would you like to know more?
May. 11th, 2004 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmYou know, I've always gotten a perverse kick out of Starship Troopers (the film, not the book, while more inteligent in many regards, isn't nearly as funny and suffers from Heinlein's fixations) in a Bob Roberts in Space sort of way. I mean, it's very smart satire.
But I just had a total freakout watching it on cable. You know, all sorts of weird shit isn't funny any more.
That said, I'm interested that one brand of fallout from the prisoner abuse/torture in Iraq has been that we've gone from saying "a civilized society doesn't send its women to war" to "women are too vicious to be allowed in organized combat." How frigging insane is that? And while I mostly don't subscribe to the theory (military is military, and both genders should be part of it as individual skill dictates), I'm amazed that no one who is subscribing to that argument is asking why.
I suppose it's inconvenient for them to draw the obvious conclusion -- that if you believe women are too vicious for organized combat, it's because maybe they, we, have always been at war. And so when a woman says that they do what they have to, it's something they thought up long before they ever saw combat or combat training.
Just a thought.
p.s., before anyone gets confused, the subject line is from a running gag in the film, and is used here entirely for my own amusement.
But I just had a total freakout watching it on cable. You know, all sorts of weird shit isn't funny any more.
That said, I'm interested that one brand of fallout from the prisoner abuse/torture in Iraq has been that we've gone from saying "a civilized society doesn't send its women to war" to "women are too vicious to be allowed in organized combat." How frigging insane is that? And while I mostly don't subscribe to the theory (military is military, and both genders should be part of it as individual skill dictates), I'm amazed that no one who is subscribing to that argument is asking why.
I suppose it's inconvenient for them to draw the obvious conclusion -- that if you believe women are too vicious for organized combat, it's because maybe they, we, have always been at war. And so when a woman says that they do what they have to, it's something they thought up long before they ever saw combat or combat training.
Just a thought.
p.s., before anyone gets confused, the subject line is from a running gag in the film, and is used here entirely for my own amusement.
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Date: 2004-05-11 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-12 03:22 pm (UTC)But I just had a total freakout watching it on cable. You know, all sorts of weird shit isn't funny any more.
I can well imagine. I remember watching the wonderful film They Live was great fun when I saw it in the late 80s in Wisconsin, but after I lived in LA for 4 years, it was far too real and depressing. We live in insane times.
I always wondered what would happen if someone in the film wanted to know more.
Date: 2004-05-12 03:22 pm (UTC)I wish I could cite the source more specifically, but there's a theory in primate anthropology that I've heard from better educated self defense instructors that posits that when males fight it is usually for tribal dominance and there is a resistance to killing or causing too much damage, whereas when females are in a violent situation there is no wired in resistance to causing excessive damage to their opponents as in nature it's more likely to be a threat than a fight for status.
Makes you think.