A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[Gotthammer]

There is always a dominant aggressive personality in wildlife so it stands to reason that people function the same.

Not always. [URL="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020106"]Biologists Robert Sapolsky and Lisa Share[/URL] followed a troop of wild baboons in Kenya for over 20 years, starting in 1978. Sapolsky and Share called them “The Garbage Dump Troop” because they got much of their food from a garbage pit at a tourist lodge. But not every baboon was allowed to eat from the pit in the early 1980s: The aggressive, high status males in the troop refused to allow lower status males, or any females, to eat the garbage. Between 1983 and 1986, infected meat from the dump led to the deaths of 46% of the adult males in the troop. The biggest and meanest males died off. As in other baboon troops studied, before they died, these top-ranking males routinely bit, bullied, and chased males of similar and lower status, and occasionally directed their aggression at females.

But when the top ranking males died-off in the mid-1980s, aggression by the (new) top baboons dropped, with most aggression occurring between baboons of similar rank, and little of it directed toward lower-status males, and almost none directed at females. Troop members also spent a larger percentage of the time grooming, sat closer together than in the past, and hormone samples indicated that the lowest status males experienced less stress than would be the norm in another baboon troop. Most interestingly, these effects persisted at least through the late 1990’s, well after all the original “kinder” males had died off. Not only that, when adolescent males who grew up in other troops joined the “Garbage Dump Troop,” they too engaged in less aggressive behavior than in other baboon troops. As Sapolsky put it “We don’t understand the mechanism of transmission… but the jerky new guys are obviously learning: We don’t do things like that around here.”

[Psychosplodge]

[40kGamer]

Not always. [URL="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020106"]Biologists Robert Sapolsky and Lisa Share[/URL] followed a troop of wild baboons in Kenya for over 20 years, starting in 1978. Sapolsky and Share called them “The Garbage Dump Troop” because they got much of their food from a garbage pit at a tourist lodge. But not every baboon was allowed to eat from the pit in the early 1980s: The aggressive, high status males in the troop refused to allow lower status males, or any females, to eat the garbage. Between 1983 and 1986, infected meat from the dump led to the deaths of 46% of the adult males in the troop. The biggest and meanest males died off. As in other baboon troops studied, before they died, these top-ranking males routinely bit, bullied, and chased males of similar and lower status, and occasionally directed their aggression at females.

But when the top ranking males died-off in the mid-1980s, aggression by the (new) top baboons dropped, with most aggression occurring between baboons of similar rank, and little of it directed toward lower-status males, and almost none directed at females. Troop members also spent a larger percentage of the time grooming, sat closer together than in the past, and hormone samples indicated that the lowest status males experienced less stress than would be the norm in another baboon troop. Most interestingly, these effects persisted at least through the late 1990’s, well after all the original “kinder” males had died off. Not only that, when adolescent males who grew up in other troops joined the “Garbage Dump Troop,” they too engaged in less aggressive behavior than in other baboon troops. As Sapolsky put it “We don’t understand the mechanism of transmission… but the jerky new guys are obviously learning: We don’t do things like that around here.”

That is a very interesting study. I would honestly not expect to see any community where some individual was not striving for dominance. I wonder if the outcome could be / has been replicated. Although killing off all the aggressive personalities in society may be met with a little resistance.

[Erik Setzer]

Actually, I did have an issue with Jackson being Nick Fury, because as cool as he was in the role, it was a huge departure from what the character was for a long time. They've since added backstory to explain it.

I have issue with Johnny Storm being made black just to change things up because they had to then completely change the family's story just to cover that unnecessary change. They could have changed the sister as well, but then they'd have an interracial relationship, and it seems like those are practically forbidden in movies. But this is also in a movie where Doctor Doom's name is being changed and his backstory is now that he's an angry blogger, which actually upsets me even more.

I have issue with anyone who isn't Thor using the Thor name. It's like taking Loki's staff and calling yourself Loki. I don't care if they wrote some explanation for it, you're not Thor/Loki.

I don't think Storm should be cast as white or male. I don't think characters should be changed at all. I get that Marvel right now is pushing to get more women reading comics by pushing female characters. Cool, that's fine, if they aren't going to drop the idea down the line. But then why not push to the fore some of the existing female characters, or make new ones? Those wouldn't get headlines. Replace Thor with a female and make Captain America black, replace Avengers with an all-women team called A-Force, and announce those things on television programs aimed at the demographic you're trying to draw in, and suddenly you've got a lot more interest than just doing things the "hard" way.

Again, I have a problem with swapping female characters to male, too. This isn't a problem with women super-heroes existing. I'd like to see more of them. It's swapping out characters unnecessarily just to make news. And yes, they will swap back to male Thor, and then we'll have had no "progress," while a promoted existing heroine or new heroine could still be going after a story arc is done.

Casting a non-white character as white isn't good, either. I didn't get a hint that Katniss was meant to be non-white, but then, I probably need to re-read the books. Aang being white is stupid, but everything about that movie was stupid.

"Whitewashing" isn't good and neither is the opposite. Changing female to male wouldn't be accepted and neither should the opposite. If we need more strong female, black, whatever characters, we should make more, rather than going "e-z mode" and changing existing characters.

[Erik Setzer]

Not always. [URL="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020106"]Biologists Robert Sapolsky and Lisa Share[/URL] followed a troop of wild baboons in Kenya for over 20 years, starting in 1978.

Funny thing... While they didn't show so many signs of "dominance" later, there was still the same level of aggression as other groups, it just happened between baboons on the same hierarchy level. So instead of trying to show the ones below them who was boss, they were trying to one-up each other.

Really, though, it sounds like the key issue is that so many of the more assertive males died because of the junk they were eating, that they ended up with a 2:1 ratio of females to males, and there's not much need then to fight to get a female or impress them as there's plenty of options, and there's not enough males for them to be killing each other. They're still a bunch of tools to the transfer males until said males integrate properly, so the behavior's confined to their own little community, which, again, had recently suffered serious losses to illness and had a major gender imbalance.

And, of course, there's the strong chance that if several males transferred into their group at the same time, it would send the culture right back to how it was prior to the mass deaths.

So maybe a short-term study of an extreme situation isn't the best for determining that long-term things can be better. It'd be nice to believe it, but we've seen that while people can also be better in the short-term after hardships, they'll revert to "normal" when those hardships are gone.

[Path Walker]

Erik, Its almost like you wanted to prove my point.
But anyway, to disprove that the examples you used were marvel trying to change things in spite of the established lore:

Marvel Cinematic Universe Nick Fury wasn't a "departure" it was based on a reimagining from the "Ultimate Universe", where Nick Fury is based on Samuel L Jackson.

Thor being an inherited mantle of whosoever holds the hammer is enshrined in the comic lore, its written on the damn hammer.

Captain America has often been passed along, you could argue the first Super Soldier to be Captain America was a black test subject in a fairly recent look back, but where they got to in the story, Sam was the best candidate to take up the role. Sam was the first mainstream black superhero, he worked with Cap for years and they were good friends, he is the a solid and believable choice to represent Captain America, its not even the first time he's done so.

They have original minority heroes, but they've had trouble building interest in them because comic buyers are creatures of habit, they like things they know, its damn hard for Marvel to get a brand new hero to work because the comic buyers will only buy so many titles, so they'd have to pull a recognised name off of another title to do it.

I'm glad to hear you'd have a problem with them changing a female character to a male, your support for a purely hypothetical situation is nice to hear, really proves your credentials as a Nice Guy.

[Psychosplodge]

[URL="http://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/education-ministers-defends-respectful-strip-searches-of-students?wow"]This[/URL] is insane.

[Gotthammer]

Urgh that's awful.

-

[Mr Mystery]

Did....did he really just use the 'some of my best friends are' line?

And expected to be taken seriously?

And of course, this means at long last we have exposed The BoLS Feminist Mafia as men.....because as peaces says, there are no female transformer fans. AND THE INTERNET DOES NOT LIE.

[eldargal]

TFW2005 is revolting, makes Dakkadakka look civilised. Another one from a while ago: