Apparently the plot has some fairly obvious feminist undertones, which is relatively rare in horror movies. It deals with a "feral" woman captured by a seemingly ordinary family man and chained in his basement in the hope of "civilizing her". I assume at some point she escapes and kills a few people, which prompted this comment from some misogynist on the internet:
I feel sorry for you and any other woman who truly believes that they can physically overpower a man.
You know, if women are just as physically capable as men, I’d love to start my own inter-gender boxing league. Sign me up, baby! Equality at its finest.
I feel I need to respond, only because it seems that every time this comes up there is a big pink elephant in the room that no one is willing to discuss, and one that HISHE parodies excellently. Gentlemen, I'm sorry to break it to you, but you can be pretty much physically overpowered by any woman out there.
Cue to the sound of MGTOW heads exploding everywhere
See gents, you were born with some little dangly bits in between your legs. While you pay enormous attention to those bits on other occasions, you seem to fail to notice that they make you exceedingly vulnerable. One good tap there (I am told that an upwards tap can be even worse than an outright blow on some occasions, but a hard kick will suffice I'm sure) will put any man out of commission long enough for you to run for it and out of harms way. While I am not suggesting this to be an appropriate course of action if you are just having a discussion with someone, I am saying that it is more than appropriate to get yourself out of a life-or-death situation.
"Fine then", I can already hear them say, "If that's so, Miss Uppity Feminazi Kow-It-All, then why are there so many women that get attacked by men? HA checkmate bitch!" Well, Mr. Hypothetical Loser erm I mean MGTOW, there are many reasons why that happens:
1. Blitz Attack If someone sneaks up on you from behind and smacks you over the head, you don't even see them coming and the damage is done before you have time to react
2. Fear If the attacker is holding a knife or a gun, many people will fear being killed and go along with whatever the attacker wants in the hopes of escaping with their lives. Weapons even the playing field
3. Panic Some people react under panic, others freeze. The person may have ample opportunity to go for the proverbial jewels, but the thought never crosses their minds at the time
4. Multiple Attackers If someone is holding you down while the other attacks the odds are incredibly stacked against you
5. Love Especially in the case of female rape victims, the vast majority of cases the woman knows her rapist. If it is someone they actually like or love they may subconsciously not want to hurt them, despite how much they are being hurt (e.g. Battered Wife's Syndrome)
6. Huge Physical Difference I say most people can put most men out of commission, but of course if you pin a tiny 95 pound woman against a 6foot 200pound man with fighting experience, chances are he's not going to let her get close to those balls. However, the number of cases that fit this description are very limited.
My point is that all of these reasons are not limited to women. If a man is blitz attacked, is held at gun point or is tiny compared to his attacker he also has the same diminished chances as a woman. It's not about the presence of a Y chromosome, it's about the circumstances you find yourself in.
This is semi-true. I've been hit in the nuts, hard enough to pick my feet up from the ground.
ReplyDeleteIt had some effect, but... it took about 45 secondds to kick in. In the meanwhile the guy who did it was foolish enough to try it again. Lets just say his day ended worse than mine.
As someone who has a fair bit of experience with violence (both incidental, and professional: I spent 16 years in the army before I was medically retired), anyone can be beaten. Gambits (like a shot to the testicles) have a high rate of success, but when they fail the effect on the attacker is usally devastating; because of the shock that comes of, "the foolproof move" failing.
Weapons work, but one has to know what one is doing, and be willing to carry it to the needed end. They also have legal repurcussions, because response must be proportional (and just what that is varies by jurisdiction) and once the attacker is no longer a threat, any further action is considered a new assault, and you are the initiator.
The best thing most people can do, to deal with physical attacks, is take a course like Model Mugging, and get the sense of what the tempo/adreniline that go with being in a fight feels like. Experience is the best aid to coming out on top in an altercation.
@pecunium
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on that. In fact, this scenario that I was describing involved someone trying to get out of a life or death situation. I am in no way saying that someone in this situation should go for the nuts (or the kneecap, the eyes, whichever vulnerable point is most accesible at the time) and then just stand around and see what happens. The idea is to injure enough to get away, and the idea that a woman is incapable of ever being able to get away from a man (who have the luck of having an extra vulnerable point) is just silly.
Anyway, thanks for being my first commenter :)