Quote Originally Posted by cypress View Post
Hi everyone! I'm brand new to We're Alive. I'm only on Chapter 10 and enjoying every minute so far! But on the topic of the female characters, I did find it interesting that the series perpetuated subtle, institutional sexism in the way the characters interact with each other. I partly wonder whether it was intentional, but it doesn't really matter if it wasn't. I think if you pay attention to how the male characters interact with each other and with their female counterparts, the show actually highlights some of the major issues women face in a male-dominated society - specifically, the assumption that women are weak/unintelligent/illogical/lesser than.

It was very noticeable to me that our main heroes carry around certain assumptions. They assume men (in general) are capable until the men prove otherwise (like putting faith in Datu to get certain things done and done right). They also assume women (in general) are incapable until the women prove themselves capable. The most glaring instance of this so far (remember - I'm only at Chapter 10!) is when Lizzie goes with Saul and Burt on their supply mission. Burt assumes Lizzie can't shoot until she decapitates a few zombies with three quick pops of her gun. Saul immediately dismisses Lizzie's hypothesis about the zombie driving a car until she proves it point by point. Then, it seemed like the very next opportunity the guys had to affirm their own beliefs that Lizzie is somehow inferior to them, they pounce on it. ("Educated idiot if you ask me...")

There's also the immediate dismissal of Riley's abilities with a bow and arrow as useless. The men (Angel in particular) demeaned the idea of using arrows until Riley proved that a bow could be a useful weapon on multiple occasions. Although this might be attributed on the surface to a preference for firearms and perhaps ignorance as to the usefulness of bows, I think Angel, Michael and the others were very quick to dismiss the skill as useless without even inquiring as to why Riley believed it useful. They didn't give her the same benefit of the doubt that Michael afforded 16 year old Tommy and his camera.

Anyway, those are just my two cents on the topic. Looking forward to what happens next!
Quote Originally Posted by kawkaw View Post
This is a very good analysis. I feel like I could endlessly rant about how awful the women are treated in this show. I'm on episode 25, but I don't think I'll listen to it anymore. At this point the blatant sexism destroys any initial interest I had for a zombie podcast.
I'm ok with discussing this sort of thing and enjoy discussing it, as it's something that's been pulled very much to the forefront of modern social commentary regarding how female characters are written. First and foremost, I feel most of the characters in the WA story that are female are in many ways written strong, but any character that doesn't show or have weak moments become stagnant characters. Be it male or female characters, everyone needs flaws.

How Burt reacts to Lizzy as a character is more in tuned with her background rather than her sexuality. Lizzy came into the story as a spoiled college student with no real world experience and part of her arc was to prove to herself and others that she had more of a purpose. In a survivalist situation, people are going to judge who you are and what you can do based on where you came from and what you did. Lizzy's "survival resume" was thin, which was intentional. There were many times in the story where "Usefullness" is directly commented on, and even Angel commented negatively towards those who might not contribute to the survival of the whole. In the end, she proved them wrong.

Datu's assumed by others more capable because the tasks given to him were directly related to what he did previously. He was a maintenance man for an entire apartment complex for many years. The others who were soldiers were also trusted moreso right away given that they had previous experience as combat-ready people. These are examples where previous occupations influence initial perspectives on each other.

As for the bow and arrow, any soldier would trust the combat effectiveness of a rifle over a bow. If Angel trusted the bow right away, that would stick out to me as odd.

If anyone had more examples of what they think is sexist in the story, I'd be more than happy to talk about them.