, flexibility, cold tolerance, endurance, grace, balance, and other adaptive physical traits where womeningeneral shine?
MRAs say “Well, let’s see YOU do a pull-up!” as if that’s the be-all and end-all of superiority. I’d like to see THEM do the Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty.**
**No, I wouldn’t. That was purely rhetorical.
Yup. My upper body strength is shit, but let me tell you, I can walk forever and I seem to have decent endurance. I was helping pastor and spouse move all week, hauling boxes, and by the end, I think I was the only person not stiff and sore.
Of course, that the next younger person was still ten years older than me helped. But still. I might not have been able to lift anything heavy, but I was hauling boxes for hours and hours solid and wasn’t breathing hard. So I think I’m in pretty decent shape!
Count me in the “somewhat strong but no endurance” category. I haven’t exercised in years, yet somehow I still have muscle mass and surprise myself with what I can carry. All my endurance from rowing is gone, though, and I start sweating buckets whenever I have to exert myself for more than 10 minutes.
As for why raw strength is valued over anything else… apart from the rules being set by the people who value strength, I think it’s because strength is flashy. It’s impressive to be able to lift some huge weight, and more obvious than the ability to run around for long stretches. We get to value flashy over functional because we don’t need strength in our society. Any sort of hunter would laugh at the body-builders who couldn’t actually do anything useful with all that muscle.
I’m thin, but not necessarily fit. I’ve been trying to do some walking lately, working up to some long distance hikes. Unfortunately, we don’t have many hills around here, which makes it a bit difficult to practice. I really want to get my stamina up, though. My boyfriend and I are planning to climb Snowdon in April and I’m considering doing the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge (24 miles in under 12 hours!) in the fall. I know I’m not fit enough to do it right now, so I’m at that stage where I am really questioning the decision.
…I’m working on developing upper body strength. I can do pull-ups with a ridiculously strong resistance band assisting me, and I’m also trying to loose some extra weight while building the muscle.
I’ve got pretty good jogging endurance on the flat (I can go 3 miles in 50 minutes, without pausing), but I also need to build up my stair climbing skills, too.
I’ve been considering attempting to find a personal trainer, but the pickings are pretty slim because I’m in a small town.
Ooh, I just realized I neglected the most central MRA contradiction:
Women are both physically weaker and intellectually inferior to men and also, they rule the world.
^Cracked’s article on MRAs noted the contradictions right in their stated “Fundamental Beliefs”:
“Women are irrational and inconsistent. … A logical woman is easily baited into becoming emotional; women are easy to compromise.
Women are Machiavellian in nature, this means they are comparatively proficient at being manipulative versus the typical male.
Women love pragmatically and have no capacity to love unconditionally for romantic partners.”
The article’s comment: “Are you sure you aren’t thinking of … like, seven different species from Star Trek?”
I think the troll’s named started with an O – Opie, Otis? I mainly remember him because his arguments were so stupid and he was both sexist and proudly racist. Y’all are right, it was artful how effortlessly and consistently Pecunium smashed him.
(Now I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t summon him. Blech).
Mr. FM and I were discussing physiques the other night (we’re both out of training and while we’re not unhealthy, we would like to get back into fightin’ trim) and this came up. He spent a goodly chunk of his military career supporting Special Forces units, and for the most part the boots on the ground special ops guys were not beefy hulks. There were probably guys in the regular Army who could outlift them. They were fit as hell and strong, but they didn’t have a whole lot of cosmetic muscle on them. As a couple of other people have already mentioned, more muscle is more weight that you’re carrying around, and endurance is key for the kind of work they do. There’s also a whole battery of other requirements and skill sets that they need. Plain strength is important, but it’s only one part of the equation.
So that macho institution, the U.S. military, recognizes that there are other desirable attributes than just muscle. MRA’s would probably say that’s because feminism has watered down the armed forces, and that back in World War II the average soldier could rip a car in half.
(Cool aside: so far six women are cleared to attend U.S. Army Ranger school this year. I’m waiting with bated breath to hear how the haters bloviate if any of them finish, since they’re being held to the same standards as all the male candidates).
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONOOOOOO!!!!! About 25 years ago there was a group – NAMBLA – that was trying to lower the legal age of “consent” to 5 FUCKING YEARS OLD!!!! They actually were on the local news, telling folk – with a straight goddamned face – that children NEED loving, adult, MALES to introduce them to loving relationships.
I wanna KILL SOMETHING!!!!!! Not MY grandchildren, you damn well better not, you evil, horrid, nasty-assed excuses for human beings. ARGHHHH! I am SOOOOO angry right now…
AGH!!! The pedophiles are claiming that their access to children is a CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE!!! Poor ickle peds….no baby sex and you feel sooooo abused….sooooo oppressed.
Well, GOOD! May you all rot in hell for every child you touch.
Sorry…This one really gets to me…for LOTS of reasons.
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http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&ved=0CAgQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2F2013%2F06%2F13%2Frage-gifs%2F&ei=YeL0VNiKIcL1ggTt14LgDA&psig=AFQjCNFDlFf3deG91SBZR9JEhtXty6P5Dg&ust=1425421281637148
http://i.imgur.com/6zTTjuX.gif?1