Hey, so I was planning on writing before bed last night but I got home and couldn't remember the password for the computer, so I didn't write a thing.
Today, I read an article about the "boys club of video games" that is Gears of War. In the article, the author talked about how in the game, we are only shown one woman who is involved with the military, the rest of the corps is composed of men. The rational being that in the dire circumstances the people of this game found themselves, the lost of their major cities, the collapse of commerce, and the potential extinction of their race, the people of the world had decided that the women should be held back and away from the fighting in order to bear children. This seemed to upset the author. On a surface level, I can understand the irritation. What, with all the talk of equality and how there is nothing a man can do that a woman can't (this methodology doesn't always go the other way, in my experience), it is no wonder that the author of this article might take offense and bring to light the inconsolable injustice of this fictional world's decision.
As you might imagine, if you know me at all, the author's take on the state of Gears world and my own differ greatly. After reading and pondering the words of some guy on the other side of the Internet, I was able to delve into the mindset of a man faced with the complete destruction of every noun (person, place, thing, or idea) I had ever held dear. I attempted to place myself in the mindset of someone who was unsure whether I, or anyone else, would survive to see the dawn. The conclusion I came to was that the author of the article I read must be stuck in the same trap that so much of the First World seems to be entangled in. We don't have to worry about where our next meal comes from or if the next doorway we walk through is rigged with explosives, so we worry about philosophy. We worry about rights. We worry about trees and "the poor" (no, I am not implying that the poor are not actually in poverty, I am saying that the standard of wealth is wholly dependant on what a person values. I believe that many of"the poor" might consider themselves richer than your faux friendly wall street investor). Sorry tangent. Anyhow, my point is, our dear author has failed in his duty to approach a topic with all of the information in hand. When faced with extinction, it is not a question of whether or not a woman is strong enough, courageous enough, willing, or able. The question is one of capability. A man cannot bear a child. A man can aid in the creation of a child and then go off and die in war and the race continues to survive. The same does not hold true for women.
The arguement is raised, what if a woman doesn't want to have children and would rather serve her people in the role of a soldier?
My answer to that is that many men would rather have a child than face death in war. It does not matter whether it is wished for or not, this job, this duty, cannot be done by a man. With a world falling down around you, you realize this or you don't. If you don't you aid the enemy in destroying your species.
That is the metality I set myself in. Of course, it is fiction. It isn't a real scenerio, but if faced with the same scenerio in our world, the logic would hold true. Though both male and female are required to further our species, our biological duties are different, to ignore that is foolish. To ignore that is forgetting that once upon a time our ancestors lived in hovels, married people they weren't attracted to, went to war, stayed back from war; all for the sake of ensuring that the world they helped to mold would have generations to live upon it.
I love you. I will write to you tomorrow.
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