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How do we know no women acted with valor? I see no good in trying to separate those poor souls into such categories especially as we will never know who did what in the final moments.
Incidently, I have heard discussion of giving some kind of medal of high honor (I forget which) to all of he passengers and crew aboard that flight. This makes sense. If we gave it only to a few who we think we know did one thing or anyother we are leaving out the potential heroic acts of others we don't know about, man or woman.
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by Anonymous User on Thursday November 29, @07:04PM EST (#2)
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http://www.msnbc.com/news/662607.asp?cp1=1
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by wiccid stepparent on Thursday November 29, @07:39PM EST (#3)
(User #490 Info)
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I've read a lot in the US press about the men on Flight 93 who fought the hijackers, personally. As for specific women's contributions, there is the lauding of Barbara Olsen (Olson?) who called her husband several times from her cell to report what was going on and to ask what she might do to save herself and her co-passengers.
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I've also seen a lot in the press about the heroes of Flight 93, including an article in the L.A. Times on Thanksgiving Day. One of the stewardesses on Flight 93, I can't remember her name, called her husband and told him she was boiling water in preparation for throwing it on the highjackers' faces.
This more detailed story appears based on the flight voice recorder transcript, which was just released a few days ago.
I agree with what Lorianne said. If they give out awards posthumously, they should award them to all the passengers. This because although we know for certain that Mark Bingham, Jeremy Glick and a few others were involved in the revolt, there were undoubtedly other passengers who joined in but who didn't have the opportunity to telephone someone and tell them about it. Not just women, but other men on the plane.
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I believe Barbara Olsen was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
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I have an idea. We really shouldn't give recognition only to those non-female thingies, even though any evidence that we have indicates that they were the only ones who took heroic action.
So let's dilute their accolades as much as we can. I recommend that we acknowledge the all the contributions throughout history of all living beings.
And let's be sure that we give proper recognition to every bacterium and virus.
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I agree with what Lorianne said. If they give out awards posthumously, they should award them to all the passengers.
Nope. What are we rewarding the other passengers for? Dying? It's not fair to the memories of those who actually died saving others to reward them all. REMEMBER them all, yes, but distinguish the memories of those who took steps to save more lives than perished. If that includes the stewardess, so be it.
If we discover that there are others who stood up in the face of death and performed heroic acts, then by all means honor their memories the same way.
Saying they ALL should be honored this way is like saying we should give medals to everyone who is murdered by another. Why? For being victims?
Victims are not heroes. Heroes are the men (and women, if what you say about the stewardess is true) who stood up against these people.
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Problem is, we don't have a complete list of who took action and who didn't. We know *for certain* that a small handful of passengers took action, but not all of them called someone and told them about it.
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Problem is, we don't have a complete list of who took action and who didn't. We know *for certain* that a small handful of passengers took action, but not all of them called someone and told them about it.
That's not a problem. We honor those we know, and we simply remember the other passengers. If there were other heroes on board, time and further investigation will yield that information. And if time and further investigation do not yield it, then we'll simply have to be satisfied with not knowing. You don't really believe that every hero who died saving another person was recognized from WWII, Vietnam, or any other war, do you? They weren't. We honor those we know about, and we remember the rest.
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We have medals of honor for those who act heroically. If a soldier risks his life for a group of civilians, he may well receive an award for it. We don't say, "Well there may be other soldiers, whom we don't know about but who also risked their lives. Let's give every soldier in the regiment/brigade/division/army/universe an award." We recognize those whose bravery we have found out about.
Even boiling water isn't necessarily brave. She might have ended up having a man throw it on a highjacker and, in any event, all she did was boil water.
Let's face it guys, the reason these women don't want awards to go only to those, who we know acted bravely, is because everyone who we know acted bravely was a man.
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Your arguments are extremely logical, plain and simple. If people cannot understand what you say, then they are obviously motivated by a political agenda and uncapable of free thinking.
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Yes, you're absolutely right. All women are simpering, yellow-bellied cowards incapable of any measure of bravery. When the going gets tough, we cower and cry in the cellar, begging for someone to save our [worthless] asses. We can't help it. We're just useless beings, freaks and mistakes of nature deserving of nothing but hatred and contempt. Any accomplishment must be decimated in light of it being done by a worthless, useless female.
All the women on that plane deserved to die, the simpering little cowards, especially that stewardess who WE ALL KNOW was too yellow and weak to throw the water herself. Good riddance. She contributed nothing to the world anyway.
The world would be so much better if it were all-male. It would be a Utopia of selflessness, bravery, love, peace and rainbows.
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That sounds reasonable. I actually thought about that after I posted the message you're replying to.
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Claire, you are using a typical, feminist thought process. When we know of a case in which only men were brave, you say we should honor women too. When we say that we should only honor those who we know were brave you come out with this sort of tirade.
We are speaking of a specific example in which, to the best of our knowledge, only men took courageous action. Where in this thread did anyone indicate that "All women are simpering, yellow-bellied cowards incapable of any measure of bravery."
Note the distortion and twisting of the facts here, gentlemen. This is feminism.
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"That sounds reasonable. I actually thought about that after I posted the message you're replying to."
Huh?
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Being on a hijacked plane and being killed is not heroic, it is tragic. Acting to do something about it is heroic. You only confer honors on heros that you know about so as to exemplify there actions. To just call people heros because they were 'there' dilutes if not cancels the meaning of heroism. Heroes aren't mere victims.
I'm not suggesting women can't be heroes, but you have to know what they did to confer the honor.
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First of all, I'm not a feminist. I'm a Libertarian. Feminists don't want to abolish child labor laws, abolish public education, abolish welfare, legalize suicide, legalize drugs, legalize prostitution, and so on. Because you don't understand what a Libertarian IS, you have to resort to pegging me as a left-winger.
Secondly, you don't know me or a damned thing about me. You have done nothing but attack me just because I had the gall to say I didn't agree with you on race relations. You even accused me of racism, even though my own life partner is more likely than not 1/4 black, and even though one of the reasons I'm glad my father is not in my life is because the only thing keeping him from being in the KKK is that they don't have chapters in his area.
How dare I have my own opinions, different than yours! First it was race relations, now it's the flight attendant on Flight 93. How can I live with myself?
People are going to disagree with you, not just me and NOT JUST WOMEN. If you can't deal with that, and you insist on attacking everyone who dares say they feel differently than you do, you may as well just resign yourself to a tiny, Borg-like circle.
Many people disagree with my views, including people I call friends--and my partner. Instead of hating them right off the bat, I attempt to comprehend where they are coming from, and judge them as individuals instead of Borg drones. I'm even trying to do that with you. You have probably experienced or witnessed some very strong things (positive & negative) that have molded your opinions, as we all have. My experiences have been different from yours, which is why I feel differently.
It is obvious you see the world as a very dark, hopeless place. On that, we actually agree, though we have different reasons for feeling this way. Yours is rooted in feeling oppressed as a man. Mine is more general. I don't feel oppressed as a female or anything else; "oppressed" is not the right word to describe it. I just have a feeling that humanity is inherently evil, that there's no hope in this world, and that life is not a gift, but a horrible curse.
I have spent the majority of my life trying to beat back these feelings and pull myself out of the pit. It has taken me a long time to get to the point where I DON'T, on a daily basis, wish I'd never been born. Sometimes I react strongly around other people with bleak outlooks; sometimes listening to them describe how everything is hopeless triggers me. It re-validates my darker feelings of hopelessness, and I have to step back to keep myself from being pulled back into that pit.
This isn't an excuse, just an explanation of where I'm coming from.
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Thanks for the props. As I mentioned in the message I just posted, I'm prone to severe depression, and some of this stuff is really starting to trigger me.
It's not a purposeful action on anyone's part, just something I'm prone to. I would never want to moderate a board like this; it's too draining. I actually dropped out of moderating an animal *welfare* board a few months ago when the animal *rights* people showed up (they're very different from animal welfarists) and things got really vicious, about 1,000 times more vicious than this.
I think I really need to step back from this before I get pulled down further, so if I don't post again, or don't post for awhile, that's why. When I feel this way, I need to seek out positive things that reaffirm life is worth living, not things that reaffirm life is a curse.
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Thanks for the props. As I mentioned in the message I just posted, I'm prone to severe depression, and some of this stuff is really starting to trigger me.
Obviously this thread has become far too personal.
Claire, please e-mail me: nightmist@mensactivism.org.
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Thanks for the concern. I'm okay, I just feel the need to pull back. I get this way sometimes. I'm not on the verge of self-harm or anything weird. An Internet argument can't do that to me. =) I just feel bad and emotionally drained.
It's not Thomas' fault. I shouldn't have let myself get pulled into a mini-flame war with him. I feel very badly about this. I'm a *guest* on *your* board, and I don't want to wreck your board for the regs, or make them feel uncomfortable. Even though the posts were not directed at me, it saddened me to see messages from a couple of guys who said they don't feel they can be as open on a board where women are present. People should feel free to post what they want.
Like I said, I moderated an animal welfare board a few months ago. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!! I felt like I was baby sitting a bunch of adult children armed with flame-throwers. After awhile, it grated me up like Parmasean cheese!!! I understand the special challenges of administering a board centered around highly charged, very controversial topics. People get very upset very quickly.
If you would like to delete my messages to prevent further flaming, feel free. I am truly sorry for my part in this, which is why I am posting this here. My apology extends not only to you, but to all the *regs.* I am sorry if I made anyone feel uncomfortable.
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If you would like to delete my messages to prevent further flaming, feel free. I am truly sorry for my part in this, which is why I am posting this here. My apology extends not only to you, but to all the *regs.* I am sorry if I made anyone feel uncomfortable.
Unless Scott objects, I see no reason to delete any of the messages on this thread because I think everyone here had something of value to say. And you certainly should not feel a need to apologize for your opinion (nor should Thomas for his). I believe you already know that I've discussed depression on this site before, and I understand it well.
If you need to discuss it, please, please, please e-mail me. We can talk about it in the mensactivism.org chatroom sometime when it's empty, or you can catch me at my AOL IM account: nightmiste (I had to add the "e" because someone else had nightmist, the bastard).
My invitation goes for anyone else on this board suffering from similar ailments. You are not alone, and I am not about to criticize you for feeling low. DO NOT let these issues eat you alive.
As remarksman said a while back, we need everyone who supports this movement here ON this Earth, not IN it. And even though we may disagree on some things, Claire, I get the overall impression that you support equality between the sexes. And, for that, I am grateful.
Chin up.
Eyes front.
Deep breath.
Live.
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One of the stewardesses on Flight 93, I can't remember her name...
From the MSNBC story mentioned above:
"United flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw called her husband, Phil, in Greensboro, N.C. “Have you heard what happened?” she began. “Have you heard? We’ve been hijacked.” Phil was stunned, speechless. She was calling from the coach-class galley in the rear of the plane. There was talk of doing something, she said. She and several of the other flight attendants were filling coffeepots with boiling water—to throw at the hijackers.
If they give out awards posthumously, they should award them to all the passengers.
I disagree vehemently, as you no doubt noticed most of the men here have done. We are talking about medals of valor, not certificates of appreciation.
You have proposed a change to an ancient male tradition. That change is antithetical to its spirit.
To men, the people who took direct action on that flight engaged in a profoundly moral act. (And a profoundly masculine act - They shut up, ignored their feelings and got the job done.)
We honor them.
To award that honor to everyone on board would, as everyone is trying to tell you, dilute and cheapen it. We honor these people as individuals, not as members of a group.
Thus we award the honors to those individuals whose names we know and whose actions are worthy. We know three of these and they should receive medals of valor. That the others who retook the plane don't get medals does not mean that we honor them less, it only means we don't know their names.
It's quite possible that women are among those who deserve, but won't get, medals. I can think of one woman friend (a former Marine) who would certainly have been in the charge. That doesn't change anything.
If you think we should make some nice gesture of appreciation to all the passengers, that's hunky-dory with me. Just don't call them medals of valor. Those are something special.
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The problem with medals for the "heroes and heroines of the flight is that we will never know the facts about what really happened. we can guess but we will never really know the whole story so in my mind the idea, while a nice thought, is not practical. If we missed one of the people who did something to fight against terror we will be devaluing their sacrific as well. The best idea in my mind is to have a memorial for the victims and the country as a whole. The real need is for something that memorializes an event that will define the entire generation and change the way we look at the world forever.
now for the fun part,... the men's issue this brings up that noone has talked about yet.
the devalutation of men in our society has included all those qualities that we are now admire in the heroes on flight 93. Violence, sacrifice, ect.. I am sure we all can list a dozen or more. In my mind the problem is that men are now getting mixed signals, don't be violent, do be violent, don't be protective of women do protect women.
just a thought I haven't really thought the whole theory out but it seems to apply in this instance.
Tony H
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i'd still like to hear a refutation to this message. i'm interested in the logical argument to the contrary.
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I haven't keept up with comments in this section until now. I'm not going to delete any of the messages posted so far, but again, I would like to ask people:
If you're going to disagree, please leave the ad hominem attacks out of it. We're all capable of mature, reasonable dissent, right? I saw instances on both sides of the argument where the poster was adding things that weren't said from the other side.
Remember the principle, give other people the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. If, rather than immediately arguing with someone over a posting, we asked them to explain things further, I think much of this could be avoided.
Thomas and Claire4Liberty: I respect both of you and hope you will both continue to contribute to these message boards. Don't let this stuff get you down, and keep it real!
Scott
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If the men's movement was properly organised and co-ordinated it could give out its own medals. Why wait for someone else to do it? Just a thought.
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Again Scott, I extend my sincere apologies for my part in this mini-flame war. I fully understand the challenges of moderating a board where controversial issues are discussed, and where people have very strong feelings on both sides. I respect anyone willing to do this, because it took too much out of me when I tried it!
I enjoy many of the articles posted on this site, and often copy and paste the URLs (NOT the comments by the posters, just the article URLs) into other sites where they are appropriate. The cases involving the 15 yo boy and the sperm donor sued for child support are of great interest to the childfree community, for example, as is anything involving new bc methods for men. These articles have sparked lively discussion on other boards.
Bottom line: You're doing a good job with a site that is *not* easy to run.
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Celebrating the good that men do is not about excluding women.
Celebrating the good that women do is not about excluding men.
Peace.
Steve
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To: The President and the Congress of the United States
Whereas passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, in the richest traditions of American bravery, courage and commitment to the ideals of liberty, did resist and fight foreign terrorists who had taken control of their aircraft, and,
Whereas the resistance of these individuals either contributed to, or caused, the crash of this aircraft before it could reach the intended target of these suicidal terrorists and enemies of the United States of America, and,... Establish a National Monument at the Crash Site of Flight 93
Flight 93 was the last hijacked airliner to crash on Sept. 11 during a series of terrorist attacks. Phone calls from the flight indicated that passengers intended to wrest control of the plane from four hijackers. The plane crashed in rural Somerset County, killing all 44 people onboard. More than $100,000 collected for monument honoring Flight 93
OUR HEROS decided to make the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives for US by crashing their plane and stopping the Terrorists !! Memorial for United Airlines Flight 93 ......
full text here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/f93mon/
http://www.phillyburbs.com/couriertimes/news/news/ 1004shanks.htm
passengers and crew:
http://hometown.aol.com/memorial4ua93/myhomepage/m emorial-crisis.html
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but she was still lauded as heroic.
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 30, @03:44PM EST (#31)
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Without a doubt, there have been people who have acted with uncommon valor whose act went unnoticed, either because the evidence died with them or because they chose to remain anonymous. And I also have absolutely no issue with awarding medals of valor to anyone, including women, whose valor we can find evidence of.
However, I find it absolutely UNACCEPTABLE to avoid giving medals to men whose valor is evidenced by the phone calls and the cockpit voice recorders simply because we cannot find women to include in the group.
As far as Barbara Olsen's phone call is concerned, she displayed courage in making the call to her husband, but she was not HEROIC. She asked him what she should do; there is no evidence that she took decisive action herself.
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 30, @04:28PM EST (#32)
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There's really no evidence that anyone on the Pentagon or WTC flights took decisive action. I'm not putting them down. I think the reason why they didn't do anything is because they believed they would be released if they cooperated, which is what pilots and passengers mistakingly were told for years. I think Barbara Olsen's husband told her to just be quiet and not resist. I can't remember. If he did, I can't condemn him. He thought he was giving her good advice. But, I agree she and the others on those flights don't deserve medals. A memorial monument would be nice, but not a medal.
I don't think anyone is really against giving men medals. Several of the posters have said they're afraid that some of the men who acted heroically will not be recognized, because we dont' know about them, but several others have pointed out that there's nothing we can do about that.
I think it's awful that our country is at war and we're choosing to bicker over something like this. How are we supposed to combat terrorism when we can't even stand united within?
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Giving credit to women, when we only have evidence that men acted bravely, is the counterpart to blaming only men for crimes, when we know that women are also to blame. The two work hand in hand.
We should accept neither.
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"I think it's awful that our country is at war and we're choosing to bicker over something like this. How are we supposed to combat terrorism when we can't even stand united within?"
isn't the freedom to discuss and debate essential to the basis upon which we in the western world stand?
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just a thought I haven't really thought the whole theory out but it seems to apply in this instance.
Welcome to my world. *g* I'm working on two lines of thought now. First, the significance of Flight 93 as an affirmation of male values and, second, the apparent Mars/Venus differences in approaching a way to honor the passengers.
Let me know if you come up with anything.
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Larry comments on "the apparent Mars/Venus differences in approaching a way to honor the passengers."
I think that it is not a Mars/Venus difference. It is, rather, a feminist/non-feminist difference.
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by Anonymous User on Friday November 30, @07:51PM EST (#37)
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Yes it is, but I still wish Americans were more united, more like we were during World War II.
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I think that it is not a Mars/Venus difference. It is, rather, a feminist/non-feminist difference.
I think it is. I've observed the same thing before in situations without sexual politics.
I once started work at a corporation in a department with about 30 people. I had been there 3 weeks when we had a meeting to present awards for achievement. Our manager, a woman, started giving out awards, gilded certificates and inexpensive gifts like coffee mugs. The recipients each walked up to accept accompanied by polite applause. And kept coming and coming. We kept applauding and applauding. The manager didn't stop giving awards until everyone had one, including me, whose only achievement thus far was figuring out where the snack machines were. I tossed my "award" in the trash.
When I tell this story, men generally curl their lips in disgust, recognizing that the awards had lost any possible value and that those who actually had excelled and achieved had been robbed of deserved recognition.
Women generally smile at this deft way of showing everyone that they are valued and appreciated.
There is a real, fundamently difference in how men and women view and experience public recognition.
I think Claire and Lorraine were likely expressing a feminine, not feminist, opinion on a masculine method of awarding recognition. If we were, for some reason, discussing the award of medals to an all-male combat unit with such a fragment story of actions, they would have expressed the same view. They would also likely have come away convinced that we were stingy with awards for no good reason. Since there were women involved in Flight 93, the only reason Claire could guess for our hard-heartedness was a desire to exclude recognition of women.
Similarly, their principled desire that no one be unfairly excluded can look to us like a desire to dilute the value of the recognition.
A feminist could take the same stand for exactly the reasons you mention. It just doesn't seem to me like that's the case here.
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Thomas: "I think that it is not a Mars/Venus difference. It is, rather, a feminist/non-feminist difference."
Larry: "I think it is. I've observed the same thing before in situations without sexual politics."
I think Larry's absolutely right. I work in health care, a field where there are many women in management. It is striking to see the difference between the way women (in general, not every woman in world or in my workplace) and men (ditto ...) regard issues of reward, recognition, and conflict resolution. Women tend to place a higher value on maintaining community solidarity, in part by assuring that no one's feelings are potentially hurt by exclusion. Men tend to place a higher value on recognizing individual achievement. To men, the former approach is wimpy and worthless -- as Larry comments -- while to women, the latter approach is cold and thoughtless.
Neither approach is right or wrong, although each works better in some situations than others. Similarly, some organizations -- health care orgs being excellent examples -- tend to have an overall "feminine" approach to this issue, while others have a "masculine" approach. Either way is OK if the organization is successful. The problem arises when employees think the organization should restructure itself to suit the style they are comfortable with and then claim discrimination when it fails to do so. By the way, the fact that such complaints are almost exclusively made by women is a product of women's willingness to complain, not a lack of workplaces where "masculine" management styles are denigrated and punished.
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Neither approach is right or wrong, although each works better in some situations than others.
I grudgingly agree. I say "grudgingly" because it's this kind of "on the one hand this, on the other hand that, no style is absolutely right" fairness that has lead to a society which makes those of us here such unhappy campers.
There are times to say, "This is the right style. The masculine approach is the correct approach." This is one of those times. We should reward those exemplifying masculine virtues (regardless of their sex) in the male manner of recognition, with no nods to inclusiveness.
A man respects others by holding them to the same standards he holds himself to. He honors them when they surpass those standards. (That doesn't really follow. I just wanted to say it.)
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I wrote: "Neither approach is right or wrong, although each works better in some situations than others."
Larry responded: "I grudgingly agree. I say "grudgingly" because it's this kind of "on the one hand this, on the other hand that, no style is absolutely right" fairness that has lead to a society which makes those of us here such unhappy campers."
I know what you mean, and I agree that our society has become addicted to an absurd level of concern about "fairness." But, sometimes, there are two alternate ways of doing things, each of which has useful applications in different situations. I think this is one of them.
Larry: "There are times to say, "This is the right style. The masculine approach is the correct approach." This is one of those times. We should reward those exemplifying masculine virtues (regardless of their sex) in the male manner of recognition, with no nods to inclusiveness."
Yes, absolutely! Could not agree more! Amen, brother! etc., etc. We're not talking about a policy committee here, we're talking about honoring a group of people (who happen to be men, although including the stews who boiled water, planning to attack the highjackers with it, could be included as far as I'm concerned) who did a brave and honorable thing. Honoring these men makes the point that it is admirable and worthy of commendation to DO SOMETHING in a situation like this. "Honoring" everybody means what? That it is admirable and worthy of commendation to ... sit on a plane that happens to be highjacked and crashed?
The men who died trying to rescue victims from the WTC or trying to stop the highjackers in Pennsylvania are heroes worthy of special honor. The victims of the bombings/highjackings are just that ... victims. It's desperately sad and tragic, and we should remember them, mourn their loss, and avenge them; but they are not heroes and do not deserve medals.
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What about the one guy on flight 93 who supposedly had pilot experience. It is suggested that he intentionally held himself back from the attack so that in the event the attacker were successful, someone could fly the plane.
Would he be honored since he didn't get the chance to act heroically but was more like a hero-in-waiting?
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Lorraine: "What about the one guy on flight 93 who supposedly had pilot experience. It is suggested that he intentionally held himself back from the attack so that in the event the attacker were successful, someone could fly the plane.
Would he be honored since he didn't get the chance to act heroically but was more like a hero-in-waiting?"
Me: Nope, no medal for him because he didn't do anything. Heroism is not an equal-opportunity experience.
There is no dishonor is NOT being a hero. Heroes are exceptional by definition. Your question seems to imply that it would be somehow unfair to the "hero-in-waiting" or his family not to commend him for heroism. It isn't unfair to him, and it doesn't really matter what his family thinks.
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Would he be honored since he didn't get the chance to act heroically but was more like a hero-in-waiting?
No. In this society men are only rewarded for deeds, not good intentions. If a husband doesn't get his wife a birthday present in November because he'll use the money to get her a GREAT Christmas present, is he a hero in November? *g*
P.S. - I'm sorry I mangled your name the first time.
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