Men as protectors

Yes, but there are factory acts from the start of the 19th century (not that they made much difference till the mid century.) So the 1842 Mines Act didn't come out of the blue - there was some movement to improve working conditions all round; you also get some industrialists trying to improve housing and so on (model villages). Some of this was because some recognised that healthier workers would be more productive, but I think some also recognised the workforce was human and deserved a minimum standard of living.

But there were also those who were outraged at women working topless with their skirts tucked between their legs to deal with the heat of working in the Mines.

Not that this has much to do with men as protectors, except I think it was very much a Victorian ideal in some ways, and all the legislation around mines, factories, public health and so on was a part of that - protecting those who couldn't protect themselves, though not necessarily always as we think of protection now.

I read the article too, and what I saw in it was that some of the reformers made absurd exaggerations about undressed women suffering moral corruption, when really their objective was just to get the women out of the mines. They knew what might appeal to the Victorian public! Describing women driven by poverty to do miserable dangerous work certainly wouldn't do it.

Read the article. Well!!!!

Lurcio - ISTR it was a moral panic rather than concern for women's welfare that led to women being banned from working underground in UK mines.

m.historyextra.com/feature/scandal-female-miners-19th-century-britain

Mountain rescue teams use 6-8 people to carry a stretcher, and for one carry they will have two teams that swap over frequently (so 12+ people in total) as it's dangerous and tiring to do it for too long.

Just resurrecting this because I happened to go round a mining museum this weekend - one of the displays was on the mine's rescue team, and included the stretcher, which was designed to be carried by 5 or 6 men (and they would have been men in this instance, because the display was of stuff dating from the 1950s). Why so many? Because it would be bloody stupid to put your own and the casualty's life at risk demonstrating you could carry him hundreds of yards when in fact it wouldl be much safer for a team to do it.

(Interestingly, the ex miner who took us round was quite amusing on the subject of the work the women and young boys did on the surface in the 19th century - breaking ore by hand using hammers - he said the boys were often glad when they were old enough to go underground because the surface work was actually more physically demanding).

Can I just stop and love the notion Of Outs tidying her BF away?

There's a limit for paramedics.

They have bariatric services for when someone is too heavy to lift. A team is called out.

Indeed. At work (where there is some heavy lifting), none of us is meant to lift something weighing more than 25kg by ourselves, so physical fitness beyond an average adult just isn't an issue. Obviously there are different requirements for being a firefighter, but it's not beyond the abilities of some women.

Am I the only person on this thread so far who actually has been carried downstairs by emergency services?

Not fire, fortunately, but paramedics. (So probably won't "count"). They wouldn't let me walk as they didn't trust me not to fall downstairs. They were women. They put me on a chair & carried me down together, so that probably won't count either. Though I reckon either could have got me down on her own, if she'd felt the need to show off.

I can't believe this carrying issue is still up for debate.

I wish we could have a sticky at the top of FWR explaining to people how to aid others in the event of a fire.

There is a really bizarre conflict between the wishes of MRAs and trade unionists. MRAs seem hell bent on encouraging fire men, bin men, male steel workers, male builders and male farmers to carry out physical tasks in the most stupid, irresponsible and dangerous ways possible in order to demonstrate (and be poster boys for) the masculinity and superiority of all men.

Trade unionists, on the other hand, want to improve working conditions and prevent employers from making employees carry out tasks in an unsafe manner.

MRAs claim to be in favour of men's rights, but seem to be actively working against them.

I was tidying the front room, rather than rescuing anyone. Protecting us both from the landlord's judgey pants, at a stretch?

Or perhaps you were rescuing him?

due to my ladybrain.

OutsSelf Were you protecting your exBF? Are you sure you are not a man?

Well said, outsself. I'm also thinking of women walking for miles with heavy water containers on their heads (and, quite possibly, babies/toddlers strapped to their backs).

I've also yet to see a forest fire being tackled by carrying people downstairs away from it. Though perhaps the helicopters dumping water on the fires I've seen were Piloted By Penis (TM)...

I think what you fail to acknowledge in your 'truth', Irish is that the men working as firefighters aren't doing so because of their status as male. It isn't a function of their penis, doing the rescues etc. Women do them too. So it's true to say 'men protect people as firefighters' if you actually mean people protect people as firefighters, but are using men to mean people. Which would make you a bit of a sexist twat, which I'm sure you aren't. It isn't masculinity which is causing people to rescue other people in your example, it's firefighting, which you can undertake as a man or woman.

But the OP didn't write, do people ever protect each other? Are people supposed to be protective of one another? She was asking about whether specifically men in their status as men are particularly protective. Whether protectiveness is a male quality. Your example that some men do participate in protective acts does not answer this question.

WRT the whole, oh but women couldn't carry people down the stairs of a burning building. This is another part of the tedious underestimation of female strength. The main part of your body that you would use to support carrying another person would be your skeleton. Women's skeletons are very hard, skeletons in general are. I am 5'1 and carried (in a fireman's lift, fittingly enough) my drunk then boyfriend up the stairs to bed because our landlord was coming round and I thought it proper to tidy up. He was 6'1. It wasn't that hard, though I did twat him on the head by turning round in a doorway and admittedly the house was not on fire. The hardest bit was standing up once he was in place. It took about 3 seconds to stand which I will concede feels like a long time when you have to do a deep squat with a drunk fool on your back.

People's bodies are strong. If you don't know how to inhabit that strength (maybe because a lifetime of YOU ARE SO DELICATE WITH YOUR LADYBRAIN type messages in discussions like this WOMEN STAIRS AND HEAVY THINGS THIS IS MADNESS) then you appear to yourself and to others like you aren't strong. But tasks like carrying heavy shit are a function of good organisation of a basically strong resource. People who can carry their own weight on their own legs can usually carry at least double that, if it is distributed across their skeleton properly. When I say people, I mean women and men.

You do it so well scallops, I am a great admirer of your work

Try this Irish:

Read the rest of the OP.

Take some time to allow the actual idea behind the discussion sink into your brain, ask someone to help should this cause you difficulty.

Come back and apologise.

Or even better, go away and tell women what to think elsewhere on the forum.

Why is it so difficult for you to acknowledge you were wrong? WILL you spontaneously combust, seeing as you have a bit of a thing about male firefighters?

Thread title: Men as protectors

Opening line of thread: "Is it ever really true, except in their own minds?"

Answer: Yes, sometimes it is true, as in the example I've just given of male firefighters protecting towns from forest fires. Why is that so difficult to acknowledge? You're not going to spontaneously combust (seeing as we're on the subject of fire et al).

Oh I know Palmer. I just fancied patronisingly explaining to someone how wrong they are on a topic. It seems to be de rigeur at the moment on FWR so I thought I'd join the party.

I may also know a thing or two about firefighters .

Oh, read your own posts, you GF.

Firefighters are mostly male, just as nursery workers are mostly female. For both professions, provided a person meets the job requirements, sex is irrelevant.

And nursery workers are protecting their charges every day, of course, from falling over, when out for a class walk etc.

I think you see that you were wrong on your spurious "carrying people" point and, rather than acknowledge that, you've pootled off on another irrelevant tangent.

Good show.

NeverEverAnythingEver
"I give up.

IrishDadYou are"so"right. Men protect women. Especially firemen. In fact because firemen protect women therefore it is true that men protect women in general. All those violence by men against women and girls - exceptions. You know. Exceptions.

Not all men are like that, you know, feminists.

Happy?"

Jesus, how many strawmen (sorry, "strawpeople"), can you fit into one post?

I never said men protect women in general.

And I never used the example of male firefighters as some kind of counterweight to the scourge of male violence against women and girls (or boys, for that matter, you left them out).

So, why are you putting forward arguments I never made?

I stand by my argument; the thread is rubbishing the notion of men as protectors in society. Fair enough. I'm just putting forward the example of (mostly) male firefighters risking their lives every day to protect (and yes, rescue!) people from fires.

Come to think of it, do (mostly) male firefighters not "protect" towns and cities from forest fires in places like Australia and California? I mean, they're not "rescuing" the towns, they're "protecting" them, right?

Seeing that the exact dictionary definitions are so important and all.

I just remembered I have been trained to get people downstairs on the evacuation chairs. I even got a certificate for it. (I'm based on the ground floor, so don't expect to be the first in line to be in charge of getting people downstairs.)

scallops Irishdad doesn't think much of the ladies, probably not worth wasting words on.

"...wielding bolt cutters and angle grinders" OMG a woman would never be able to do that!