I think you're forgetting what he does later on in the movie. He's no longer a good guy by the time he dies, because he has a character arc, growth, purpose, you know, those things Dawes really didn't have.
Men Are The Expendable Gender
- Thread starter Hermiod
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I think you're forgetting what he does later on in the movie. He's no longer a good guy by the time he dies, because he has a character arc, growth, purpose, you know, those things Dawes really didn't have.
Hermiod's issue is with fiction rather than reality and he has a point. If Science Fiction is fiction then arguably women should be as expendable as men. I would say that both Star Trek and BSG acquitted themselves well in this respect. When the people were at war, women were in the firing line as well as men. Women were killed as well as men.
Hmm, I'll say one more thing here. Now I don't know Hermiod at all. I'm defending him here based on what he's saying in this thread. Maybe he's a grade-A arsehole usually, I don't know. Maybe he is unreasonable overall.
But speaking personally here- for myself, not for him or anyone else- there's something I think you all have to consider. Who do you see as "your people"? Are you of a certain ethnic group, nationality or religion? Is your sense of self based on identification with that group? Are you a German, an Albanian, a Canadian, a Jew, a Christian, a Shi'ite Muslim, a Sikh, are you black, hispanic, white, etc? The manner in which that group is treated by others is an issue to you, I'm sure. If you identify as black, racism might well be a big issue to you. If you identify as a Jew, you'll probably not be moaning when people go on about the holocaust. If you're Chinses, the Japanese invasion of your country is likely important history. The way in which "your people" are treated, however you define them, their experiences and treatment, are mportant. And their mistreatment angers or upsets you.
Now I identify as a young man. "My people" are all the beta-status young men and adolescent boys out there. And if you think this is somehow silly, I can assure you it makes just as much sense- if not more- than identifying by race, faith or nationality. After all, the way a Jew is treated in Israel differs considerably from how they're treated in some other nations. A black person in a black-dominated country is treated differently from a black in a white-dominant culture. But our sons are treated generally the same anywhere and anywhen. My people are the disposable tools of war, who are sent in their thousands to suffer and die for the benefit of "alpha males", females and states. More, they are conditioned from birth to believe it is their highest goal and purpose in life, and if they reject this sense of self, society will reject them. They are always the first placed in danger and the last removed from danger, the "legitimate targets" of any sort of violence, both from their own state and outsiders, the group who are by far most likely to be specifically targeted for torture, imprisonment and mass execution, often almost casually. Plus getting people of any sex or nation to care about it will be an uphill battle- no-one really cares if expendable people suffer; is it not what they are for?
How would you feel if "your people"- whoever they are- were being treated like this? Please, do not be so quick to denounce those who make a fuss over the "disposable male" concept and the lack of care or fuss over the issue.
I'll say it again- I don't know Hermiod. He might be an unreasonable arsehole for all I know, and you might be right to attack him. But so far all I can see is anger and pain, which is very familiar to me. If you can't empathise with that, I think to be honest you're proving his point much more satisfactorily than he could ever word it.
But speaking personally here- for myself, not for him or anyone else- there's something I think you all have to consider. Who do you see as "your people"? Are you of a certain ethnic group, nationality or religion? Is your sense of self based on identification with that group? Are you a German, an Albanian, a Canadian, a Jew, a Christian, a Shi'ite Muslim, a Sikh, are you black, hispanic, white, etc? The manner in which that group is treated by others is an issue to you, I'm sure. If you identify as black, racism might well be a big issue to you. If you identify as a Jew, you'll probably not be moaning when people go on about the holocaust. If you're Chinses, the Japanese invasion of your country is likely important history. The way in which "your people" are treated, however you define them, their experiences and treatment, are mportant. And their mistreatment angers or upsets you.
Now I identify as a young man. "My people" are all the beta-status young men and adolescent boys out there. And if you think this is somehow silly, I can assure you it makes just as much sense- if not more- than identifying by race, faith or nationality. After all, the way a Jew is treated in Israel differs considerably from how they're treated in some other nations. A black person in a black-dominated country is treated differently from a black in a white-dominant culture. But our sons are treated generally the same anywhere and anywhen. My people are the disposable tools of war, who are sent in their thousands to suffer and die for the benefit of "alpha males", females and states. More, they are conditioned from birth to believe it is their highest goal and purpose in life, and if they reject this sense of self, society will reject them. They are always the first placed in danger and the last removed from danger, the "legitimate targets" of any sort of violence, both from their own state and outsiders, the group who are by far most likely to be specifically targeted for torture, imprisonment and mass execution, often almost casually. Plus getting people of any sex or nation to care about it will be an uphill battle- no-one really cares if expendable people suffer; is it not what they are for?
How would you feel if "your people"- whoever they are- were being treated like this? Please, do not be so quick to denounce those who make a fuss over the "disposable male" concept and the lack of care or fuss over the issue.
I'll say it again- I don't know Hermiod. He might be an unreasonable arsehole for all I know, and you might be right to attack him. But so far all I can see is anger and pain, which is very familiar to me. If you can't empathise with that, I think to be honest you're proving his point much more satisfactorily than he could ever word it.
That's cause enough for many people, particularly men, to dislike you (though as I say, I don't know you).
Of course, I certainly don't put women first automatically, and I've always had as many female friends as male ones.
Women seem to automatically like me- as a friend, I mean, not sexually- so you might in fact have better luck with the women than with the men. A woman, at least a British woman, is actually pretty likely not to care whether you put her first or not. A man on the other hand, is reasonably likely to despise you if you don't.
Which is exactly what everyone trying to silence the "disposable male" argument is doing. Again, it's the unthinking hypocrisy that I'm opposed to here; I'm not refuting what you say (though I probably would disagree with a fair amount were I to truly think about it), I'm simply annoyed that when the boot's on the other foot for a change, only then does it become an issue and only then is it condemned. It's not the condemnation that's the problem- it's that so many who are quick to make it now wouldn't make it before when it was equally valid, if you catch my meaning.
I may have mistaken you with someone else. In that case, I apologize.
I understand your point, Nasat. In a way, I agree. But I also think that your righteous passion is misplaced. Violence, conflict, aggression, they are all part of the human experience. They may not be pretty, but they are necessary. I would say as necessary as love, comfort and companionship. We are creatures of duality, thriving on the eternal struggle between those two extreme: we cannot exist without one of them. For better or worse, young males are better equipped to deal with violence and aggression: they are biologically built for that. You could as well lament that women are the ones subjected to the pains and risks of pregnancy and child-birth.
I tend to see "humans" as "my people". All of them.
You know, that's an interesting way of seeing things.
I can respect this position. I personally don't want to see anyone victimized by violence, but I see your point, certainly. So long as the young men and boys get the same degree of love and comfort as they do aggression. Taking a blow is far less troubling if someone is there to hug you lovingly afterwards. But finding that balance is hard, surely? Usually, that boy won't get a loving hug, he'll be told to "toughen up". If there is a balance as you describe, I think it's tilted for our sons far too far towards the side of pain and away from love and compassion. As for your comment about all humans being "your people", I certainly respect that as well. I too have a sense of humanity as a whole which is something akin to other people's patriotism or nationalism. I just sub-identify too. Perhaps too strongly- I'll be the first to admit I can get far too intense, but sadly I think it's necessary as well.
But while I'm aiming for a world free from violence, I'd settle for your model (which may be much more realistic) so long as that balance is in place, and our sons know love and comfort and care as much as they know pain and fear and aggression.
And so long as anyone not suited for it isn't pressured into it- as long as boys don't have to be that if they don't want to (just as girls shouldn't have to have children if they don't want to).But...It's easy, though, to say that violence and conflict can lead to growth, and pain can help us in the long run- but the problem is that while humanity in the long run might be better for it, it's my people- those young men and adolescent boys- who bear the brunt in the meantime. Because the greater good of humanity means the good of females and a minority of competitive males- biology dictates that. Lower status and "excess" males are not needed, and so the "greater good" will come at their expense every time. I mean, I was reading just today about a whole load of 15 year old boys who were casually executed as part of some African militia's war- go into a village, find all the teenage boys and kill them. Well, the thing is, I certainly wouldn't let anyone harm my (hypothetical) 15 year old son- it is completely unacceptable to me that he should be harmed, either by others or his own community. I would always work to keep him safe and free and (within reason) secure. But I would also never, never, harm someone else's son to do it. Otherwise we all fall on each other like wolves- that's surely the only outcome if we allow for warfare and armed conflict? I mean, a war is simply a complete no-no for me, because it will involve either my son being harmed, or someone else's, or both. And because I have empathy and compassion for those boys- who are usually groomed to be expendable- and trying to keep them safe, I'm not only helping them, which is important enough, but also helping preserve all our peoples, surely? I suppose what I'm saying is, I understand entirely the point about pain and conflict being as important as care, etc- but what if we consider it as a trend over history, too? Our ancestors had to endure pain and war, etc, to build the civilization we have now. Is it not time to reap what they sowed and embrace the other side of the equation? And that means learning to see our sons as a precious resource to be protected, not an expendable tool for some perception of "the greater good", which, biology dictates, means "the good of females and a few alpha males at the expense of the majority of males".
Or, to keep this tied into the original issue, the fact is a great many beta-status young men, myself included, have clocked on to the idea that the "greater good" as it is traditionally defined, or as defined by your er, Shadow-Vorlon model (if you'll excuse me...), will require the price of our blood every time. And our sons will suffer the same, and their sons, and theirs...unless we do something about it. And many of us have decided a "greater good" that allows us to be treated like this cannot be a good at all. We want an equal stake in that future, as it were. And a lot of us are angry and fed up and frankly refusing to continue to be that sacrifice.
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Thinking with my heart, I don't want to see anyone suffer, either. But as you said, I don't think it's a realistic goal. Or even an healthy goal. A world without conflict is a world without differences.You know, that's an interesting way of seeing things.
Well, as cynic as it sounds, I'm afraid balance could be reached only in a statistical sense. There will be always inequalities at the personal level, people that will know more pain than comfort.
That's a fair point. Personal freedom is paramount. I don't think people should be dragged to assume duties they have no desire, talent or ability to perform.
I agree. But again, I think in big numbers. Leukocytes die by the thousands every day, but they do that to protect the body from infections.
Sometimes, you have to choose.
I don't think it works like that, Nasat. Every generation has to pay its fee in pain, and enjoy its share in comfort. You may take refuge in the fact that the current generation is having much more pleasure and much less pain than the previous one, but even when socio-economic circumstances are exceptionally good, people will create conflict, because we cannot live without that. You are denying a fundamental need of mankind, Nasat. We cannot outgrow violence. Not without a societal, biological, and evolutionary shift. All we can do is to focus that violence to worthy goals.
Well, looking at it from an evolutionary point of view, the model worked so far. It may be a hard truth, but it's a truth nonetheless. Were another model better suited to the survival of the species, it would have emerged so far.
Well, it may be cynical but it's true, yes.
I understand- in fact, I respect greatly that you are so upfront; rather than trying to deny what I say, you simply have a different angle on it, and personally I find that refreshing. Of course, I'd say your thinking big is justification under your own logic for me to take an opposing stance and focus small, and make a fuss about the young men and boys in question as "my people".
So, basically, I'm not sure if I'm agreeing with you here, disagreeing, undermining you, supporting your point, or what
. Maybe all at once- which may itself be your point, I guess...Again, whether I agree or not, I certainly see your point.
Maybe it's emerging now in the admittedly still vague new world order guys like me are working to promote? Indeed, i must believe it is- that's what progress is about, right? New ideas come forward and challenge the old. Maybe my way will prove successful if tried and humanity will shift- maybe my way will crash and burn and humanity will go on as it always has. All I know is I believe a fundamental shift in how we view our sons- all of our sons- is necessary if humanity is to survive an age of nuclear and biological weaponry. That doesn't mean I want to get rid of combat and competition- hell, we can still have duels or martial arts as a means of determining relations between communities if we want, or even trials by champion. We don't have to surrender our warrior roots just because we stop inflicting pain on our sons
It all makes a lot more sense if analyze a show or movie according to which gender is is written for.
Stuff written for males tends to have more male characters than female (often, many more - war movies, etc). Males would rather see hot chicks than a bunch of dumb guys, so the guys are slaughtered en masse while the few females survive, especially if they are hot.
Guys just like to see people get blown up and slaughtered. It might freak them out if those people are women, either because a) they've been taught to be gentlemanly; b) they are annoyed that a hot chick bought it instead of some guy who is just "competition" for the hot chick; or both. So it's better to put a lot of males in a show to serve as cannon fodder. The gender of the cannon fodder may be in question, but their necessity of their presence is not. To put it another way - if you know you need a lot of disposable characters in a story, who exist merely to be killed, what does it matter if they're male or female? They're not people, they're cannon fodder.
Stuff written for females (rom-com, bitchy comedies) tend to have more female characters than male (though the proportions are more equal than the heavily male stuff written for men) and they are often depicted as klutzes, bitches, pathetic losers with no fashion sense, total and complete bitches, pathetic losers who can't get into the high school clique, the satanically evil bitches who are the high school clique, evil mothers-in-law, evil bosses, etc. The few male characters tend to be positive - the trusty gay friend, the hunky prince charming, etc - especially compared to the operatically grandiose negativity of the depiction of female characters.
Neither male nor female characters are slaughtered en masse because only guys like that kind of shit. Women prefer the cannon fodder be kept alive so it can be sneered at and tormented indefinitely. The depiction of women in shows and movies targetted to women can be nasty beyond belief, and goes way beyond the depiction of men in shows and movies targetted to males, where the males are often just cannon fodder but not subjected to humiliation and derision to a degree that makes a clean death seen like a mercy by comparison. Media targetted to females is far more brutal than the worst war flick you ever saw, which is one reason why I prefer war flicks to click flicks. I'm just a wimp, I guess.
But I'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time watching rom-coms.
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Well, I guess it's because we see the issue from different point of view. You see it from a moral standpoint, I see it from a biological perspective. Cognitive dissonance ensues.So, basically, I'm not sure if I'm agreeing with you here, disagreeing, undermining you, supporting your point, or what
That's a fair point, and a good one. The risk of extinction is indeed a game-changer on the issue.
None of this stuff actually affects me personally. I'm never going to get married, so nobody's going to rip me off in the divorce. I'm never going to have children so nobody will ever stop me seeing them and I won't get less parental leave than the mother. I don't socialise with women enough to ever be accused of anything I didn't do so my name's never going to be plastered all over the papers before I've even had a trial.
I'm unlikely to be called up to fight in any wars and I had a male teacher when I was at primary school, something a lot of kids in Britain don't get anymore. I'm in a profession where any business that tried to hire women over men would find itself with a lot of empty desks.
Yet I still care about the way men are treated. None of this means I hate women, either. I'm sorry, but the notion that I must have problems with women because I stand up for men is deeply flawed. A lot of the problems I mention are caused by other men, a lot of them are caused by women and the majority are caused by both.
Largely because she was in the first movie and we already knew who she was. The movie was about Batman, The Joker and Dent. Everyone else was secondary.
Regardless, this is one movie and I've already agreed that women are killed off for the emotional impact. Men will only get the same treatment if their lives are treated as just as valuable.
Yes, I should generally give Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica credit for this. One of the article's points is about films and TV shows where you see a high ranking female officer, but everyone beneath her is male. Since you don't walk in to the job as an Admiral, you have to wonder how that woman managed to get such a position. That's called Gender Flipping - putting a woman in a traditionally male role just for the sake of it.
Star Trek and BSG weren't guilty of that. We saw women all over the ship in all the same roles as the men.
Well, yes - but that's my point. In the Battle of Hoth, aside from Leia, the only woman is the "standby Ion control" woman (with the same haircut as Leia) who shoots a Star Destroyer so the transports can escape.
In the meantime, men are getting slaughtered all over the place outside. Does the Rebel Alliance not have one single female Snow Speeder pilot ?
The worst example is Megan Fox in Transformers 2. In the final battle, male soldiers are dying all over the place yet she manages to make it through a warzone (where the armies are made up of giant killer robots) without even having her make-up get messed up. Because she's female, she's fucking invulnerable!
Stuff written for females (rom-com, bitchy comedies) tend to have more female characters than male (though the proportions are more equal than the heavily male stuff written for men) and they are often depicted as klutzes, bitches, pathetic losers with no fashion sense, total and complete bitches, pathetic losers who can't get into the high school clique, the satanically evil bitches who are the high school clique, evil mothers-in-law, evil bosses, etc. The few male characters tend to be positive - the trusty gay friend, the hunky prince charming, etc - especially compared to the operatically grandiose negativity of the depiction of female characters.
Neither male nor female characters are slaughtered en masse because only guys like that kind of shit. Women prefer the cannon fodder be kept alive so it can be sneered at and tormented indefinitely. The depiction of women in shows and movies targetted to women can be nasty beyond belief, and goes way beyond the depiction of men in shows and movies targetted to males, where the males are often just cannon fodder but not subjected to humiliation and derision to a degree that makes a clean death seen like a mercy by comparison. Media targetted to females is far more brutal than the worst war flick you ever saw, which is one reason why I prefer war flicks to click flicks. I'm just a wimp, I guess.
But I'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time watching rom-coms.
I'm really not going to argue that women aren't treated poorly in rom-coms. Every time some lazy movie producer churns out another one of those, the cause of equality is set back another few years. I'm with Sandra Bullock on this one - she's tired of rom-coms, she just wants to make coms - films that actually make people laugh. Not sure a rom-com has achieved that for a long time.
This generalization is unhelpful when one considers in some societies today (say, Iran, which had a particularly brutal war in the 1980s where a lot of soldiers died), little if anything is for the 'benefit' of females, and in others still there hasn't been a war for decades, even over a century, so the young men have basically little to no concern for being sent to any hypothetical front.
Then, the conerns you utter are essentially indistinguishable from - and indeed anyway closely related to - concerns as to how the working class is exploited. Which isn't something that's universally shouted down by any means. Whole intellectual and political powers and rose and fall on exactly that question.
You're forgetting the bit where the African militia rape all the women in the village and take all the 15 year old girls (actually probably much younger girls) to be sex slaves.
I do think the OP has a point about women being treated differently in these films, but I don't think its some huge conspiracy. Let's face it, a woman dying in a horror film can often seem more shocking...but when you kill a puppy or a kitten it's even worse (and how many films have re-edited to save the animal because the preview crowd demanded it?)
Rachel Dawes is only important in The Dark Knight in so far as how Dent and Wayne feel about her. She's essentially pointless in her own right. She can't protect herself, can't stop herself becoming a victim. she's there purely to die so Dent can go nuts and Batman can be the bigger man. Frankly if I were a woman I'd be hacked off rather than empowered by that. Now if Maggie G came back as Catwoman in the next film...
Wow! You realise not every marriage ends in divorce right, not every man who socialises with women ends up accused of something, not every divorce ends in the man being destitute and denied access to his children, and that women get more leave after birth because, like, they're the ones who went through the process of giving birth? (besides I though the UK was moving towards shared maternity leave now?)
Don't get me wrong, I don't wholly disgree with you. The near certainty that the woman gets cusody after a divorce, the obscene divorce settlements that are sometimes meted out, the notion that a drunk woman cannot give consent but a drunk man is not afforded the same defence...these things bug me but they're not thw whole story.
The flipside of course is that women are more likely to suffer domestic abuse, more likely to have given up their own career to raise children, more likely to be left holding the baby because the guy can more easily walk away (and for every man badly treated by the CSA there's probably another who's got away scot free)
I think I had a pretty even split of male/female teachers at primary school, and funnily enough various people tried to encourage me to go into primary teaching after university--quite mercenarily, I'm paraphrasing but friends in the profession pointed out that 90% of primary teachers were female, but 90% of headteachers were male...
Typically, those African militias take the male children as child soldiers, so don't think the guys get an easy ride.
There's a good article here about the reporting of the Serbian atrocities in Kosovo. Media coverage tended to favour portraying women and children as the victims of these atrocities even though the worst atrocities were targeted at those who could fight back most effectively - the young, male population.
There's a lot I could take issue with but this one had my crap-o-meter redlining. A drunk woman on her own is a danger to nobody but herself.
Well my point was that nobody gets an easy ride. Having an AK-47 jabbed into your hands and being send to fight and die before you even hit puberty is terrible, but so is being locked in a room and having a succesion of guys come and rape you. And there is cross over. I've heard instances of female child soldiers, and one imagines a lot of male boys end up being abused sexually. Neither option is pleasant, neither is an easy ride. One could argue being a soldier gives you some level of control over your own destiny, but by the same token you're more likely to live longer as the sex slave (although even as I write that I have my doubts)
