A thought on women and heroics.

[theweaselking]

Someone (and I think it's perhaps telling about ME that I can't remember who) said that women who act in a heroic manner are not properly recognised.

And the two examples that IMMEDIATELY come to mind are Patricia Maisch, who attacked and took That Guy Who Doesn't Deserve My Google Juice's ammunition away when he tried to reload after shooting Congresscritter Gifford, and Judy Rebick, who stopped Augusto Dantas from killing Henry Morgentaler in 1983 and whose Wikipedia entry doesn't even mention it, although Morgentaler's does.

And at the same time, I don't remember who, male or female, stopped John Hinkley, Sirhan Sirhan, or Squeaky Fromme.

So my question is: Are heroic females improperly discounted? Am I part of the problem? If so, who should I be respecting?

Comments

[ambug666.livejournal.com]

So my question is: Are heroic females improperly discounted? Am I part of the problem? If so, who should I be respecting?

The answer to the first question is likely yes. Only you can definitively give the answer the second question, but I suspect not. http://myhero.com/women_heroes/ suggests answers to the third.

The Secret Service stopped Hinkley [1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_assassination_attempt#The_shooting)]. I do not know if any of them were females. Females first entered the Secret Service in 1970 [2 (http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/article_88df9f36-bad1-11de-9112-001cc4c002e0.html)] so it is possible although unlikely.

"Security man Bill Barry hit Sirhan twice in the face while others, including maître d's Uecker and Edward Minasian, writer George Plimpton, Olympic gold medal decathlete Rafer Johnson and professional football player Rosey Grier, forced Sirhan against the steam table and disarmed him."[3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Robert_F._Kennedy#Assassination)] This does not preclude female involvement, but none are mentioned.

"She [Fromme] was immediately restrained by Larry Buendorf, a Secret Service agent." [4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeaky_Fromme#Assassination_attempt_on_President_Ford)]

(I was kinda curious myself so did the legwork, er fingerwork?, and wanted to share).

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The thing is, my examples do not inherently mean that I have defined the problem. I may have picked examples that support my position.

[ambug666.livejournal.com]

Sure. But my anecdotal evidence agrees with yours. I do not believe that women are predisposed to act any less heroically than men, but I can think of far fewer female heroes than male.

Yes, the hypothesis may be wrong. Maybe due to the stereotypical gender roles, men are more likely to act in the face of danger so there are (overwhelmingly) more of stories them. Maybe it is hardwired into human biology.

Or maybe the actions of female heroes are discounted unless they fall into stereotypical gender roles (feeding the poor, teaching the underprivileged, &c).

I tend to believe a combination of the first theory (social conditioning) and the third (under-reported heroism in women), but I have no hard numbers or proof. And I am by no means a sociologist, so I doubt that unless someone else can provide proof one way or the other this will be more than a mental exercise for me.

Regardless, I feel that your bringing this matter to light shows that you are not part of the problem.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

On that last... I would say that bringing the matter to light means he is consciously attempting to not reinforce the problem, which is subtly different. (Often the best any of us can do, but still not the same as not being part of the problem.)

[snakey.livejournal.com]

I think an important question is what you mean by "heroic" (or if you're inviting commenters to provide their own definitions, but that doesn't help with the "am I part of the problem" past).

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Judging by the examples, I'm going to go with the specific subset of laudable behaviour that is "risking serious injury/death in order to save other people from probable death."

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

Well, the irony here is...because women aren't properly credited, we don't *know* who we should be noting.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Female Heroes

[raie.livejournal.com]

But, like all female heroes, tragedy!

Oh yeah

Aging myself!Old School!

So what I noticed is, if they are female heroes, they die tragically/martyr themselves or must be sexy.

Re: Female Heroes

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Most heroes do that, but the "sexy" part is less emphasised (not GONE) because the target audience of most media is the straight male and straight women are expected to settle.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is indeed not getting credited in general-level discussion.

There I am, in a hotbed discussion of the Gifford's shooting (on a forum), and only now I hear that the person who prevented reloading is a woman. People were more focused on the dude who tackled the nutcake and then went on with What We Should Do To These Angry White Men To Stop This From Happening Again (which is a noble goal in itself, except it all boils down to hot air on a forum).

(Note that I do not live in USA, so I'm not overly keen to keep up with all US-based things.)

[andrewducker]

Only real discussion I've bumped into on the topic was this:
http://communicator.livejournal.com/773060.html

Which you may have seen when I linked to it, or not :->

[bluetara2020.livejournal.com]

I think heroism, period, is under reported. First, you have to define what heroism is. I think that one of the things that define a hero is saving lives. So, opening a homeless shelter or providing scholarships can be seen as heroic but isn't generally acknowledged as such. Doesn't make it less heroic, just doesn't generally make good copy.

What does make good copy is stopping bad guys. But a teacher who manages to help make sure that kids have choices other than which gang to belong to isn't seen as heroic either. Or the preacher who works at the youth center and preaches against violence. Or the social worker who takes kids away from abusive homes...none of these are considered heroic.

That doesn't take into account battlefield heroics either. The guys (and gals) who do their job, protect their buddies and run into minefields or burning buildings or work for three days on three hours sleep to put people back together.

So what does get reported has to save lives, stop bad guys and be high profile. It doesn't hurt if at least one of the people involved is 1 - a kid or 2 - cute/attractive. And as we all know (the sarcasm is high in this one) what doesn't get reported doesn't happen.

Everyday heroes are, nonetheless, heroes.

Seems to me that people are far more interested in the tragedy of things than the people who stop them.