Short rantette

[avevale_intelligencer]

madfilkentist quotes, with enthusiastic approval, this on C.S. Lewis:

Adamson made his case for the changes to Gresham by arguing that Lewis' female characters become stronger as the book series progresses — something he attributes to Lewis' real-life romance with Gresham's mother, Joy Davidman. Gresham agreed. As evidence, he recounted an encounter he witnessed between Lewis, Davidman and a longbow-wielding trespasser on their property. Davidman carried a small "garden gun." When the man aimed a drawn arrow at the pair, Lewis chivalrously stepped in front of Davidman to shield her. He remained for a moment until Davidman, a Bronx native, commanded, "Goddamn, Jack, get out of my line of fire."

This could be seen as about feminism and strong female characters, but I think that's a red herring; in fact the story could have been told exactly the same with John Wayne in the Davidman role and Grace Kelly or somebody playing Lewis. The issue here is a simple one: non-offensive defence versus non-defensive offence. Lewis, for whatever misguided and possibly sexist motives, was endeavouring to prevent or limit bloodshed, by offering his life to protect his friend. Davidman was prepared to commit or exacerbate it, by shooting the archer either before, or after, Lewis had been shot, in other words either without provocation or too late to do any good. In front of their son.

I know which approach I find more praiseworthy, from either gender.

It's interesting that opinions on this kind of issue do seem to come in packages. Most people who agree with me on one of them seem to agree with me on most of the rest, and the converse also seems to be true. There are exceptions, and they always make things more interesting...

Comments

[howeird]

From what I know of Lewis, he would not have been shielding Davidman, he would have been preventing her from shooting. One does not take an arrow in the chest for someone who has a gun and knows how to use it. A simple "shot across the bow" (pun intended) might have been all that was needed to dissuade the archer.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I would. A gun isn't a shield, and the archer's response to being shot at, or near, or whatever, is not that predictable. That's like expecting other drivers on the road to behave logically. But either way, his was a non-violent move made with the intention of limiting or preventing violence as far as was within his power, and I approve that.

[batyatoon]

From what I know of Lewis, he would not have been shielding Davidman, he would have been preventing her from shooting.

I was wondering that myself.

Pity the anecdote doesn't go on to relate how he reacted to her command to get out of her line of fire.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I did find one website which continues the story (I've lost it again), and apparently he stepped sideways even faster than before. Presumably he didn't want her to shoot through him. It isn't recorded, however, what they said in private afterwards...

[batyatoon]

That does rather suggest, though, that his interest was in shielding her and not in shielding the trespasser from her.

[batyatoon]

The issue here is a simple one: non-offensive defence versus non-defensive offence.

If only.

The complicating factor is twofold: cultural glorifying of aggression, and cultural strictures against women being aggressive or being considered capable of such.

Seriously, I think I do understand what you mean, but it's approaching wilfull blindness to say that gender has nothing to do with either the incident or people's reactions to it.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, it has nothing to do with my reaction to it. I would approve the defensive move and condemn the offensive one whichever way round it happened. I am a feminist and am in favour of women being more assertive and even aggressive in securing and safeguarding their rights, their freedoms and their dignity, but I don't approve of people shooting people.

[batyatoon]

I can't argue with your reaction -- just with presenting it as "the issue here" and dismissing the (to me) extremely obvious other issue as a "red herring".

I know you're a pacifist and I respect that like all anything, but I'm not one, and I don't see violence-or-nonviolence as the only -- or even the major -- significant factor here.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, if shooting (or being prepared to shoot) a man is more excusable for a woman than for another man, then yes, I guess so. The story, viewed in that way, makes Lewis out to be a stupid, patronising typical man and Davidman a tough, smart, no-nonsense, uncompromising independent woman, which is fine if that's the view you're going for. I can't argue with it.

[batyatoon]

Well, if shooting (or being prepared to shoot) a man is more excusable for a woman than for another man, then yes, I guess so.

Oh no, nothing of the sort! Just that if shooting (or being prepared to shoot) a man is excusable in the first place, then the member of the party who's armed should not be considered the one in need of protection.

Swap the genders as you suggested and the story becomes completely implausible, because Grace Kelly has no culturally ingrained assumption that she should act to protect John Wayne. As suggested by what dickgloucester writes below, you only do that automatically if you unquestioningly think of yourself as the stronger.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

This is the cognitive discontinuity I keep hitting. See, from where I'm standing a gun is not protection. (Well, it might be if it were eight feet square and you could hide behind it.) It isn't defence, it's attack. It's a means of killing, not saving. You can argue that the other person might see it, recognise it, weigh up the odds, consider the situation and be deterred, but s/he just as easily might not, for a whole host of possible reasons, and then you have two people dead. I go with Buffy on this. "These? Never. Helpful."

(And it has occurred to me, having posted this, that there are a large number of words coming my way on the subject of a woman walking home alone late at night and the gun in her handbag being the only thing that stands between her and an army of rapists. And I say sorry, but just because a house is on fire and petrol is all you have, that does not make pouring petrol on it the best option. The plight of women in our society is indeed desperate and needs to be remedied, but guns will still only make things worse. You can say that's WMP talking if you like and I will have no defence against that.)

And I'm sure I've seen lots of stories in which a woman gets between two men who are fighting and takes the bullet or the sword or whatever instead, so it obviously isn't completely unheard of in our culture for the weaker person to try to protect the stronger. If I were to get between the Countess and someone who was trying to attack her, it wouldn't be because of any notion that I was stronger than her (I'm not, and anyway, when it comes to a bullet or an arrow, no-one is stronger than anyone else), it would be because she was in danger and I needed to do something. As Dicky goes on to say.

Of course, she might well tell me with profanity to get out of the way so that she could kill the other person, and I guess that would be her right, but I would still not find it particularly admirable.

[batyatoon]

See, from where I'm standing a gun is not protection.... It isn't defence, it's attack. It's a means of killing, not saving.

And that makes sense from where you're standing, but only because you don't think violence is a legitimate means of self-defense. Which I think we've established is where I disagree with you.

And I'm sure I've seen lots of stories in which a woman gets between two men who are fighting and takes the bullet or the sword or whatever instead

I've seen them too, and it's almost always a case where the woman is trying to prevent either man from being hurt, rather than defending one against the other. In that case it's reasonable for the unarmed noncombatant to step between the combatants -- and even then, only if she assumes that neither of the combatants wants to hurt her. (Which, in these stories, tends to be the case; pretty frequently she's what they're fighting over.)

Given a pacifist standpoint, I suppose that regardless of who's fighting and why, one would still want to prevent either party from being hurt. Is that a fair guess?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I think so, and there's also the point that hurt comes in all sorts. The possible consequences to Davidman if the trespasser had pressed the point and she had successfully killed or wounded him (I don't know if they were in Britain or America at this point, which might make a material difference) could have been just as hurtful to her as they were to the trespasser. But that would be a considered response, rather than an automatic "violence happening: loved one in danger: stop it."

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Well, it has nothing to do with my reaction to it.

Are you sure? You're absolutely oooooozing WMP you know! ;-)

It sounds like an automatically chivalrous response from a man brought up under a set of values that seem almost alien to us today - he was the man and thus saw himself as the stronger of the two, and therefore the one with the duty of protection. But also, an automatic response from anyone seeing someone they love in danger. I'd step between my children and an archer.

But now I think about it, I don't know whether I'd automatically protect my husband or expect him to protect me. Perhaps those values aren't so alien, after all.

*wanders off to think*

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Actually that's not a bad analogy. Defending oneself against physical attack by using a gun is the equivalent of defending oneself against accusations of WMP by being viciously misogynistic and/or racist. It's not defending, it's attacking back, and what it gets you is escalation.

[batyatoon]

Help me out here: what is WMP?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

White Male Privilege. I posted on it a while back.

[batyatoon]

Ah. Okay then, no, I'm not inclined to think it's WMP talking when you say above that guns will only make things worse.

I do wonder whether WMP might be an unconscious factor in your ability to see the original scenario as being solely about violence-nonviolence and not about gender roles. That may be unfair of me, though; there's no reason to assume that a strong enough belief in nonviolence wouldn't be enough to carry that approach by itself.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I can't rule it out as an unconscious factor myself, for obvious reasons.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

It doesn't really tell which way Lewis was facing. The implication was that he was facing the archer, but her response, however blunt, implies he was facing her. Therefore I withhold my judgment.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

From the phrasing ("chivalrously...to shield her") I think we have to take it that in the son's recollection he was facing the archer.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

Oh. Okay.

[batyatoon]

I assumed from her response that he was facing away from her and thus didn't realize he was impeding her line of fire.