A woman's place?

I've often wondered why people think the right way to characterize people would be by their gender. Humans come in many different shapes, sizes, colours and so on, so why choose something as simple as gender to set people apart from each other?

As I've mentioned before, I've been born during a time when most parents tried not to raise their children according to their gender. But trying and succeeding are two different things.

So, even during my youth, a lot of people (mostly older ones, but not just those) have been stating "a girl should do that" or "a woman shouldn't do that" or "that's something only boys do" or other stuff like that. Why? I've wondered about that for a long time.

Okay, so there are things only men or only women can do. Only women can give birth, yes. Only men can impregnate (at least the 'normal' way without medical tricks), yes. But above our 'biological destiny', what does really set men apart from women and the other way around?

There are some physical differences, but they are quite minor - especially today. Most jobs don't exactly require a male body and the supposedly higher strength. Nevertheless, the idea of what a man/woman should or shouldn't do is stronger than twenty or so years ago.

Why am I writing this now, you might ask. It's Eva Herman again. As I've written before, she has been fired because of something she said when defending her new book. She definitely hasn't learned it, as she proved this Tuesday. She's still defending the rather stupid answer she gave, even though she could probably have made everything alright by just saying "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way". But enough of her current troubles, at least for this post.

Mrs. Herman is only the most renown person talking about the 'old' way of family life (with mum staying at home while dad goes to work and brings home the money). She's advocating this traditional female role with a fervour that is surprising - as she's working (and currently trying to get her job back). A woman, she claims, can only be happy with children and a nice home to take care of. Career can't make a woman happy, or so she says. And, of course, men can't stay at home and take care of children - even if the woman could earn more money, because she's got a better job. Men are, after all, supposed to go out into the cold, dangerous world and bring back the mammoth meat...

No wonder, the conservative party and the churches (especially the Roman-Catholic church) applaud her. It's exactly what they've been saying for years.

I, on the other hand, always find myself reminded of a book I read quite some time ago. It was first published around 1900 (couldn't find the exact date that quickly, especially as the book has been republished eight times during seven years) in German - but I think, it must have been published in other languages, too. The German title is "Über den physiologischen Schwachsinn des Weibes". It's hard to translate it, because the book tries very hard to be seen as scientific. Basically the idea the title evocates is that women are physiologically mad (or at least weak-minded) - and thus should not have the right to vote or a better (and higher) education. As much as this book tries to seem scientific, it's meant to help against the first wave of feminism, nothing else. With the argument "women are too weak-minded to take care of themselves, thus they can't take on better-paid jobs or vote" men hoped to cut back the rights the women had been given already (voting and going to university) - and, of course, make sure that the women didn't get any more rights.

Even though I doubt Mrs. Herman has ever read this book (I've got a reprint of the last edition), she mostly argues in the same way he does: Women are by nature meant to stay at home and have children. They are not meant to do the jobs nature has designed for men.

The funny thing - in a very un-funny way - is that even nature does not design females only to have children and men only to go out and get the food. Most predators don't make a difference between males and females - all grown-ups hunt (with the lions, only the females hunt). Herd-animals quite often travel separated by gender most of the time, males are only allowed into the female groups during mating. There's other examples (the most extreme being the seahorse, where the males actually 'give birth' to the next generation, or a kind of gecko, where there aren't any males around and the females clone themselves through their eggs). And then, of course, there's the bacteria which don't know gender at all and still have managed to survive for millennia.

So, nature doesn't make a difference between 'those who bring home the food' and 'those who give birth to the children'. Those who can bring home the food, do so. If they also are able to give birth, that's a bonus. Nature is flexible, that's its character.

So why should a woman's - or a man's, it works the other way around, too - place be defined by her gender. Why should a woman not, for example, work with mechanics or technology? Why should a man not work as a kindergarten teacher?

Compared to other countries in Europe (and I'm not going to compare Germany to the United States or Japan), we have one of the smallest numbers of working women, anyway. Most women stay at home, once they've got children. The French, for example, don't do it. The women stay at home for half a year and then go back to work while their children go into day care. France does not have a higher number of psychologically damaged people - unlike what Mrs. Herman says about children with working mothers. Neither do Sweden, Denmark or Norway, also countries in which women go to work full-time and children are in day care.

There is no such thing as 'the' place for women in this world. Everyone who thinks differently should get his head checked, really.

"Heroes" in Germany

Yes, I know, for people living in the United States, "Heroes" isn't news any longer, it's 'olds' (provided that word exists). But in Germany the series has just started this Wednesday.

I watched the first two episodes - aired together - and found the series quite interesting. Of course, it's full of clichés, but that's besides the point. Most series are, after all, it's how stories work themselves out quickly - and within the 40 minutes an episode takes these days (one hour minus advertising), that's extremely necessary. But what I liked most was the way the main characters were introduced. (The cheerleader reminded me a bit of Clark Kent in "Smallville", actually, but that's probably because she can regenerate herself that quickly and seems to be living in a small town, too. I could probably write a whole post about "Smallville", actually, and fill half of it with rants about Michael Rosenbaum, but I won't do it right now.)

I've no idea what it leads to, but I will continue to watch it, to find out.

Arsène Lupin - a well-made movie

As I promised before, I'm writing about the movie "Arsène Lupin" which I watched this Saturday.

Arsène Lupin is a well-know literary figure, a character with as many adventures over time as Sherlock Holmes (although Arsène is a French gentleman-thief while Sherlock Holmes is a British private investigator).

The movie, made in France in 2004, recounts a large part of Arsène's life, starting with his childhood - the time when his father supposedly died - and keeping on going until his possible death decades later.

It shows a character with a lot of different sides. There's the charmer Arsène who can even flatter the women he's stealing from, there's the fighter Arsène who has learned a very special type of fighting from his father, there's a haunted man who still wants to find out what really happened to his father. But Arsène is only one of a host of interesting characters. There's the love of his life, his cousin Clarisse. There's the mysterious Josephine who has lived for over a hundred years already. There's a conspiracy going on, it's members looking for the same three crosses Josephine wants - and Arsène steals for her and from her.

As always in French (or other European) movies, the characters aren't the run-off-the-mill pretty faces from Hollywood. They really are characters. They are recognizable (which is important, because the movie spans a time of more than 40 years).

And the story itself has a lot of twists and turns, bringing in unexpected things every now and then. I like that in a movie, because it's boring if you know what's going to happen after a couple of minutes.

And visually the movie is just great. The story is set in the late 19th and early 20th century and everything looks as if the crew took a time trip backwards. They actually were allowed to spread out tons of earth in front of the opera house in Paris, so that one huge street scene looked realistic. They had a genuine train from that time in order to film a large sequence set in a train. The same care and accuracy is to be found in the costumes and other things. It all looks real, although it isn't. Just as in the movie "Vidoq" (which, as I have pointed out before, is mentioned on the back of the package), "Arsène Lupin" is great.

I don't want to spoil much about the story here, but I will tell you that it features a lot of action as well as romance, suspense and a little bit of supernatural content.

So my tip, if you want it, is to try to find the movie somewhere and watch it. It's not Hollywood-made, but it's great.

The Settlers - a history

Six parts of "The Settlers" have been produced (well, seven, as "The Next Generation", a remake of part two, has no number in its name). Since 1994, six different games (most of them with add-ons) have been published under this name - and at least some were also successful in other countries. And that says something.

If there's one kind of game we Germans can produce extremely well, it's games in which you build something up. Usually it's some kind of economy. "The Settlers" is one of the oldest, but still also one of the best game-series of that kind.

When it started in 1994, I got a demo of the first game on a floppy disk (that was before the CD triumphed over the floppy disk) in a game magazine. I installed it and I played it, but - as you could have considered the area I lived in a wilderness when it came to buying games - never bought or played the full game.

Things had changed considerably when the second part was released. I had access to the game then and played it for a long time - and I also played the add-on. My favourite tribe in the game were the Vikings - who, unfortunately, do not feature in the remake (but in the add-on to it).

Part three was something I saw with mixed emotions - the graphics became more cuddly and cartoon-like (which I rather liked), but the whole system of building paths between the various buildings of my industry was gone. I liked optimizing paths to make everything run smoothly. On the other hand, the Amazons starred for the first time (they would return in part four).

Part four still did not have any paths (they have, to a certain degree, returned with the last game, or so the demo tells me), but it was - and in my opinion and that of other fans still is - one of the best. There was a nice story about a dark god sending forward his servants to destroy earth (so nobody could build on it) and there were quite a few nice ideas (like sending in a pioneer who could claim a territory far from home).

Part five was great, as far as graphics are concerned (true 3D-engine), but rather bad when it came to the rest. Far too much emphasize was put on war - and in a build-up game, warfare is only a little part, if it features at all - and the whole principle of building houses close to the work places for all settlers (who lived inside their workplace before and now do so again), of building a place to eat close to the workplaces, too, and some other new things. That mixed it all up with real-time strategy - and a gamer interested in real-time strategy will hardly play a game like "The Settlers". The 'typical' player of "The Settlers" wants to settle and only use soldiers for rare occasions (if they use them at all).

And now - after the 3D-remake of part two last year - comes part six. Like all fans, I have hoped for them to go back to the roots, which - as both the demo I played and the article in my favourite games magazine tell me - has happened to a certain extend. The knights that were featured in the last game have stayed, but the whole warfare has been cut back a lot (only swordfighters as close combat units and bowmen as ranged fighters still exist). The knights actually are a good idea, so I don't mind them still being around.

The knights (6 different characters with different abilities, but you can only have one at a time) have to be promoted, so the city you have to build in this game can grow through new buildings and industries. That's a good idea. And they do a reconnaissance of the area and can start the building process of outposts which you need to claim new territories.

The territories are another new idea. Instead of building barracks (The Settlers II-IV) or just any type of building (The Settlers V) to enlarge your territory, as it was done before, the whole map has been split up into territories, each of which has borders and some resources (like deer, stone, iron, herbs, fish and so on). A territory is claimed by the knight going there and laying the foundations of an outpost. After the outpost has been build by a settler, the territory belongs to the player. (If the territory is already claimed, the player can attack the enemy's outpost and take it over - or, in case he's not at war with the other player, trade with the inhabitants and get the resources this way.) I like this idea, because it allows me to choose territories that are not connected, instead of having to enlarge my territory for ages before reaching the area I really need (because there's iron to be found or stone).

Nevertheless, the rest of the game has been changed considerably, too. In all the other games it worked like that: there were carriers who spent their days carrying stuff (resources, products, whatever) from one building to the next. For example wheat was harvested at the farm, then carried to the mill to be turned into flour, the flour was then carried to the bakery where it was turned into bread (with some water from the well added to it), then it was finally carried to a mine where the miner would eat it. The right way to build all of this up was to create a line of farm-mill-bakery-mine. That's completely different now. All resources are taken to the storehouse by the workers themselves. Workers from other work places (like baker, butcher and so on) come to the storehouse to pick up the resources and keep the products in their shop until they are bought by other settlers. Because of this, the way of building up a settlement has to be changed. There's no longer a production line, instead the craftsmen have their shops close to the storehouse while the farms and other places where resources are gathered are scattered around the area (wherever the resources can be found). This way, the workers bringing in the resources also pick up the necessary products they need in the same area and take them back to their work place. Sooner or later this means building a rather big medieval city with surrounding territory, especially as you can't build a new storehouse somewhere else. That system is new, but not bad.

I'm still wondering about buying the full game some time or not. Currently I'll go through the demo some more times.

Watching this weekend

On this weekend's DVD-list? Only "Arsène Lupin". I'll be watching this movie from France today - and maybe I'll watch some more "Scream" or go over "Jeepers Creepers" again.

I'm very curious about the movie as the (interestingly build) DVD-box also mentions "Vidoq", another French movie I've enjoyed watching very much. The story was build up interestingly and even I did not guess the killer's identity before it was revealed.

And, of course, Arsène Lupin, French gentleman-thief, is a well-known literary figure and a well-made movie (the stills on the box do look good) is always something to look forward to.

So, provided the movies is good, expect something more substantial about it between Saturday and Monday.

A secret passion

My choice in music can best be describes as 'diverse', I guess. There's a lot of soundtrack in my collection, a few albums by different artists, quite a few collections of songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s, musicals and other things (like books on CD). Surprisingly many CD that have found a place in my collection during the last two years are from one group: Nightwish (5 currently, as opposed to three each from P!nk and Robbie Williams and one or two of various other artists).

Now, I don't expect you all (whoever you might be, Sitemeter tells me you exist) to know this group, they're doing gothic rock and come from Finland. The first song I ever heard from them was "Nemo" and the first album I bought, though not the first they produced, was "Once" which included this song. Another song from that album, "I wish I had an angel", features in the soundtrack of the movie "Alone in the Dark", one of the few movies based on computer games I can recommend (if you've got a strong stomach and like horror movies). My favourite songs by the group include

• - Nemo
• - I wish I had an angel
• - Over the hills and far away
• - The Phantom of the Opera
• - Bless the Child
• - End of all Hope
• - Sleeping Sun
• - Sacrament of Wilderness
• - Dark Chest of Wonders
• - Creek Mary's Blood
• - Higher than Hope
• - Wishmaster
• - The Kinslayer

As you might guess from the names of the songs, Nightwish isn't exactly a group with cheery, bright and happy songs - although hearing the female lead sing "The Phantom of the Opera" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical always takes my breath away, she's just so good.

Rhythm and music change a lot between the songs, too. From hard rock in songs like "I wish I had an angel" or "Wishmaster" to soft songs like "Nemo" or "Sleeping Sun" - with "Over the hills and far away" they even produced a great ballad. (I learned two things from that song: Never sleep with your best friend's wife and - if you really think you have to - never leave your gun at home while doing so. Otherwise you might find yourself imprisoned for a crime you didn't commit.)

Some of their songs are quite long. "Ghost Love Score" from "Once" lasts something shy of eleven minutes, "The Poet and the Pendulum" from "Dark Passion Play" (their latest album) even comes down to almost fourteen. To give you an idea about the actual song texts, some excerpts from "Dark Passion Play":

From "The Poet and the Pendulum" / III. "The Pacific"

(there's 5 parts to the song):

You live long enough to hear the sound of guns,

long enough to find yourself screaming every night,

long enough to see your friends betray you.

From "Amaranth":

Baptized with a perfect name

The doubting one by heart

Alone without himself

War between him and the day

Need someone to blame

In the end, little he can do alone

You believe but what you see

You receive but what you give

From "Whoever brings the night":

The Dark, created to hide the innocent white, the lust of the night

Eyes so bright, seductive lies

Crimson Masquerade where I merely played my part

Poison dart of desire

From "7 Days to the Wolves":

This is

Where heroes

And cowards

Part ways

Light the fires, feast

Chase the ghost, give in

Take the road less travelled by

Leave the city of fools

Turn every poet loose

Heroes, cowards, no more

Even though it might seem to you now that I must be very depressed to listen to such music, I'm not. I like listening to such songs when I'm either travelling (because the strong beat will keep me awake) or while writing. It inspires me. And the texts which, even though they're dark, at least have a deeper meaning and make me think about them, are also inspiring.

So, Nightwish is my secret passion, not because I don't want anybody to know, but because I rarely comment on my tastes in music.

Por-no?

The title of this post actually was the title of a feminist campaign against pornography in Germany. Why I am thinking about that now? Besides having surfed through the seedy sites of the net some days ago (see this post), I also read a feature about women in the porn-business on The F-Word on Wednesday.

For feminists in the 70s and 80s, pornography was dirty, humiliating for women and absolutely against everything they fought for. To a certain degree they were right - and still are.

But what they - as well as the men then controlling the business - did never think about was what porn could give to women. Men use porn to their own satisfaction, that's what pornography is meant to be used for. And women? Pornography for women does exist, but mostly in written form. There are quite explicit novels and they mostly serve the same goal: satisfaction. But why is porn for men mostly visual (movies or photographs or comics), while porn for women is not? Books are not visual, the whole erotic content happens in the head of the person reading them.

The author of the feature on The F-Word also asked the question and found the answer: Because literature is the only porn available for most women. Porn movies mostly are not produced to suit women's needs. They are produced to appeal to men. And men have different needs.

Men react very much to visual images, much more than to sounds or words written on a page. A good-looking woman, nude or not wearing much (or, in case they're gay, a good-looking man, dressed accordingly) is what they mostly need. Add to that the picture (animated or not) of sexual intercourse and the porn is done. To most men it doesn't seem to matter how the surrounding looks, as long as the actors and the kind of sex fit with their own kinks.

Women are different in that aspect, that is true. We are better at imagining things. For porn movies that means more furnishing, more décor, more surrounding. And a man in a porn movie doesn't just have to fit with our own ideal of beauty, he's also got to have a personality (something which doesn't matter to men, it seems). The female actress(es) should have one, too, despite the fact that, to a women, they would only be a place-holder, acting on the viewer's wants and fantasies.

But all that seems besides the point to feminists. They don't just want to ban conservative porn (the kind of porn that's been around for a long time), they want to ban any kind of porn - even that which doesn't feature women at all (gay porn, for instance).

That does surprise me a little, I have to admit. Women have fought, among other things, for their sexual freedom. But the idea those feminists seem to have of women is extremely conservative: Women can't have or enjoy sex without emotional connection - or more understandable: Women can't separate sex from love. The fact alone that women can prostitute themselves - and not just under pressure -, speaks against it. Prostitution only works if you're able to separate sex from emotions. We might prefer sex with emotions, but it's not necessary. And sexual freedom also includes sex without a partner which is where porn usually comes in - for men and women alike. And yes, to a certain degree, even the fantasies a woman has during sex are porn.

Humans are sexual creatures. We're not limited to special times during which to have sex (like most other mammals). Like some primates - most prominently the bonobos (a kind of chimpanzee, but much less aggressive and much more sexually orientated) - we can have sex whenever we want to. We don't just have sex to have offspring (although it's admittedly what sex is supposed to be for), we also have sex as part of our social life. I'm not saying we're acting like those chimpanzees, who have sex in the same casual way humans would shake hands, but we definitely see sex as something more than just a biological function. We enjoy it, for one thing - most mammals (and probably none of the other kinds of animals around) don't know what an orgasm is.

Orgasm makes us want to do it again, which is a very efficient way nature made sure we have lots of sex. We don't need an internal calendar telling us "it's May, let's have sex and make children". We can make them any day of the year. Whenever our basic needs for food, cover and sleep are fulfilled, we like having sex - because then our children (should we get some afterwards) stand good chances of being cared for well (because if our basic needs are satisfied, then theirs can be satisfied as well).

Now, where was I? Pornography, right. Or rather, why feminists want to ban it and women don't get good porn.

Feminists seem not to understand what porn is really used for. It's not about discriminating or humiliating women. (Well, some movies are, but they play into the hands of men buying or renting them, it's not because the producers hate women, it's because there's men out there who do.) It's about getting men off. And it could be about getting women off, as well. The usual porn movie doesn't, but if you see or hear women talk about porn (like the mature area of the MangasZene-forum I visit quite often), you realize that it gets interesting the moment it's well made and features more than just 'man', 'woman' and 'sexual intercourse'.

If sex is as natural for women than it is for men (and, despite what Christianity and society seem to believe quite often, it is), then searching for satisfaction with all means available is as well. A man buys or rents a porn movie to get satisfaction when his girlfriend/spouse is either not there or not wanting any (and a couple might even enjoy watching porn together). A woman looking for the same means mostly has to turn to literature, because porn movies playing into her hands scarcely exist. It gets better, though, if the feature I referred to already is anything to go by.

And if porn movies are not primarily created to degrade and humiliate women, then there's no need to ban them. There should be a certain control to minimize extreme areas (where rape, murder or other stuff like that is concerned), but there's is neither a need nor a reason to ban pornography completely. Besides: with the internet, I don't really see a way to efficiently do it, anyway.

I can see why feminists might watch porn movies and see them as degrading and humiliating, though. The woman in such a movie is not a character, not a person, it's just an object of the sexual kind. But, to be completely fair, so is the man. You could say that pornography degrades both of them - or none. I wonder, if the same feminists have ever tried seeing the porn movies from a woman's side, though. To a woman a man can be just as much of an object in such a movie as the woman is to a man. Most 'traditional' porn movies are not made from that point of view, admittedly, but that doesn't mean it can't work that way. And, as the feature points out, with female directors and producers entering the market, those things are about to change.

Sex sells, although it is a dirty business. Feminism won't change that, but strong women can change the way sex is used for selling.