Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-98.231.46.205-20151112031449/@comment-73.104.200.179-20171224171158

Sure, if you want to continue with a western line of thinking then it's unrealistic. But are you calling Cleopratra unrealistic? Joan of Arc? Hatshepsut? Any of the other female Egyptian Pharaohs? Are you trying to tell me that women never had any power in the earths entire history? Female leaders are not unrealistic.

What about the fact that many Native American societies held women in positions of power and leadership? That Vikings did the same? That women were respected warriors and members and many times leaders?

You need to actually take into account the time frame of the blast. We're talking the mid 21st century. If you believe that we have equality now (albeit that's debatable but we'll assume it's all perfectly equal) then they had equality at the time of the apocalypse. You think society all of a sudden will just turn on women when everyone surviving grew up with that mindset? It wouldn't, is my point.

Take into account religion limiting the pool of possible leaders (because we know men, more than likely, have been commander before) then a woman being leader isn't unrealistic. A society where just men have only been in charge is HISTORICALLY inaccurate and far more unrealistic. I do think it's odd that most the leaders are women? But we know of male leaders.

You also aren't actually taking into account what it means to have strength. You assume it's purely physical strength. It's not. Strength requires being both physically strong and mentally strong. If you're truly an Egalitarian then you are also of the mindset that women and men are, at the very least, equally capable at a mental level.

The unrealistic nature of the 100, or at least your issues listed, if that you assumed humanities raw state is sexist in favor of men. When in fact, it hasn't always been the case and was never universal. There have been matriarchal societies in the past. The reason that men are even physically stronger has more to do with evolution than you think, and even more to do with women being more important to keep alive. Have you ever considered that a woman dying means more to a society than a man dyin (from an objective non emotional stand point). A woman can get pregnant once at a time, a man can get many pregnant at once. It wasn't because men were smarter or wiser, they were expendable.

And that's only if you want to stick to a primitive society. In the 21st century, women are actually more educated then men (statistically speaking). When society falls who steps up? The smartest people do, they deligate what happens and send warriors off. Who would be the smartest? The most educated. That means that more women would be able to step up to that than men.

Do I think that the show took all that into account? Probably not. But that doesn't mean there isn't truth to it.

Also, we're talking survival of the fittest. Most people, Im going to assume you're part of that majority, have labeled survival of the fittest as if it's being physically fit. But that isn't the truth, survival of the fittest is about the niche you occupy in an ecosystem. The most fit to their environment, not automatically strong, survive and thrive.

The smartest most educated people would have been majority women. Then Becca comes down, another woman. The society started with strong female leaders, many of them. And so it's only natural for the society to develop that way. Women warriors are given preferred treatment and a ladder to becoming leaders.

Sure, if men wanted to revolt they could. Same as women were able to. But they don't have the desire to because (while men are capable of actually rising to leadership so why actually care) it's the way society is. It's their culture.

Also as for language.... You'd be surprised how quick humans change. That's four generations. You learn the language that benefits the most, the ones you don't need die off. We're talking about D.C. Here. It's super rich in diversity of language and culture. Business leaders from all over the world visit the capital and many speak many languages. So you have a starting point for a need to merge the language.

Plus, it was common in the past for civilizations to create languages in order to prevent the enemy from discovering things. A secret language. English is their language of war, but the grounders have all developed their own lingua Franca to be able to communicate with everyone there.

Or something like that. I'm not sure of the actual reason why another language is NEEDED but it's realistic so long as it's a need.