Because that’s the bargain we accept in exchange for rampant stolen valor.
In the real world, women shrink away from virtually all danger.
Women flee war while their men are conscripted to die.
Female cops wait for male police officers to handle the violent criminals.
Women rely on men to fight fires and rescue people.
Women enjoy the cushy office jobs while men build and maintain all of the infrastructure.
So when you watch or play or read some piece of media that features a 50/50 split with women occupying all of these dangerous and heroic roles - which they virtually never occupy in real life - it’s just dishonest and retarded. It’s a false experience that doesn’t map into our observable reality.
We can tolerate this nonsense if and only if the female characters involved are idealized. Are they nice to look at? Are they pleasant to interact with or read? If yes, then maybe we suspend disbelief and try to have some fun. That’s why men don’t object to hot, agreeable Mary Sues.
But the moment these liars are also made to be ugly bitchy feminists, there’s no motivation for us to continue suspending our disbelief. You’re an unrealistic girl boss and butt ugly and an asshole? Gee, where do I sign up?
In my city? We were (iirc) the 2nd in North America to have female firefighters. They have to pass the exact same tests as the men, and do the exact same jobs. No problem with that!
Our "girl cops" though are terrible. They're mostly useless and arrogant.
If a "bad boss" girl isn't that attractive? It makes it much more believable. I'm more bothered by (for example) a 100 pound woman swinging a 25 pound sword... often with one hand!
Frankly I don't think we should even grant them the loophole of meeting the same standards as men are held to. They're not cut out for those roles and the exceptions to that are so few as to not be worth even considering. And that's before you start getting into how the presence of a woman warps the team dynamic of a band of men with a task before them. A woman will never fill the role the same way a man will. I want society to stop pretending they can so we can recalibrate to a more sane configuration for everyday life.
Well that kind of thing can't really progress until we remove discrimination laws and acts from the books, because as long as those can be held over people's heads they will need to leave the loophole open to avoid its ire. We need to remove these cancers from their source rather than setting off easy traps trying to rush to principled walls.
This is especially a problem as this year has shown how bad of a problem the activist Judge tumor is, and the SCOTUS above them aren't as reliable as we need to trust that.
A solution that is "same end result, even if the principle is violated" is a necessary stopgap to keep necessary things like our military running until society returns to some sanity.
You are correct: there are VERY few women who could pass the test (even with training beforehand) but if they can? If they're legit firefighters? Then more power to them.
iirc the first girl to pass (many years ago) served 7 years without any complaints by her or against her. Since then there's been maybe 10? 12?
Note: this is for full time professional fire fighters. There's been MANY female volunteers in small communities over the past 100+ years.
In theory, yes. In practice, no. Because what happens in reality is that you get a few women who really do have merit. But because they now exist somewhere, even if it's 1:1000 and there's none in 1000 miles, every fire station is going to be required to have facilities to accommodate these theoretical female fire fighters who may not even exist in the county.
And it sucks for those who want to do it and are capable of doing it. But it's not the taxpayers responsibility to subsidize their dream job either. And that's before "I'm offended" lawsuits, maternal leave, and a whole host of additional costs that aren't benefitting anyone but the employee. Despite current wisdom, making employees feel validated is not the point of hiring employees. If they can perform at the same level per cost, that would be a different story but then they would have to outperform the male applicants.
Yeah, that's always been such a trap. Those are minimum standards, lots of men pass those tests with flying colors and power to spare. But women who are on the top of the bell curve enough to pass that minimum are incredibly unlikely to do much more than scrap by.
In a real world situation where something larger than that minimum is required to succeed, the man is still far more likely to be able to save someone's life than a woman.
I did! It was the exact same test. They offered a class to help women to prepare for it: weight train, practice the hard parts. This was soon open to men too, thankfully.
The city police otoh, did "restructure" their tests so women could pass. :/
There were multiple news reports on it, and statements by the fire chief too. The unions had announced they'd NEVER allow the standards to be changed "for the girls" because firefighters have to meet minimum levels of physical capabilities or else people die! There were multiple follow-ups too. Video of the men and women taking the test: side by side. They'd "fireman carry" the same instructor, (up and down a full flight of stairs!) lift the same ladders & so forth.
They used to have a dedicated testing area, but the main "replica building" burned down :/ so they relocated it. Probably by arson.
At around the same time? San Francisco's mayor announced that (iirc, the details may vary) 10 women firefighters would graduate within 2 years. Their fire chief said "Do that and we all quit. Every single one of us." The mayor stfu'd after that... idk if they ever did get women, probably did, but if they did it was through the same standards.
Another story: a man failed the test only because of the ladder-handling part. He complained that the women had training specifically to practice that, but he wasn't allowed to. So they opened the training course to men too & he passed next year EZ.
I disagree, there's a point of absurdity where it goes so far outside of the bounds of real life that it becomes easier to accept.
Present me a world where the named characters are badass sex gods capable of blatantly unrealistic feats and I won't bat an eye, but if things are meant to be grounded and I see things that are out of place or functioning well outside the expected capabilities then that will break the feeling of being grounded.
True that. It just bugs me. The men doing those things tend to have big muscles, but mostly the girls doing it have pencil-arms :/ and skinny little waists.
At least Zena was 'sturdy' that was ok. Buffy was a superhuman so that was ok :>
Red Sonja from the comics? One of my favorite characters? IDK what her arms looked like, I never noticed them 😆
Both of the female characters you’ve selected here are supernatural and incredibly hot. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.
Nailed it.
I don't care if the scantily clad girls from Dead or Alive are saving the world from robot ninjas from outer space using ninjustsu and celestial blades. It's all absurd and silly and fits within the over-the-top nature of the franchise.
I DO care if I'm supposed to take a game world seriously but we have black cyborg lesbian spec-ops leaders beating up men, barking orders and running post-apoc societies while food supplies are low and population numbers are rapidly decreasing.
You are a liberal zionist jew.
I think the attractiveness is part of the story then. We must accept the logic that a beautiful woman who has fought for years can weld a giant sword. The logic allows it to a level of disconnect from reality. Sort of like Scooby Doo makes it obvious that reality should not be fully accepted because the dog can read and talk.
I made the realization while watching Sky Captain and thinking a world war II light attack plane could take on a giant robot. Then realized I was trying to place logic on a giant robot.
Nah. The bad boss girl is unbelievable no matter what. They become tolerable when they are pleasing to look at or interact with.