That’s kinda my point. It already teeters on a knife’s edge. If anyone thinks it wouldn’t IMMEDIATELY overturn, they’re hopeless optimists.
No, and I think you’re being deliberately disingenuous. I have been speaking about TWD - and by extension, the logical and realistic result, for women, of any post-apocalyptic scenario.
Women are currently often attracted to strong alpha males with a lot of power and prestige, who may or may not treat them, or anyone else, very well. It isn’t deliberate, it’s innate. Not all women are like this (I’ve personally never been attracted to an alpha male myself) but enough are that Andrea’s actions should be utterly unsurprising. They are typical enough that they raise no eyebrows.
What raises eyebrows is someone slut-shaming a woman in her situation.
But do you honestly believe that a human being (male or female) should not pursue a course to make sure one’s own life is as protected as one can possibly ensure it is?
I’m not the one slapping labels like “should” on Andrea’s actions. You are, by calling her promiscuous. I’m saying her actions - and frankly those of Maggie, Carol, Beth and Lori - are entirely understandable and reasonable within the framework of the mini-society and the macro-situation they are living in.
Ok, for clarity’s sake, I’m devoting this post to this tangent:
I was addressing Acsenray’s remark about women in our military being treated as chattel, i.e. personal property. That’s a rather bold statement, so I was asking for clarification.
Have you been following the news? Women in the military are basically free game for sexual assault by their compatriots. That has the whiff of chattelry about it.
Moving on to the main points. It looks like there are three discussions here:
Should a woman in an apocalypse scenario use her sexuality to ensure that powerful men will protect her (among other methods, such as arming herself)?
This is inferred from this post:
Is Andrea carrying out this practice? I say she most likely is, you seem to disagree, per:
In an apocalypse, would women be reduced to chattel and rape victims? You seem pretty clear on this one:
I think you overstate things, especially on the “immediately” part. Women in the TWD scenario have two great assets: over 200 million firearms in circulation, and a culture that treats women as equals. These are advantages that women who are oppressed elsewhere do not have.
Lastly:
Certainly one should try and protect one’s own life, but not above all other concerns.
This one? I read it when you posted it. Yes, sexual assaults occur. I didn’t think that was in dispute. But 207,754 assaults in a year, in a nation of 314 million, doesn’t indicate that a meaningful number of American men are just a zombie attack away from becoming rapists.
This is the second time you’ve expressed this opinion in this thread. I am genuinely curious what concerns should have priority over self preservation and whether this is a personal standard or one that you expect all right-thinking people to adhere to. IOW, the difference between “I think it’s best to put on my pants starting with the left leg”. vs. “One should put on one’s pants starting with the left leg.”.
Again, just interested about the underpinnings of the position.
She’s definitely a go-getter, anxious to be in the thick of things, not wanting to sit on the sidelines. I think that much is obvious. And I think that while she is competent now, it’s in her nature to bite off more than she can chew or rush into things, perhaps to show those around her how tough or competent she is. I seem to remember in the first season she had her gun, but didn’t really know how to use it. She eventually got some training, but then was so anxious to show off her new skills that she almost blew Daryl’s brains out, after being told specifically not to take the shot. By the season 2 finale she was a very proficient fighter, and we saw her kicking some serious ass before she met Michonne. But then when she manned the wall in Woodbury, she broke Rule #1 within 5 minutes when she jumped from the wall and stabbed the zombie, as if to say “Silly little girl. Let me show you how it’s done!” when she was the one who was being trained. Then we have the latest example, in which the Gov gives her a specific and important job, which she abandons. It wasn’t even a lame “babysitting” job, as the Gov pointed out the infiltrators could be hiding out anywhere, possibly with hostages at that very moment. Her job was as much search-and-destroy as it was babysitting. Yet she refused anything that wasn’t in the heat of the main battle.
So I think that her character is very capable, and willing to learn to improve, but unwilling to accept her limitations or orders/advice from others, and she has a need to prove herself to those around her. What was the dynamic between her and her father and sister that was revealed on the fishing boat in the quarry way back in Season 1? Was she always trying to seek approval or get his attention? Because that would go a long way in explaining her current behavior.
Yeah, that, or it’s just another drawn-out audience-tease, trying to put Andrea as close as possible to Rick and company without ever actually being able to recognize them.
Self preservation is morally limited, as all things are, by the rights of others. That’s the essence of it, right there.
Now, what those limits are, and what the rights of others are, is of course very subjective. As well, the variety of factual circumstances that might confront a moral agent is nearly infinite. In my view, you do not have the right to take or endanger others’ lives (without their consent, of course) to preserve your own, nor may you deprive them of their property. This part is the one that I expect all right-thinking people to adhere to: a person may only be harmed by another in very narrow circumstances: immediate self-defense against that person’s aggression, or subsequent to the due process of law. In the event that said due process has been suspended, as in The Walking Dead, then each person much follow a code of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt until due process can be restored.
The “personal standard” stuff is much less important to me, precisely because it is personal: moral stances, as opposed to a moral imperative. For example, someone might reasonably decide to starve to death rather than cannibalize a fallen companion. Someone else might face danger rather than have sex with a potential protector, purely for the sake of that protection. And so forth.
I hope that answers your question, if you want more detail, I can provide it.
I think that’s pretty spot-on. I listed the negative traits I observed in Andrea in an earlier post, but physical courage and a desire for self-improvement are certainly positive traits she posseses.
Her main failing, the one that causes her to blunder and endanger others, is the need you mention to impress and be approved of and respected by others, with particular emphasis on her self-reliance and martial prowess. This need actually undermines her self-reliance though, when so much of what she does is done for the sake of others’ opinions.
Amy and Andrea realized that their father had given them strict rules about fishing (knots and such), but that the rules were different for each daughter. Their conclusion was that Andrea needed to catch the fish, and Amy needed to let them go. The rule they shared was “no crying in the boat, it scares the fish.” The women proceeded to cry anyway, and Andrea noted “I think it was more for Dad than the fish.” That’s episode 104, “Vatos.”
That would be a dysgenic effect, then. You may be right, at least in the short term, but I think people capable of peaceful cooperation for mutual benefit would ultimately triumph; not much different from our society today: those who harm others tend to have negative outcomes.
So, it is permitted to kill someone only to defend yourself against that person. No human shields or premeptive “you ain’t from around here” murders. That sounds pretty much like the way modern civilization already works.
But your philosophy seems to hold that it would be immoral to steal in self-defense against anything except aggression by the person you are stealing from. So, one should submit to being eaten by a grizzly bear instead of momentarily grabbing then returning a shotgun out of a stranger’s cabin. Or one should freeze to death instead of taking a winter coat hung outside a cabin, even though one could return it the next morning when it warms up.
Maybe in fairy tales. In the context of the show, the Governor slaughtered an entire outfit of soldiers (dumb scene, I’ll grant you, but ignore that for a second). Out come: More supplies. No negative outcome. You could make the case the Governor is a villain and will thus be dealt with accordingly by the plot, but that’s just a plot contrivance and doesn’t reflect the actual mechanics of a world in which the zombie apocalypse has happened; something I think the show at least tries to stay true to.
Before I go on, let’s just buy wholesale into the idea of a zombie apocalypse. The military has been overrun, civilization collapsed, yadda yadda yadda.
A new external force, the zombie apocalypse, has changed the dynamics of society. It’s like those simulations that model fox and rabbit populations with differential equations. They exhibit stable equilibrium as long as the rabbits reproduce enough, but if the foxes reproduction rate suddenly goes sky high (or the rabbits get, I dunno, AIDS or something), the equilibrium becomes unstable and the foxes eat all the rabbits. In this analogy, people who cooperate, expect the best of people and are unwilling to compromise their morality would be the ‘rabbits’ and the people who go on marauding missions to rape and pillage would be the ‘foxes’. The relative infrequency of groups in the Zed Apocalypse doesn’t allow the ‘rabbits’ to flourish since their life spans do not give them to opportunity reproduce and pass down their values to a new generation, while the foxes get way more opportunities to propagate their seed whether through rape (as was mentioned in ‘Nebraska’ in Season 2) or through being the alpha male (How many women do you think the Governor is/has porking/porked? To our knowledge, at least two. But being honest, he probably has the pick of the litter as far as mates go).
Furthermore, the ‘rabbits’ are not necessarily doomed to stay ‘rabbits’. It’s pure game theory. If the majority of people are ‘foxes’, the only way not to get eaten is to become one. I don’t think dysgenics is the proper term for it since that implies the traits being selected are disadvantageous. In the given enviroment, they are totally advantageous, at least for survival.