Letters to the Editor
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Deeply Ingrained, and Generally Good, Assumptions
There are a lot of men (including me) who have been deeply conditioned that you never, EVER, hit a woman. Period. (unfortunately, many men appear to have received very different conditioning)
Handcuffs, when tight enough to work, hurt, and I don't think it would be unusual for male sailors to, consciously or unconsciously, try to avoid hurting a woman.
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Fair point. But ...
"Don't hurt women" [or, say, people] -- that is for sure a good thing to have ingrained. I just think it's kinda sweet that they assumed the woman wouldn't hurt them.
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The classic (and willful) misunderstanding of stereotypes...
The post reflects another misunderstanding (probably willful, as most are) of stereotypes, which are, by definition, neither absolutely true nor absolutely false, but only accurate to degrees. And, by many measures (e.g., strength, at a minimum), women are less physically dangerous than men. It is, therefore, generally rational behavior to fear physical harm from men more than women. Which is why I'm more worried (rationally) when followed by a man at night than a woman. (In the context of race, Chris Rock has a great line in his standup about not worrying that Dan Rather, or someone like that, will accost him at the ATM. It takes someone like him to acknowledge the partial accuracy of stereotypes.) Thus, when presented with a situation where resources are limited - possibly a situation where there are 10 people and you have to disarm or disable them one at a time, or there are few people on your side - of course you go after the men first.
Now, guns are a great leveler, making women potentially (but only roughly) as dangerous as men. And maybe the sailors here didn't suffer from a lack of resources, meaning that they had plenty of time to tie the cuffs tightly on everyone. (Indeed, that seems quite likely since it doesn't take long to put the cuffs on tightly. It's probably almost no additional effort.) If that were the case, then, yes, the sailors acted foolishly. They should've cuffed everyone tightly. But that doesn't change the fact that, steorotypically, and statistically, a woman on a boat in that situation is less dangerous than a man - a fact implicitly disputed by the post. But if a woman in a particular situation is, say, 23% likely to attack you, and a man is 26% likely to attack you, you still cuff both tightly if it takes no additional effort to do so. And the sailors should've done so. But don't pretend that the woman is as likely, as a matter of rational probability, to have attacked the sailor.
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More fair points. But another but.
"But don't pretend that the woman is as likely, as a matter of rational probability, to have attacked the sailor." As a matter of rational probability, perhaps. But in an exercise? I'd assume EVERYONE was out to get me. Which is why I think the item is funny.
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It proves that men have an innate compulsion to be
nice to women, no matter how inapplicable that tendency is to the actual situation, as if this was news.
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I just find it
kinda funny, that's all! Geez.
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however
Notice that the sailors who cuffed the female were Honduran - citizens of a land far more ensnared in traditional sexism than the USA.
That is probably one of the main reasons why they didn't appear to see her as a real potential threat...in Honduras, women have little power.
Conversely, if they were trying to be 'nicer' because she was female, again we could point to the sexist society's tendency to treat women as delicate - actually, to INSIST that they be delicate.
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Poor silly Hondurans.
Is Broadsheet being racist? Just wondering. Or kidding. Whatever.
Those poor fellows are rather stupid, though. At least about women. What male in his right mind doesn't know women are capable of cruelty? I figured that out before kindergarten. Of course, I am the world's smartest human being, but I still think everyone else should have had it figured out by third grade at the very latest.
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It is interesting that EVERYTHING that happens to women which is done by men,
and I mean EVERYTHIING, ALWAYS proves that women have it worse than men, are at a disadvantage compared to men's advantage and are being injured in some way. This determination to make all reality support a specific agenda (it's like the supply siders; no matter what happens it proves the need to for more tax cuts) will always be a problem if you want any support or interest from anyone who cares what is going on and would like to solve problems but isn't going to benefit from the tax cuts.
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huh?
djbollman: What are you talking about?
I don't know any women who think in the the way that you describe. There may be some here at Salon, or in the broader world, but you are making some huge generalizations without offering any real examples or proofs.
In other words, you speak like a fanatic. Your recurring anxiousness to lump all women under a 'man-hating/blaming' label makes all of your remarks and observations suspect - and you make your own bias clear by so often accusing others of it.
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Of course you don't that's the whole point, but since I can't help
myself I'll explain it anyway. Lots of the behavior of people in all societies, including the behavior of men toward women, benefits women specifically. There are a variety of reasons, many of which are innate, for this. In this case the women was clearly being handled more gently by men because she was a woman, a clear benefit to her. But of course the REAL TRUTH seen in the PROPER context is that this treatment is a manifestion of a tendency to keep women helpless and under control. There are a lot of things going on in the world some of which can even be accurately grasped by feminists with an agenda. The insistence, though, that, if the whole picture is seen it is shown to be true that men have most of the power and women don't is at best highly debatable and should not be accepted as an established fact no matter how convienient and gratifying some might find it to do so.
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Are you sugessting that wome don't believe this:
The insistence, though, that, if the whole picture is seen it is shown to be true that men have most of the power and women don't...
and that women don't feel any "global" sense of vicitimization or moral superiority? I hope that is true but I find it hard to believe. I would be happy with even the assertion that it was true because it would indicate an awarenss that there was a problem with the femsup view. I see occasional efforts to deny or obscure certain inconvient implications of this viewpoint, but not much evidence that it is really repudicated by most women.