Letters to the Editor
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I just had to remark
therefore you never have to worry about him getting out of line or challenging you in any meaningfull way. (Also he's some kind of geek genius, and therfore a potential Bill Gates. If it doesn't matter why did the writers include it?)
If you are talking about Giles and Xander, then my friend you didn't watch Buffy. Xander was the only character that would challenge Buffy on her selfish decisions and choices. When she ran away, when she hid Angel, when she started sleeping with Spike, when she drove Riley away. Xander is always the one letting Buffy know she is not perfect and she doesn't know everything.
Giles also had to challenge Buffy, she was his student! He would scold her like a father, defend her like a dad and he would show her the ways of fighting and control as her teacher. Giles was not the genius or a geek, he knew a lot about the supernatural, cause it was HIS JOB! Willow was the geek genius.
So I'm still guessing you didn't watch Buffy or you would have know about Giles's past as Ripper, the smoking drinking bad boy. Plus he slept with Buffy's mom and some woman from England. Giles, Xander, Oz, Riley, were not asexual, that was left for Angel.
They called themselves the Scoobie's for a reason, each person is useful for their own special skill, no one is useless.
Oh and props to Veronica Mars!
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It's sad like gravity is sad
If males identify with females and therefore don't differentiate themselves from women and acquire the ability to do something for women that women can't and/or won't do for themselves they will never have sex and reproduce. This has led to the evolution of specific innate emotional programming to deal with these facts. Sure, with enought pressure you can get people to conform to anything, but it doesn't change the underlying biology.
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I watched it but not regularly
I know Giles was the teacher but I never say anything about his personal life and I assumed he was being portrayed as basically asexual in behavior as far as the show was concerned. I saw Xander make ineffectual noises on occasion about things that were being done but the fact that he said something didn't in and of itself seem to matter to anyone. I thought there was something Xander did besides hand around and be ignored but I don't remember clearly so maybe there wasn't.
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How sad indeed
If what some of them males writing here is true, then how sad indeed it is to be born a typical male.
How unfortunate it is to be a member of the human race and not have an interest in 50% of the population (beyond reproduction.) How sad that the typical male cannot empathise with a character not the same gender as he is. How sad that the typical male feels he must constantly prove to other males that he is more male than they are in order to impress some female standing around doing nothing.
Fortunately, there does seem to be a lot of atypical males out here - interesting people who seem interested in other interesting people, be they male or female. And how lucky to be born female so I can relate to and learn from and respect all kinds of humans, regardless of their gender.
No wonder Patriarchy fears the Unrestrained Female.
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"Fairy Tales"
I read some of the early letters, then skipped on to the later ones, so I'm not sure if this has been brought up, but...
In many of the "classic" fairy tales, in their original incarnations, the women were a lot tougher and much more actors in their own right, without needing to be rescued by men. Those fairy tales were also a lot bloodier and more violent. Check out "Grimm's Grimmest", which I believe was reviewed on Salon.
The tales were neutered and sentimentalized later.
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There's probably no reason why you couldn't have an all or mostly female population if that's what you really wanted
and apparently it is, since that is the real meaning of apparently deeply felt belief that the reactions to the world that women have are the only valid ones.
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girly movies
My boys will watch some girl protagonists, they just don't want schmaltzy Disney romances like "The Ice Princess." and I agree with them, bleech!
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Oh please.
Women are represented as a protagonist what, 1/4 of the time and that means we want a world full of women? No, what it means is that we are half of the population, so we should represent half of the culture.
Oh and it is pretty sad that someone thinks if you watch female centered stories that could make you a girl or women uninterested in you. I've been watching and reading male centered stories for years and I am not man like. I am firmly seperated from the male sex. I like art, craftwork, flower shows, decorating, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy a good war movie or a football game once in a while. There are differences between gaining knowledge and the hobbies you pick.
Do you even understand what the point of literature or film is for? It's to experience what it is like for someone you will never be. You will never be a woman, to see what it is like to be a woman just pick up a book or turn the channel. But don't watch LIFETIME! Trust me, it won't make you a woman and a woman won't go oh, that guy's reading Jane Austen, why not Tom Clancy! You're not man enough for me!
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No, what means you want a world full of women is the fact that any reaction to anything that is not the reaction that a woman would have or that she wants men to have is pure evil
Case in point: the fact that for biological reasons men have things to prove that women don't and somewhat different priorities in sex and relationships is TWISTED into an assertion that males want to negate the existence of females, don't want anything but the most narrow possible interactions with them, and on and on and on. The ONLY possible expanation for this complete inability to accept a somewhat different point of view without putting the most extreme imagineable distorted interpretaion on it is that, on some level, there is a belief that there is only one right way.
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Get those girlies some japanime
This is the reason why I love the films of Hayao Miyazaki
Howls, Spirited Away, Totoro, Nausicaa
all these films have wonderful strong spirited central female characters. As a mother of a 5 yr old girl I have tried to find the most girl friendly movies possible. I know Japan gets a rap for not being female friendly but most of the flics my daughter and I enjoy the most are kid friendly anime. Lots of japanese kids movies seem more girl friendly fare. For what its worth...