Home of Fred Delles's favorite games and original stories!

www.freddelles.com

April 6, 2003: Mass Lynch-ing

This is more of a rant than an editorial, so bear with me.

Long story short: In late March, the 507th Maintenance Division in the U.S. Army, on its way back to base, took a wrong turn... and was ambushed. Everyone was either captured or killed without much of a fight, except PFC Jessica Lynch, who seemed to have the fury of the Dragoness when she fired and fired at the incoming Iraqi soldiers until she ran out of ammo. She was captured, tortured, and possibly sexually abused, in addition to being shot, having two broken legs, and having a minor spinal injury. She was rescued thanks to some of the Special Ops with tips from an Iraqi defector, and now, she is recovering and will reunite with her family.

Now, what did we get out of this story? A whole lot of nothing except for the fact that women in combat are as competent as (most) men. There will be people that will demonize her and the ideals of women in the military (as Rush Limbaugh once called the, ahem, "two-inch crowd"). At the same time, people greatly honor what she did in that situation, giving her all the credit. (Well, she didn't rescue herself, didn't she?)

Neither was true. Just as your average Joe in the military is neither Private Pyle nor Rambo, the average Jane in the military is neither Xena nor Dejah Thoris. They have to run through various training exercises, shoot a rifle accurately, and learn various skills for the job.

I have read articles that tell both sides of the story (more "demonizing" Lynch) and they generally are all over the place. People always think, "Women are always weaker than men in everything and they can't bump through the glass ceiling". This is true for both sides of the political spectrum. A liberal "feminist" would say, "You can't break the glass ceiling. Give up and whine to those lawmakers to get rid of it for you." A conservative would say, "You can't break the glass ceiling. Heck, why are you even trying? You should be home doing everything for your man."

Neither side admits that the woman (this could be true for race as opposed to gender, by the way) should only try harder. Heck, I conclude that women need ambition, not laws or cultural ideals, unless the situation calls for it.

This ideal runs through everything not only in the political world, but the entertainment world. Movies generally shaft women into minor roles (unless you're Julia Roberts) and make them cheap plot accessories like in The Fugitive or Braveheart. (The times are-a-changin' since 2002, but still do not respect women that well, perhaps with the exception of Chicago and The Hours, and the latter is a bit of a "Who needs men?" kind of ideology, which is practically the opposite. Two wrongs do not make a right.)

Video games are the same thing. Back then, you rescue the helpless princess. Now, things have gotten a little more egalitarian since the Lara Croft fad, though women are generally put in chainmail-bikini-armored roles.

In D&D, for example, I almost always see women with lower Strength and Constitution scores, and in other very rare cases, very high of both. The truth is, intestinal fortitude is actually roughly the same in men and women, if the woman's fortitude is not higher (due to additional body fat and protective nonvital organs, like... bigger breasts). Strength - forget it. Women have about 25-45 percent less upper body strength than men. Though they shouldn't have that low of a Strength score because those that adventure are in the minority in the first place!

A male warrior hero would have, say, 18 STR, 14 DEX, and 16 CON with okay intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. A typical female (never fighter, always rogue or wizard) hero would almost always have 8-12 STR, 16-18 DEX, 10-12 CON with higher intellectual scores.

If you put the Lynch theory in D&D, there would be a female warrior hero (and not a STR 18 one); she'd probably have 14 STR, 16 DEX, and 16-18 CON. Note that they should exist (and thank those that do acknowledge that women aren't weak),

I've only shown one example; you can fill in many, many other "glass ceiling of magic" female characters from other RPGs. Hell, name one RPG (let's make this hard - a Japanese console game) that had a woman that wasn't fragile.

Granted, she did not do a whole lot (she did a whole lot more than I did), but what did YOU do during this war? And if you actually went to one of those Communist-run (yes, really) antiwar protests, you deserve to have a boot up your ass, toe first.

I think people need to get extremism out of their head and just conclude that Jessica did what she asked to do for her country. She's a typical woman in the military, stronger and weaker than most people hypothesize. That, for her, is one step closer to being a dragoness. :D

Back to the Articles Page

Main Page