Celebrating heroic men and an unappreciated aspect of masculinity

[Bonobo]

In just the last 2 weeks:
http://www.google.com/#q=man+saves+woman&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=nws&sa=X&ei=ZkBeUcuTC--diAer3YHwDg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoBA&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44770516,d.aGc&fp=2b98da6a8a041923&biw=1209&bih=916


Henrico man saves elderly woman trapped in car covered by power ...
WWBT-Apr 3, 2013

Man saves Agana Heights woman
KUAM.com-19 hours ago

'Good Samaritan' Saves Woman Who Crashed SUV Into OKC Lake
news9.com KWTV-Apr 2, 2013

Delivery Man Saves Woman From Burning Home
KKTV 11 News-Mar 20, 2013

Video: Man saves beaten woman, holds suspect at bay for police
Police News-Mar 20, 2013

Harwood, ND, Man Saves Woman From Burning Car
WDAZ-Mar 15, 2013

Anything could have happened': Brisbane man saves diving friend
Brisbane Times-Apr 2, 2013

Man Saves Girl at Grocery Store
New Tang Dynasty Television-Mar 20, 2013

Macomb Township man saves infant's life
Shelby Township Source Newspapers-6 hours ago

TSA worker Jim Flaherty saves woman, then heads to work
WTSP 10 News-Mar 14, 2013

Good samaritan saves woman from subway tracks
7Online.com-Mar 29, 2013
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Woman saves man??? Try searching yourself. Pretty sparse. Wouldn't equality mean that women should be saving men at roughly half the amount? Most of these were by bystanders, not by professional police or firefighters (which would account for some of the percentage difference if it were just that).

So maybe we can dispense with the falsehood that men don't bear the brunt of sacrificing themselves to protect women. They always have and they still do. And no, that is NOT a privilege, it is a responsibility and done out of the kind of masculine caring and protecting that represents one of the best aspects of manhood.

[sigmasix]

1. sexual organs dont make you save people from buring buildings

Saving someone's life is not a by-product of having testicles. Men and women excercise thier bravery in service to others all the time- Your gender should have nothing to do with bravery- unless you believe that your penis talks to you and convinces you to be brave in service to those less fortunate, rather than a non-penis informed moral code of allowing people to die in burning buildings.
Being brave in service to others is not a man-only action, but claiming your bravery and compassion comes from your status as a male probably is. I wasnt going to reply to this OP as it is obvious flame bait, but sometimes really stupid ideas and notions do not meet scepticism simply because of the self-evident inanity involved in maintaining counter-factual notions about people and gender assignments.

[Bonobo]

2. Culture combined with evolution.

If you think you can discount millions of years of evolution just because we are "human beings", you are being foolish.

Furthermore, the cultural onus has been placed upon men to do the "hero" act.

Really nothing to do with testicles as such.

But your reductionistic caterwauling does not impress.

[Bonobo]

3. Would you also argue that women have not evolved to nurture? nt

[Dash87]

9. That's a myth. There is no evidence that either sex is more

or less nurturing.

[Warren DeMontague]

8. they do if you've got a fire hose in your trousers.

just sayin'

[noamnety]

4. Cultural impact

"Wouldn't equality mean that women should be saving men at roughly half the amount?"

Yes. So that begs the question - why the discrepancy? What is it in our culture that makes men believe they are rescuers, and women believe they are a thing to be rescued?

This is why there's a push among feminists to stop making storylines for children/girls/women that focus on men rescuing women. It indoctrinates us to believe that's how life is. I don't know if you've heard in the news over that last few weeks that people are rewriting old video games to switch male/female roles to even things out. I don't know that disney's ever going to get there.

There's even a whole series I've seen on pajama ads where the little girls are in gowns standing around looking like dainty princesses, and the boys are wearing spiderman pjs and posed in action shots.

Where we differ in our views is whether the ability to rescue is "one of the best aspects of manhood" - or whether it's one of the best aspects of humanity and we are doing everyone a disservice by indoctrinating half the population to think it's not their job. And if you believe the latter statement to be true, how do we go about identifying the causes and addressing them?

[Bonobo]

5. Bravo.

I agree with you.

I wrote this in part in response to a comment a while ago from some feminists saying "Why are men not protecting us" and I also wrote it because I see a lot of championing of the nurturing aspects of "femininity" but very little championing of the "good side" of masculinity.

Indeed women can and should also work on bringing out there heroic side just as men work on bringing out their nurturing side because I do think that a human can and should incorporate both aspects.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

6. We live in a man bites dog message board

That's why you see a zillion stories here about cops tasering or shooting people, but when someone posts a story about a cop saving someone from a burning car, or a video of one shepherding a gaggle of geese across a busy highway, you get a lot of "So fucking what, that's their job" responses.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Fully agree. n/t

[Behind the Aegis]

10. But did they stand in front of a baseball or dive away...

...allowing their girlfriend to take a baseball to the mug? I guess chivalry isn't dead. (reference to GD post).