Over at Return of Kings I recently had an article published by the name “Anything Women Can Do, Men Can Do Better“, which featured a category about men’s overwhelming superiority over females in creating and implementing new technologies throughout the course of history. From that, a well-informed contributor to the comment section made an excellent statement. He pointed out the following:
95.6% of inventors are men. Only 4.4% of patents are held by women. To me, that is the most glaring of mental differences, as many normal jobs can be done by either men or women. The billion-dollar innovators will always be male. Even tampons were invented by men.
Well played sir.
Since the dawn of the space and information ages, women have been able to benefit immensely from the vast array of male-created technologies and medicine. Tampons are, of course, only scratching the surface (or shall I say bodily interior?). And let’s not even mention women and social media.
Technologies Of The Now And Future
The implementation of post-industrial technologies has significantly reduced the need for physical labor on a grand scale in the early 21st century. Automatized robots and drones are killing jobs on the factory floor, in warehouses, and soon enough they will find their way into the fast food and home delivery industries.
These are, of course, jobs that the modern “empowered” western woman never found attractive anyway. They have got to have their office politics, look “fabulous” in their business attire, and dream of having the corner office one day so they can boss around men (who have now been rendered unemployed by the same technologies they created).
But there is another emerging technology that can really upset the status quo in the future, and make men and women truly “equal” even on purely physical terms. Enter the era of trans-humanism and bionic power suits. Enter the fictional intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran.
Meet Ms. Aran
I need full power! Men need to invent more things for me so I can be fully empowered dammit!
Samus Aran’s bread-winning profession is being an ‘intergalactic bounty hunter’ within the popular ‘Metroid’ series of video games, which have been released exclusively for Nintendo since 1986. This makes her one of the earliest female protagonists in video game history, and widely considered a breakthrough for female characters in the action genre.
A simple rundown of her character is that “Samus Aran is an ex-Galactic Federation soldier who turned into an intergalactic bounty hunter, usually fitted with a powered armor suit with weapons that include directed energy weapons and missiles.”
Additionally, other nifty power-up technologies she’ll obtain allow her to jump even higher, dash with incredible speed, and curl into a ball and roll around like an Armadillo. She is also constantly on the lookout for additional energy tanks, which enhances her ability to withstand alien punishment without dying.
Make no mistake, she does a very good job of taking on the traditionally male-dominated role as a one-person dispenser of mass-scale whoop-ass. And she even towers over most men, being nearly 6’3 under that power suit.
But Back To Reality
In 2009, GameDaily called Samus the video game industry’s “first dominant female, a femme de force that didn’t rely on a man to save her”. Yes, that is certainly an astute observation from the publication, and her lack of need for a helping hand from the opposite gender is quite admirable.
But, you must take into consideration that the adaptation of advanced man-made technology is exactly why she does not need a man in the first place. If the minds of men provide all the tools, would a female space warrior (lauded simply for being female) truly be strong and independent without those tools? The equation is rather simple.
No men = no power suit = no space bounty hunter = no revenue = independence lost
Furthermore, even with all manner of power-ups (“empowerments”) that Samus obtains on her missions, she is certainly not immune from death. For no matter how “empowered” she may become with all her fancy blasters, morphing balls, and high jump boots, losing too many energy tanks will disintegrate her power suit and expose her for who she truly is…
A fragile blonde white woman, screaming out for Captain-Save-A-Ho (and a breathable atmosphere).
In closing, when Samus is left entirely to her own devices, and without the technological aids of men, her supposed “strength” and “independence” account for nothing when the exposed female body is confronted with the innumerable perils of space.
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