Oops

Apparently the gender argument got personal, so I'm not going to post there about it anymore. I was given this article to read. It's an article about... well many things. How basically if a woman is in a movie, it's derrogatory. If she's the hero, the hero is typically and has usually been a male in previous other movies, so it's a woman being male, and that's bad. If the woman isn't a hero, then it means that people don't think women can succeed without a man and that's bad. If the woman is violent and not passive, violence is a masculine trait, and therefore the woman is regendered as male and that's bad. If the woman is not violent, then she's passive, which is stereotypical of femininity and that's bad. What it's basically coming down to is that if you're watching a movie, and a woman is in it, it's derrogatory. If you're watching a movie and a woman isn't in it, it's discriminatory. So I guess the point is, don't watch movies ever.

My favorite part of the article is when she says women are being punished for being too active by being tortured in movies. Like if your main character gets tortured, it MUST be because she's a female, right? No male characters ever get tortured in film or TV.

How many times has Jack Bauer been tortured on 24?

In debate or philosophy, this is what is called "begging the question." Common misconception, let me help if you don't know, "begging the question" does not in fact mean that the point you put forth makes one immediately come up with a question. As in "Jimmy wanted ice cream, he looked in the container and decided he never wanted to eat ice cream again, which begs the question, what was in the ice cream container." Begging the question ACTUALLY means supposing your conclusion to prove it's authenticity. In other words, supposing something is right to prove that it's right. As in "The bible must be true because God wrote the bible, and it says in the bible that God wrote it and God is infallable and cannot be wrong." You're assuming the book is accurate to prove that it's accurate. Everything after "The bible must be true..." only works as an argument if the bible is true.

The same goes here. The argument that femininty is passive in movies and masculinity is strong and always saves the day only works if you already believe that femininty is passive in movies and masculinity is strong and always saves the day.

They say it's unfair because women can never be strong in movies. I point out Ripley from Alien, Sarah Connor from Terminator, and they don't count. Why not? Because they're considered masculine. Why? Because they're strong.

Can you see why this argument makes absolutely no sense?

There are strong passive characters in sci-fi who don't run around with a flamethrower. Lt. Uhura, Cpt. Janeway, Princess Leia, Padme Amidala. Sure, they've all shot phasers or laser beams, but only when there was no other choice. They don't count either though. Why? Because they're passive, which is so stereotypical of femininity, that female = passive.

Again, no sense.

All this argument does is strengthen the idea to extremely conservtive men that women cannot be reasoned with. All it does for me is strengthen the idea that some people easily get caught up in being offended without thinking their argument all the way through.

-j