Male Expendability Part 2 - news & informative media

Now, be honest: who, after my last post, felt a little (or a lot) like just sarcastically crying out "oh boo-hoo, men are killed more onscreen! Waaah, isn't my life just awful?"

To tell the truth, I did somewhat.

But as I was at pains to point out, it's not just about films. If it was, I wouldn't particularly care. As I said, though, I was aiming to highlight a larger problem when it comes to the perception of violence against men and male death in the media and societal collective conciousness. To continue this, let's have a look at the news.

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"Oh, come on! You can't be serious! All news is about men!"

Well, let's not get into an argument about that. News is what is deemed news-worthy, and yes, because of the prevalence of men in areas of politics, economics and the military in particular, you are more likely to encounter news stories that involve men ('involve', not necessarily 'are about', mind). But keep in mind what I was talking about in the last post, and look at some headlines from the last few days.

Did you see that? If not, look again.

For the record, I haven't gone out of my way to find these, I didn't have to go digging through the BBC News archive to find them, they were all very much top of the site as I write this.

Did you notice how the headlines which feature women or girls specifically identify them as such, in the headline? How about those featuring men? 'One', 'bodies', 'sledger', 'pub landlord'. Yes, they might get identified as men in the body, but to be honest if the headline doesn't say 'woman' or 'women', it's about men. Because the headline always makes sure to point out when it's a woman. In fairness, I did find one using the word 'man', but this does not appear to be the norm.

So, where's the problem? Well, it would seem to show a tendency to dehumanise men when something bad, like their death or injury, happens. Remember, I did not have to go digging for these - they're nearly all from today.

Incidentally, headlines will tend not to downplay men's gender when it comes to them doing something bad. A robber or a murderer or whatever bad thing he is, he will much more often be identified as a man in the headline.

I've been keeping my eye on this for a while, and it happens over and over and over - in incidents of accident, injury or death, men become 'workers', 'police officers', 'soldiers', 'security guards', 'miners', 'passers by', 'drivers', just about anything other than 'men'. At the same time, we make damn sure to be loud and clear when women are the victims - even going so far as to downplay men's suffering in comparison.

Remember Hillary Clinton? Well, despite the preposterous nature of that comment, don't go thinking it's only her who says things like that. Here's a nice long depressing read, a study about Kosovan men's gendercide pretty much being ignored in the western press during the war. Sample quote:

The Death March of the Kosovo Refugees
MORINA, Albania, April 18 (AFP) -- Among the thousands of refugees fleeing Kosovo, none suffer worse than those forced to travel for days and nights on end on foot {...} They also took away all the males aged 15 or over [!].

{Emphases not mine}.

Of course, what the article doesn't tell you is that those males were executed. So the systematic extermination of males is not worse than being made a refugee. Now, I don't mean to downplay the suffering those women did go through - and it was pretty bloody awful - but can you really legitimately say it was worse than being shoved on your knees and shot in the head?

Ok, so moving away from quite such nasty stuff, here's another video for you, this time about the discrepancy between what studies are saying, and what is being reported in the media, about gender issues in three areas. Again, the female side gets elevated, and the male side ignored.

What is this? Do we just not care? I have no interest in denying the issues that women and girls face, but where is the balance? How is this possibly just, right, or fair?

I'm sure at this point people will still be thinking "ah, I don't know, it still seems a bit cherry-picked to me. I'm sure you could claim all sorts of things with the right links at your disposal". And you know what? I'd agree with you. Of course you can. All I'm asking is that you bear this in mind when you look around you. See if you wind up agreeing with me or not. If not, fine, there's not a problem, I'm just on a high-horse. But if you do agree, then we've got a problem needs sorting out.

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There is another element in all of this: photographs. Photos are incredibly powerful tools of communication, and the right or wrong picture in the right or wrong place can very much influence someone's opinion.

On this point, I have in my hand an issue of a free local magazine that I picked up in a pub, clearly aimed at the large student population where I live. This issue appears to be focussing a great deal on starting university amongst other things. The bit that bothers me is the Education section, which contains 'The Educational Journey', about the choices one must make throughout their educational career, and 'The Personal Touch' all about how parents can help their children.

Over several pages we have: one photo of a schoolgirl; one photo of a young woman, presumably a student; one large advert for funded positions at a public school, with picture of a smiling young girl; a college advert, picture of a studious young woman; a photo of a mother helping her young daughter study; another photo of a mother helping her two young daughters study. There are, in fairness, two adverts containing males: one for a nursery with a thumbnail picture of three boys and three girls; the other a technical college advert featuring two young men and one young woman.

What I want to know is, at a time when boys have been consistently behind girls in education for around 20 years, why are there no pictures of men or boys being run in this section? Where are the dads helping their boys or girls? Where are the boys smiling out of the page? Remember, the only two pictures that show males are adverts, not images to go with the actual articles.

Again, if this was a one-off I wouldn't have anything to talk about. But it seems to happen over and over. In fact, throughout the entire magazine, there are only two images of males in any of the non-interview articles. One is in 'Pub Fun', and is a tiny thumbnail of some guys at a barbecue, under a large banner photo of several women enjoying karaoke. The other is called 'Fresh Faced' - an article to do with starting at university - and the banner is a young woman, and a young man who is essentially being hustled out of the picture. Seriously, his face is practically cut off by the end of the page. I'd understand a bit more if they were trying to sell copy, but it's a free magazine. What about 'Staying Healthy as a Student', which contains two large pictures of smiling young women - shouldn't you at least try to appeal to young men in such a section? After all, they're the most likely not to take care of themselves, health-wise.

Of course, this is probably all about trying to appeal to a certain demographic - after all, those advertisers who fund it expect revenue... but hang on, the adverts and articles run don't seem to be gender-specific. There's gadgets and cars alongside make-up and fashion, there's interviews, competitions for festival tickets... this isn't a women's magazine, nor is it a men's magazine. It's just a youth magazine. So what happened?

The thing about breaking down one magazine as I have just done is that I can see a lot of people rolling their eyes right now, saying "yes, ok, you've proved your point with one little freebie magazine - you're just nitpicking now, aren't you". Well, perhaps. Yes, I feel a little absurd doing that breakdown, but I also believe that this lack of representation is very promenant. One magazine may not be a problem, but what about when it comes up again and again? At what point does it start to be a problem? Is it an issue when it's a BBC article about cancer, for example? What about if I mentioned that was published a day after this? Seems a bit odd in that light, doesn't it?

Feminists and ethnic minorities have fought for representation in newspapers, magazines, prospectuses and so forth for a reason - the image does hold power, can influence your perception of something. Perhaps not just the one, but when they're seen continually... or perhaps not seen. Once again, I don't want all pictures alongside these articles to be of men - but it would be nice if some were. It would be nice to feel welcome.

Well, let's take this to its inevitable unpleasant conclusion, shall we? Let's look at the website for the National Domestic Violence Helpline. There will be a post in future about domestic violence in relation to men, so I won't dwell, but have a look for a second. Look at the imagery. Read the language. Maybe you want to see how you can support a friend - notice anything interesting about the language they're using? For a national charity helpline, it seems a little one-sided, don't you think? How do you think, as a man, you would feel if you were looking for domestic violence support and came across this? Would you feel welcome? Would you feel like you were going to be helped? Would you feel like your struggle, your pain, was recognised? Hop on to YouTube and look at some DV PSAs. Where are the male victims? Do we care about their lives, their health, or their happiness at all? It certainly seems like no, we don't.

And it just seems to me, wherever I look, everything follows that pattern. We downplay, or outright ignore, male problems, male victimhood, male pain. It makes me sad.

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Well, that's that for part 2. Coming up in part 3: unemployment and the 'mancession'.

Male Expendability Part 1 - films and television

Here's a little something to do next time you are watching a film or TV show which contains violence: have a look at who's dying. I'm not talking about main characters here, I'm talking about the 'collateral damage', the nameless nobody's in the background who are getting killed or hurt in order to show how dangerous the situation really is. You know, the bomb goes off, or the monster's rampaging around eating people, or random people are being caught in the cross-fire of a shoot-out. Chances are, most - if not all - of the people you see dying will be men.

Now, this is post may come across somewhat as mere whining, but it's a good introduction into a larger issue: the idea of male expendability. Being as it is quite a large issue, I've decided to break it into parts so as to not have one absolutely massive post.

Why start with films and television? Well, they seem to be a good way to start thinking about a cultural outlook that most people don't really notice. You can literally sit there and see it being played out in front of you again and again.

So, is that it? Men tend to be the ones getting killed in films? Well, yes, but also no. Let's have a look at how these deaths occur: they are often very graphic, violent, and incredibly casual. They have no emotional resonance whatsoever - the killing of all these men is occasionally to make a point, but often just for entertainment value.

Think about when a woman is killed in a film - is it ever casual? I cannot think of one single example where it is. Women's deaths are either primary plot points, or used as proof that the villain has gone 'beyond the moral event horizon' - ok, so they'd done some bad things (possibly involving the deaths of piles of men), but now they've killed a woman which makes them really evil.

In comparison, men's deaths on screen barely go noticed. How many times have you seen an action sequence where something blew up, and you didn't even think about the fact that - hang on - that's just killed those 10 men you saw a minute ago? How many times do policemen, security guards, or just people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time get shot and the action just moves on and, oh look, we've forgotten about it? How many times do truckloads of soldiers get mown down without a seconds thought? How many times have men's deaths been used as a joke? Think about that one: how many people would have laughed at the Joker's pencil trick if the victim had been a woman? I'm guessing not many.

We're just far more casual about killing men than women. In manwomanmyth's video 'Men are Disposable - 1/4', he mentions women complaining about being treated as sex objects on screen, and follows up by saying men are treated as nothing more than death objects. The medley of violence that follows is incredibly nasty - it starts at about 5:30 if you want to see it.

He also does go into another point in the comparison of male vs. female deaths on screen: the female discretion shot. This is where a woman's death occurs out of shot or off-screen (think about all those times you've seen a gun pointed at a woman, and then it cuts to a shot of the window from outside and you see a flash and hear a bang). It's quite remarkable when you start noticing quite how graphic a film or show will be with shooting, blowing up, burning, mutilating or otherwise destroying multiple men, and then there's a female discretion shot.

Now, here's the thing - I'm not saying "I want to see more women graphically killed on screen". What I am saying is that I find it remarkable that films that are graphically violent towards men have these female discretion shots in them.

Of course, I understand why they do it, and this is where things start to move on from me whining about films to real-world outlooks. It comes down to the fact that males are seen to be more expendable than females. From a Darwinian perspective, this makes perfect sense, but it still exists as a general principle in society today - ableit one that isn't said out loud and many people don't see. Not only that, but men have an innate drive to protect women - often by putting themselves in harm's way. It's expected. Violence against women is, and has always been, far less acceptable than violence against men. Men's deaths are simply not as tragic in society's eyes (I will be going into this in more detail in an upcoming post). This, coupled with the now almost inevitable feminist backlash if women are treated badly on film, leads to this discrepancy.

At this point I'm going to mention slasher films, because I'm sure someone's thinking "hang on, almost all the victims in those films are girls". But that's the point - you're supposed to know how terrible the killer is, how much of a psychopath. These films are supposed to unnerve and frighten you. The deaths of the girls in them, however graphic or seemingly throwaway, are the central plot of the film. They are the point of its existing in the first place. They may be casual in the sense of quick and not overblown, but the death is always the centrepiece of the scene - you're never in a position where the death is really just decoration.

I already mentioned men protecting women to their own detriment, and I want to have a quick look at how this is portrayed on film. Let's take the 2005 remake of King Kong. Anne Darrow gets kidnapped by Kong, and all the men go off to rescue her. In the process, dozens die, horrifically (particularly those who are unfortunate enough to get eaten by the giant tube-worms). At one point, some decide to head back to the ship, and they are branded cowards and not real men for wanting to protect their own lives from a reckless mission that is almost certainly doomed to at best fail, and at worst kill them. They are only redeemed by putting themselves back in harms way. Several of the men's deaths are treated as jokes in the dialogue (the whole 'donate the proceeds to his wife and kids' bit).

Once they do rescue Darrow, is she grateful? No, she's far more concerned about the big gorilla. Now, of course, they don't treat Kong nicely, but is it ever acknowledged that dozens of men died at the hands of this creature in an effort to save this one woman? No. Do they get any sort of service or memorial? No. Are they ever thought of again? No.

The final act is a huge lament to how terrible Kong's fortune is (whilst he kills yet more men - this time the fighter pilots), and his death is quite ridiculous in its overblown tragedy. One giant gorilla is worth your tears. Dozens of men aren't even worth thinking about.

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What has been the point of this post? On the surface, it really does just look like a whinge. Do I want all male deaths on screen to be replaced by female ones? No. Then what's the point?

The point is, this is a very good way of demonstrating a cultural expectation we have that most people simply do not notice: male disposability. It's a good example of the different ways we look upon and treat male vs. female death - something which is quite profoundly skewed in modern society, which affects the way we create laws and charitable foundations, how we distribute funding, how we run awareness campaigns, and I am anticipating having to do two or three more posts just to roughly cover the basics. So really, this post in an introduction to a concept which I find to be very alarming, and wish to explore in depth.

To be continued...