“We do not have any reports of women hurling themselves in front of their boyfriends or anyone else accompanying them.”
There is a good piece in the Fathers and Family newsletter (written by a woman) on the heroism of men in the Aurora massacre and how one only gets recognition if they save a woman. Apparently saving a man doesn’t count to the media:
Slowly we are learning more about the 12 people killed in Aurora, Colorado. For four men, we are also learning how their ultimate sacrifice saved four lives by their using their own bodies to shield their girlfriends, and in one case, a fellow airman.
Yet it seems the heroes most of the media are talking about are three who saved their girlfriends by being human shields: Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves.
Someone should have told Air Force Staff Sergeant Jesse Childress to fling himself in front of a woman. It appears there is little valor in — and little to be remembered for — saving a fellow airman.
Why is it that men’s lives are often seen as less important than women’s? As Warren Farrell points out in his book The Myth of Male Power: men are the disposable sex. Why?
The obvious answer to your question, Dr. Helen, is that males are expendable and females are not. And the reason why is not cultural; it’s biological.
When I was in college studying biology, I took a course in animal behavior, the science of ethology. We studied mating strategies, the difference between instinctive and learned behavior, predatory tactics, etc., across a wide range of animal species. It was absolutely fascinating. If you want to do some light research, look up the work of Niko Tingergen and Konrad Lorenz, who laid the groundwork for Jane Goodall’s pioneering study of chimpanzees.
On the final exam, the professor posed a question. If you were a predator and you wanted to wipe out a population of prey, how would you do it? Well, that’s simple. You attack the females first, because a population cannot procreate without a sufficient number of females. This is why there is a deeply ingrained instinct in males to defend females in almost every species. (There are a few expections, of course, such as in black widow spiders, but the percentage of species in which the male instinct to defend females does not exist is so miniscule as to be statistically irrelevant.)
Think about it. With one man and a hundred women, you could populate a town. With one woman and a hundred men, you could populate a room. So, strictly from the perspective of surviving as a species, which of the two sexes is more expendable than the other? This is why in say a herd of cattle, when confronted by a predator, the cows move to the center and the bulls form a circle of defense around them.
The larger point though, which you refer to indirectly, is the insidiousness of feminism that contaminates our culture. In their misguided zeal to dominate or replace men, feminists denigrate the natural male instinct to defend and protect females. There is no deeply ingrained instinct in females to defend and protect males, other than their young male offspring. A momma grizzly is ferocious in the defense of her young male cub, but she will leave pappa grizzly to fend for himself.
As to the sergeant who sacrificed himself to defend his fellow airman, that too is instinctive. Obviously, the two men shared a powerful bond. But the motivation is different. It’s more altruistic and courageous. Male bonding is distinct from male-female bonding. The instinct to defend is far more powerful in the latter than in the former.
Gawain’s Ghost has left very little, if any, uncovered.
A number of servicemen have been awarded the Medal of Honor (several posthumously) for (a) exposing themselves to enemy fire while rescueing wounded (male) comrades or calling in artillery/air strikes to defend their positions, (b) shielding their comrades from further harm by throwing themselves over their comrades’ bodies, or (c) saving their comrades lives by throwing themselves on live grenades.
I agree with Gawain’s Ghost – the reasons are biological (emphasis on logical).
But the real question then becomes, why do some think it is an insult to women? I mean, really. When all is said and done, isn’t it a *compliment*?
Or is someone, presumably female, being deprived of a chance to be heroic? I don’t quite get it.
In current Western society, a successful career woman generally is not interested in a man except as additional income. A family drags on career choices and may well be regarded as an indicator of diminished commitment by those making promotion decisions. In such situations, a man may be useful, but ultimately disposable. There are always other useful men available.
If poor, the state will provide welfare checks, food stamps, free (to her) medical, as long as she is single. No man is needed other than as a source of extra cash for extra children. Men are disposable by design.
We men will remain disposable and, to a large degree, mocked and despised as well, until circumstances again require us to be the protectors and providers we were born to be.
There was one story I heard Where the mother supposidly coverd a daughter. It was being played up because the boyfriend left them but later proposed. google names: Jamie Rohrs, Jarell Brooks (a stranger who helped get the kids out) and Patricia Legarretta
Good for you, for remembering the names. The young man / unmarried father had the infant son on the floor, next to the unmarried mother who had (I think her) young daughter on the floor; but apparently the young man ran away, and was reunited with the young woman and the children at the hospital (I heard he proposed marriage there). An unrelated young guy helped the mother and the two children crawl out of the theater (the young guy and the mother were both wounded). I think I have that correct.
Relevant in some sense to the discussion here is a story I saw about a young woman (aged 21) staying with another young woman (19) who’d been shot; the one kept applying pressure to the wound and wouldn’t leave; happily, both of them were rescued and survived. I assume they were friends before the shooting, but I don’t know that for sure (nor do I have the names).
To any men reading this–I honor men who act courageously and chivalrously. The Titanic ethos is admirable; from another world (have you read accounts of the Estonian shipwreck some time in the 90′s when young men trampled the women and children to save themselves?). I wish we still lived in such a world–apparently, some of us still do.
Suzanne, where the WOMEN on that Estonian ship also trying to save THEMSELVES, as opposed to saving the men’s lives? If so, I don’t want to see you criticize them any less than you’re criticizing the men.
I become angry every time the subject of the Titanic comes up, because of this lingering, romanticized nonsense that says some human lives are less valuable than others. A man’s life is as equally precious as a woman’s life, and all able-bodied people should be sticking together in a sea emergency or hostage situation.
Too often, comments such as your first paragraph, are called, “misogynist.” They’re not. They do illustrate a second standard and an obvious blind eye toward female self-preservation. It’s not anti-female. It’s simply looking at the world as it exists. How we perceive it (men are cowards for acting the same way women act) is cultural.
Yes, I read of this incident. But there are conflicting reports.
One says that he stuck his infant baby under the seat, jumped over the balconey and fled in a panic, leaving his 6-month old son, 4-year old daughter and terrified fiance at the mercy of the gunman. If true, the man is an abject coward. But the flight instinct is real and powerful and in extreme circumstances can override the defense instinct.
Rohrs says he placed the baby on the floor to protect him and tried to stay low. Shots kept firing, bodies kept falling, and in the chaos he lost the child. Then he panicked and fled. While plausible, that is still cowardly and inexcusable.
There is some question as to whether Patricia, who recieved a shrapnel wound from her thigh to waist, was shot before Rohrs fled or after, as Brooks, who also was wounded, desperately tried to push her and her children out the door.
By her account, she found her baby on the floor while trying to shield her daughter, grabbed them both and crawled to the back of the theater, trying to get to the door. Her first instinct is to protect her young. That’s when Brooks saw her and the children, and ran over to help. He got on her back, shielding her from the gunman, then picked them and pushed them through the door. He was shot in the leg while exiting. It is unclear but likely that was when Particia also received her wound. Both children escaped unharmed. This is a perfect example of the maternal instinct and the defense instinct. A man, a total stranger completely unrelated to a woman, sees her and her children in danger, and his first instinct is to protect them, even at the cost of his own life. That is not a learned behavior.
The details at this time remain unknown. But from the accounts I’ve read it appears that this madman entered through the emergency exit door at the front of the theater, then fired a shotgun blast into the air, tossed two tear gas or smoke cannisters onto the floor, then opened fire on the crowd. He emptied the shotgun, then started using a .223 semi-automatic rifle modified with a circular 100-round clip. It is unsure how many rounds he got off before the rifle jammed. When it did, he dropped it and used a Glock 40. He started walking down the aisle shooting at random. When he ran out of bullets, he walked out the exit.
Now, in that environment–a closed, darkened, smoke-filled room–with a heavily-armed madman walking around shooting people, it’s difficult to say how most of us would react. I suppose most people would hide or try to flee, most mothers would try to protect their children, and most men would try to protect the women and children–those would be the flight, maternal and defense instincts.
Still, I’d like to think if I were in that theater when the madman came in and started shooting, my first instinct would be to duck for cover. If I had a date, or God forbid my family with me, I’d pull them down to the floor and place myself between them and the gunman. If when the gunman was walking down the aisle, shooting at random, he passed and didn’t notice us, my first instinct would be to run up from behind, tackle him and beat the living shit out of him, grab his gun and kill him. That would be the attack instinct.
But in that terrifying situation, in the dark and the smoke, in the confusion and the fear, amid the carnage and the chaos, It’s hard to say what any one of us would do.
When the shooter dropped the AR somebody should have gone for it. An AR can jam in such a way that slamming the rifle butt against something can close the bolt fully and it’s ready to go again. (The reason those bolt assists are there in the first place. I’m willing to bet that guy never bothered to learn how to clear a jam, or what that bolt assist was for. Thank God for that!) I don’t know if that would have worked, but… If it was a bent extractor the AR can still be cleared and can be fired one shot at a time… maybe one shot from a person trained to deal with such a weapon could have prevented that carnage.
My point, don’t be afraid of these rifles. Learn to use them. It might just come in handy one day.
Women need men as much as fish needs a bike. Stop the heroics, women have the same right as men to be mown down by a mad man.
“Why is it that men’s lives are often seen as less important than women’s?” Not in Muslim countries, nor in China, nor Japan, nor the Philippines, nor Thailand, nor …
Back in 1989, one Marc Lepine shot 28 people in an attack on the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. When Lepine forced himself into a room with fifty men and nine women, he ordered the men to leave. Rather than attempt to rush him (Lepine was armed with a 5.56mm semiautomatic “Mini-14″ rifle and a hunting knife), the men left. After delivering a short rant about “radical feminism”, Lepine shot all nine women, killing six. Mark Steyn has written about how this incident was an example of how educational institutions have psychologically neutered men. Rather than risk their lives in a mass rush against a lone gunman, the fifty men did as they were ordered and filed out of the room, leaving the remaining nine women to their fates.
At Thunderbottom, Maybe those women were like the “Feminist” in Dadvocate’s link…
I would hope not, but the chances are fairly high that they were being a facility of higher learning and all that.
“Marc Lepine” by the way was born “Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi”.
“We do not have any reports of women hurling themselves in front of their boyfriends or anyone else accompanying them.”
We also do not have any reports of nonwhite men hurling themselves in front of their girlfriends or anyone else accompanying them. Or of gay males. Or of lesbians. No blacks, no Asians, no Muslims. Gee, what does that say about ALL nonwhite males, ALL Muslims, All homosexuals? I mean, since we’re making sweep negative generalizations here.
It was a young black man who returned and shielded a woman he did not know, taking a bullet to the leg in the process.
Not really a good counterargument.
Blacks, gays, lesbians, etc, are all much, much smaller portions of the population than women. In addition, in a given movie theatre, the portion of particular ethnic groups might be zero or close to it.
However, we know that there were lots of women in the theatre and women will be about 50% of typical movie populations.
So, your argument doesn’t hold water because there might have been many fewer (or zero) of the groups that you mention. We know that this was not true of women because several were saved by men.
John 15:12-14 Jesus is speaking. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
So it is also a religious thing. I wonder which if any of those 4 men were a friend of Christ.
Trey
Of course, some feminist got her panties all in a wad because men were being described as heroes.
You have to follow the link to believe it–the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen written. Just disgraceful. “She’s an airhead” doesn’t begin to describe it.
I remember when I first became a mother, how I was (from time to time) tormented by thoughts of what would happen / what would I do if the baby were ever in danger. However weird and obsessive it was to have such worries, I did have them, and became sure that I would do anything, including kill someone, to protect that baby. Luckily these thoughts were never put to the test, and the babies are all grown up now.
If men have that kind of fierce, protective instinct towards the women they love, I’m fine with that! God help them, and I honor them for it.
Jessica Wakeman is the perfect archetype of the postmodern feminist — a girl-woman in search of the permissive daddy who will give her shopping money, let her stay out all night, and clean up her messes for her. She fully expects men to adhere to the traditional masculine role when it comes to doing things for her (read some of the columns about what kind of husband she wants), until such time as said men gain any praise for doing so. At that point, she’s all “What about *me*?” It fits right in with her M.O. that she’d use the Aurora tragedy to write a column drawing attention to herself.
Is that how you read it, DADvocate? Because I agree with most or all of what Jessica wrote. I’m tired of men being treated as expendable, and as if they have some sort of extra duty to protect others at their own peril. As far as I’m concerned, EVERY able-bodied person should be trying to protect every other person.
Dadvocate, great link! I love how she is taken to the hoop in the comments. If heroism were required, it would not be heroic! It is a heroic CHOICE!
What a lightweight!
Trey
The Frisky closed comments on that one right quick. They hardly ever close comments on an article, but they couldn’t let precious Jessica get the spanking she so richly deserves.
Given the headline, “Air Force Staff Sergeant Jesse Childress saved a fellow airman,” the obvious supposition is that he sacrificed himself to save a man. But “airman” isn’t a gender-specific term, and the airman he saved was a woman. Please see link below.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Palmdale-Resident-Jesse-Childress-Aurora-Dark-Knight-163348556.html
Interesting.
The men who tried to protect their girlfriends and others had nothing to do with biology.
These men had traditional masculine Western values perhaps even believing “there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
In other cultures, the men would have used the women as human shields to protect themselves.
Human evolution is a social phenomena transcending physical evolution.
A man will die to protect a woman, and a woman will die to protect a child.
Is that so terrible?
Who dies to save the man, John? Or do we just wave bye-bye to him?
If you are a man, try to step out of yourself and your genetic programming, and look at women for exactly what they are.
If you ever accomplish it, you will start to find the hundreds of billions of dollars that flow to women every year (alimony, child support that is really mommy support, “dating”, informal prostitution [see the last entry], taxes – men pay more, women get more services, transfers via charities, divorce settlements, and then the big one, men earn lots more but croak earlier – women tend to get all that, there’s plenty more – but that’s OK for starters) is almost funny in the face of women’s complaints. The amount of protection that women get from society – vis-a-vis men – is almost funny in the face of women’s complaints. The fact that my older brother was drafted and sent to Vietnam and is messed up in the head and dirt poor, and my sister is stone rich after a couple of targeted marriages, is almost funny in the face of women’s complaints.
But every year there is a new crop of White Knights who feel a rush of greatness in beating up other men (only weaker ones – it’s understood) for any woman who feels “uncomfortable”. It’s like watching the programmed behavior of reptiles.
Good points.
It’s difficult to de-program, but eye opening.
Frankly, if you have ever heard of the “Star Chamber” from old England, that kind of thing would be cool today. A secret meeting of people who have the power to carry out their decisions – deciding which White Knight gets his nose bloodied today.
Let women compete on their own without White Knights. Or are they too weak to compete straight up? Let’s find out.
TMink:
Great that we have a promoter of the Bible / evangelist here. Love to hear it over and over again – and knowing that you are far superior to me in your understanding of the universe, and I can finally learn something in my hick life. I never think about anything like that.
I’m wondering about some stuff: Do you only pick and choose the things you follow in the Bible? Do you follow all of the commands in Leviticus, for instance?
I personally believe that women who cheat in a marriage should be stoned to death. Do you agree?
Would you have been a Christian if you had been raised in a Buddhist family in Laos?
Does the Devil really have a pitchfork?
What devil? I don’t recall any devil in the Bible (full disclosure, I regard revelations as not only Apocrpha, but foolishness.
Reality, I am at a loss to know how my quoting a verse gave you the idea that I think you are inferior or a hick. As a hick myself, from a long line of hicks, I would count your being a Southerner as an asset!
As a Christian, I am not bound by the Hebrew holiness law, nor the theocratic laws found in the Old Testament. I do pay attention to them, as they reveal the nature of God and good and evil. But I have not thrown a stone, nor am I likely to.
I do not think that people should be killed for adultery. I think we should repent and be forgiven. I really can’t say that I would be a Christian if I was born and raised a Buddhist. I was not raised Christian, but was exposed to the claims of Christ at age 12, and it made sense to me then. It continues to be something that guides and blesses me. As to the devil and a pitchfork, now you are being silly!
Nice talking to you, I hope we can converse some more at a later time.
God bless you Reality.
Trey
Interesting piece. many of the responses are well over the top, IMHO.
There is indeed a biological logic that suggests men ought to protect woman, yet I would suggest that even a cursor review of human history substantiantes mycontention that this mnale motive to protect women and children is much more strongly rooted in culture rather than heredity.