Strong Female Protagonist (webcomic)

[Narkis]

It's the effect of her going invisible. Check the last panel here, for instance.

[LadyEowyn]

I re-read the earlier part of the current chapter and noticed that, in retrospect, Allison's paper discussing the Greek gods, in the context of questioning whether we our defined by our choices or our abilities, is a very clear analogy to what's going on in the rest of the chapter.

Excerpt from her paper, speaking of the gifts granted to three of the Greek gods:

To Zeus, they gave the mighty thunderbolt, the symbol of his station as king of the heavens. It raises the question: Did Zeus choose to become the God of Storms, or was this destiny thrust upon him in the guise of a gift? ... Poseidon emerged...his trident waiting for him, and established his mastery over the seas. And last but not least, Hades emerged to discover his Helmet, which granted him the power of concealment. If not for his ability to move unseen, would the eldest brother still have chosen Death as his domain?

Bold mine. In this context, is there any question that (in the intent of the author, not in Allison's mind) Zeus is an analog for Allison, who has been given power and was the leader of the Guardians but has walked away from that "assigned destiny", and Hades is an analog for Moonshadow, who can become invisible, bought into the "metahumans should improve the world through crimefighting" narrative (though in an illegal form) and chosen to use her power to kill?

I'm trying to see if there's a way to extend the metaphor so Poseidon is an analog for Pintsize - the chapter pretty clearly centres around these three characters' viewpoints on superheroism - but I'm not coming up with anything.

Wow, that is some fantastic foreshadowing and symbolism. I'm glad I went back to re-read.

[Dragonus45]

That story both stretches my disbelief and and after talking with a buddy of mine from the marines is rather insulting towards the armed forces to imply that nothing would happen to the people involved.

[Guancyto]

Er, sexual assault in the military has been a hot-button topic in recent years precisely because a soldier's commanding officer is the person they're supposed to complain to if they have a problem. In the bad old days of... 2013, 5061 cases were reported, 484 of which went to trial and 376 of which resulted in convictions. A conviction would be especially unlikely if the soldier's commanding officer was involved, especially in 2005 when no one was talking about this.

So, uh, insulting though it may be, if the shoe fits, wear it.

[Eric Tolle]

Yeah, unfortunately, this is the most believable element of the comic. Dragonus45, you might want to do some research OTHER than consulting with a buddy in the service. Start by Googling "sexual Assault in the armed forces" and "rape in the military"

[Dragonus45]

Er, sexual assault in the military has been a hot-button topic in recent years precisely because a soldier's commanding officer is the person they're supposed to complain to if they have a problem. In the bad old days of... 2013, 5061 cases were reported, 484 of which went to trial and 376 of which resulted in convictions. A conviction would be especially unlikely if the soldier's commanding officer was involved, especially in 2005 when no one was talking about this.

So, uh, insulting though it may be, if the shoe fits, wear it.

You have your numbers I have mine. Not to offend anyone. Honestly sexual assualt in the military is something I will admit I know little enough about to really argue the point but I'm almost regretting bringing it up with the one friend as it is a bit of a hot button thing with him as well and he has lots of numbers that conflict with those.

[LadyEowyn]

Guancyto is correct - sexual assault in the military is a major problem, and there's multiple reports and studies revealing it as such, including ones by the US Department of Defence itself. The comic is describing a real issue; and people in the military should be offended by the existence of the problem, not by discussion of it. It's rather funny for you to object to the comic covering it when you admit you know little of the subject.

Here's several links for background information:

Sexual violence in the US military

The Invisible War - a PBS study and documentary on sexual assault in the US military that won Emmy awards for journalism

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22438928

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7950439.stm

From the website for The Invisible War [bold mine]:

The Invisible War is a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of America’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military. The film, a nominee for the 2013 Academy Awards, paints a startling picture of the extent of the problem: Today, a female soldier in combat zones is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.

The Department of Defense estimates there were a staggering 22,800 violent sex crimes in the military in 2011. Among all active-duty female soldiers, 20 percent are sexually assaulted. Female soldiers age 18 to 21 accounted for more than half of the victims.

Focusing on the powerfully emotional stories of rape victims, The Invisible War exposes the systemic cover-up of military sex crimes, chronicling the women’s struggles to rebuild their lives and fight for justice. It also features hard-hitting interviews with high-ranking military officials and members of Congress that reveal the perfect storm of conditions that exist for rape in the military, its long-hidden history, and what can be done to bring about much-needed change.

At the core of the film are interviews with the rape survivors themselves — people like Kori Cioca, who was beaten and raped by her supervisor in the U.S. Coast Guard; Ariana Klay, a Marine who served in Iraq before being raped by a senior officer and his friend, then threatened with death; and Trina McDonald who was drugged and raped repeatedly by military policemen on her remote Naval station in Adak, Alaska. And it isn’t just women; according to one study's estimate, one percent of men in the military — nearly 20,000 — were sexually assaulted in 2009.

And while rape victims in the civilian world can turn to a police force and judicial system for help and justice, rape victims in the military must turn to their commanders — a move that is all too often met with foot-dragging at best, and reprisals at worst. To make matters worse, 33 percent of rape victims didn’t report the assault because the person they’d have to report it to was a friend of the rapist. And 25 percent didn’t report it because the person they’d have to report the rape to was the rapist himself.

Many rape victims find themselves forced to choose between speaking up and keeping their careers. Little wonder that only 8 percent of military sexual assault cases are prosecuted.

The kind of situation described in the comic doesn't just exist, it's common.

[Frozen_Feet]

What is the percentage of female soldiers in US military compared to male soldiers?

Because reading that quote from "Invisible war", it appears the amount of male and female victims are numerically close to each other:

The Department of Defense estimates there were a staggering 22,800 violent sex crimes in the military in 2011...

And it isn’t just women; according to one study's estimate, one percent of men in the military — nearly 20,000 — were sexually assaulted in 2009.

[Guancyto]

The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in 2012 (which is the most recent I can grab) report the split at 85.4% male, 14.6% female on Active Duty. The Selected Reserve (from the Reserves and National Guard; considered to be on Active status) is 81.8% male, 18.2% female.

As far as I can tell, those two estimates are from different studies, and they are estimates, so it's harder to use them definitively compared to reports/trials/convictions. The numbers on reports/trials/convictions are, um, a matter of public record and not really something that's in dispute. But even if we assume an apples/apples comparison (we really shouldn't, but let's do it anyway), the raw numbers would be ballpark close to each other, while the percent occurrence would still be pretty starkly slanted toward bad things happening to women.

[Dragonus45]

Well if it is the same number of people for either statistic as victims why would percentage matter? It seems to me that looking at the larger percentage of a smaller total is only confusing the issue?

[Guancyto]

Hmm.

Okay! I will illustrate with an example. Let's say we survey 10,000 people and of those:
1000 people in our sample set regularly stand on a mountains
9000 people in our sample set do not regularly stand on mountains

200 people in our sample set have been hit by lightning:
100 of the people that were hit by lightning are those that are in the habit of standing on mountains
100 habitually stand somewhere else (forests, valleys, buildings, etc.).

That means that the rate of getting-hit-by-lightning-while-hanging-out-on-mountains in our sample is 10%
That means the overall rate of getting-hit-by-lightning-while-standing-anywhere-period in our sample is 2%
That means the rate of getting-hit-by-lightning-while-standing-on-not-mountains in our sample is 1.1%

Do you think it would be confusing the lightning-striking issue to say "you know, there might be a problem here with lightning and people standing on mountains", when (in our sample) it's five times as likely to happen to someone who likes to stand on mountains than it is to someone just plain old anyone standing anywhere?

(Then replace "standing on mountains" with "being female" and "getting hit by lightning" with "sexual assault" and hopefully you begin to see what I'm talking about.)

Aside from that, there are two things. First, it looks like you want to take as gospel something I just said was extremely spurious statistics, trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison of two separate estimates from two separate studies in two different years with likely two different methodologies? Yeah, you don't want to do that; I did it for the sake of argument and because it's hard to find a similar estimate in the same year/study. (It's not something people are talking about nearly as much, which is a huge problem as well, make no mistake.) The goal of statistics is to get an accurate idea of what's going on whether it supports your position or not, something which people on any side of any issue forget way too often.

Second, even if the rates were about even, that would still be a huge problem. The goal of the Department of Defense, the Armed Forces, the Justice Department and the American people isn't "yeah we'll be happy when unreported or unpunished sexual assault happens in the military about as often as it happens everywhere else, and to men as often as women" or at least I hope to God it isn't.

[Dragonus45]

The way that is presented it looks equally as likely to happen to people standing on mountains as not its just that less overall people were asked who were standing on mountains making the percentage look higher while the totals were equal.

[Guancyto]

Ah, that's a very different issue. Two issues actually, margin for error and sampling bias!

In any survey where you have not surveyed every last member of the population (that's pretty much all of them) there's still a certain range in which you can assume your results lie, and the percentage given is your stat for the middle of that range. In a truly random sample such as our people-on-mountains survey, the odds of this get lower and lower the more samples you take. 10,000 is usually a really good sample set; the typical size for a Gallup poll is 1000 people, and their population size is usually 300,000,000+. Random samples are surprisingly good at what they do! And you do want your sample to be representative of the population; that is pretty much priority 1.

(Technically, you can use a sample size as low as 30, but that creates a pretty hefty margin for error if you've got a large population.)

You'll also have confidence intervals, where you're basically measuring the chances of whether or not a certain range of your results (or even all of them) are totally out to lunch. Generally if you're not satisfied thinking your survey is accurate, you either take another one and compare the results, or wait for someone else to poll the same thing and compare the results. People like Nate Silver a lot because what he'll do is take everybody's polls, and figure out things from there, and get pretty scarily accurate results. (Elections are like candy for statisticians, because you get a giant pile of data to crunch and then at the end of it you're presented with a big number telling you whether or not you were completely wrong about everything.)

Sampling bias is a lot more interesting (margin for error is literally just math) and a lot trickier to pin down. Straight bias is correctable - bringing up Nate Silver again, but a lot of times he'll crunch just a ridiculous amount of numbers and figure out that a particular polling outfit will be consistently skewed one way or the other (doesn't matter which) and correct for it. It might be their survey method (mail vs. electronic, for instance), really you can concoct any number of theories based on how much you like the polling outfit or their results BUT, straight numerical bias, while not easy to spot, is something you can correct for, especially if it's consistent.

Consistent errors in sampling, if you actually want to figure out what they are and how to stop having them, are a lot trickier! For instance, the largest, most extensive poll in the nation, with a sample set of over ten million people, concluded that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt would get absolutely destroyed by challenger Alf Landon. As any American will tell you, that didn't happen; the Literary Digest (which conducted the poll) had a sample set that was much wealthier than the average voter, because they surveyed the people who could afford the Literary Digest during the Great Depression. Pollsters have been trying for almost 80 years to not do that again because it was super embarrassing. But it's also quite telling of how you have to be careful about your sample set, because they did not get a representative sample and as a result were completely wrong about everything.

This is why I cited and preferred the hard numbers. 5,061 troops reported cases of sexual assault in 2013. 484 cases went to trial, resulting in 376 convictions. Those are nice, hard numbers, a matter of public record. It does not involve any margin for error because that's literally the number there were, without any estimates or ambiguity about it.

But man, you want to say that sexual assault of male members of our armed forces is probably underreported? I'd be right there with you. The truth is I don't care about turning this into a gender issue, it's goddamned appalling regardless of what the gender distribution is. And you know what? This is an issue in which a rising tide lifts all boats.

I feel like I'm skirting dangerously close to the board rules, so this is probably the last I'll say on the subject. Please feel free to PM me if you want to discuss it further, though! The real life stuff, that is; if you want to talk stats and math I'll talk your ear off all day about it wherever you like.

[Dragonus45]

Yea I'm not trying to argue for once I'm just trying to understand the statistics of it, it being comparing unequal numbers of people to each other with percentages.

[Guancyto]

Oh, sure!

Rate (or incidence) is different from just raw numbers. Sometimes it's not really relevant! Sometimes it is, for example when you're considering danger. For instance! (I'm just making it up off the top of my head because it seems superficially plausible; the real numbers may be different so don't quote me on this!) Tons and tons of people drive cars. Not nearly as many people drive motorcycles.

The number of people who get hurt in car accidents is a pretty high number! The number of people who get hurt in motorcycle accidents is a lot lower.

So, just looking at the two raw numbers, you'd maybe think that it was safer to drive a motorcycle?

But, what you need to look at in that case is how many people get hurt in car accidents, compared to the number of people who drive cars.
Then look at how many people get hurt in motorcycle accidents, compared to the number of people who drive motorcycles.

So, if the percentage of injuries in motorcycle accidents was way higher than the percentage of injuries in car accidents when you take into account how many people are driving which vehicle, you might instead conclude that if you drove a motorcycle it would be more likely to get hurt while driving. Because even though there are a lot less injuries in motorcycle accidents, per the relevant population the rate is higher.

And then because this is just spitballing data, then if you wanted to get more detail about it to get a better idea what was going on, you'd want to refine your data and try to figure out how many hours people were driving each vehicle (maybe motorcyclists tend to drive less?), account for people who drive both motorcycles and cars and their habits (maybe they tend to take the motorcycle in summer, when roads are clearer?), try to account for the passengers in your injury stat (because it's not just drivers that get hurt in accidents), all that jazz. And those are all good things to do, because maybe just the basic percentage isn't that great of a measure either? It's all about trying to get a better idea of what's going on.

Does that make sense/help any?

[theangelJean]

The other thing to remember is that the two numbers which look close to each other are definitely not comparing "things that happen to females in the military" against "the same thing happening to males in the military".

The Department of Defense estimates there were a staggering 22,800 violent sex crimes in the military in 2011.

This number is for only violent sex crimes. It should be obvious from this discussion that sex crimes happen to people of all genders, and I have a feeling both are included in this number. However it does not include non-violent sex crimes. Examples I can think of off the top of my head are: people who were groped, or people who were forced to strip naked in front of others. So the total number of sexual assaults is higher than this. This statistic does not say anything about the number of females who were sexually assaulted. However, the next two sentences do:

Among all active-duty female soldiers, 20 percent are sexually assaulted.

Wikipedia says that there are 210 thousand active duty female soldiers. (I don't have the time to look up a more accurate statistic or source right now, sorry.) That's about 42 000 sexual assaults.

Female soldiers age 18 to 21 accounted for more than half of the victims.

I'm not actually sure if this "more than half" refers to the number of violent sex crimes (in the first sentence of that paragraph) or the number of active duty female soldiers who were sexually assaulted (in the second sentence). Either way, remember that "Female soldiers age 18 to 21" isn't "all females" - there are females of other age groups in the military.

And the second number quoted:

according to one study's estimate, one percent of men in the military — nearly 20,000 — were sexually assaulted in 2009.

This statistic is limited to men, but includes all sexual assaults. As noted above, not all sexual assaults involve violence. So the number of men subject to violent sex crimes is lower than this.

However I will also agree with Guancyto's point that this is not a competition. It's more a description of a horrible situation.

[Coidzor]

And that's 2011. Wasn't there some big scandal earlier this year that a new methodology lead to the discovery that not only were male victims vastly more under reported and underestimated by our previous methodology, but that our classifications of what constituted when a male would be victimized also changed since 2011 in some manner?

[Frozen_Feet]

The raw numbers would be ballpark close to each other, while the percent occurrence would still be pretty starkly slanted toward bad things happening to women.

The reason I asked is because I have a hypothesis about distribution of violence, based on number of perpetrators. The premises are:

1) a given predator can only assault a limited number of targets.
2) a given predator doesn't assault everyone equally; they gravitate towards certain kinds of targets.
3) in absence of suitable targets, a predator won't necessarily assault anyone.

Based on these premises, a proportionately higher amount of females being assaulted doesn't necessarily mean there's more hostility towards (=more perpetrators targeting) women. Explaining this principle is easiest to do with numbers:

Suppose we have 100 soldiers.

85 of them are male.
15 of them are female.

Suppose the occurrence rate for sexually predatory behaviour is 2% for both sexes. This means we're likely to have 1 to 2 predators among 85 men; lets assume 2. We're not likely to have one among 15 women, so lets assume 0.

Suppose first one of our sexual predators targets men while the second targets women. Both can target 3 people. This leads to a scenario where only 3% of men are targeted versus 20% of women, even though the absolute number of perpetrators and targets is the same. At the same time, it gives the impression that violence is something only men do to women, when it's more likely that a violent woman just wasn't likely to be found in the sample population.

As to how this relates to militaries: in any workplace where the ratio of sexes if heavily skewed one way or another, the numerically superior portion will cover a wider sample of people - including people who are less moral, less sane or less whatever. The numerically inferior portion is less likely to include such bad apples, even if their occurrence rate in the general population is the same. This creates a situation where the numerically superior party benefits from sort of a "herd immunity" - it's less likely for any given invidual to be targeted in the superior group. In contrast, it's more likely for the numerically inferior party to be singled out.

This is important, because I feel people focus too much on equality when it comes to reducing violence. It simply does not follow that equality would necessarily lower the absolute occurrence rate. Lets contrast our hypothetical scenario with another, where we have 50 men and 50 women. Now we're likely to have 1 perpetrator of both sexes and 3 targets from each. We've succesfully equalized the amount of perpetrators (from 100% male to 50/50 split between men and women) and reduced the percentage of women being targeted from 20% to 6% (while raising the percentage of men being targeted from 3% to 6%). On the surface, things look drastically different, but none of the underlying rules have changed. The absolute number of victims is still the same, as is the occurrence rate of predatorous behaviour and their likely targets.

[Cikomyr]

Bottom line:

- It happens

- It happens a lot

- Servicemen are doing themselves and their brothers/sisters in arms a huge disservice by being in denial about it, like your friend.

They seem to put more importance on shoving these problems under the rug rather than actually trying to do something about it.

[The Glyphstone]

Great Modthulhu: So while this topic is a serious issue, and tangentially connected to the comic, it is at this point both thoroughly off-topic and could be construed as against the forum rules as an Inappropriate Topic (Illegal/Criminal Activity). Please try to return to discussion of Strong Female Protagonist. Thanks.

[Fjolnir]

So, how about that heavy handed symbolism in paladin's office building?

[LadyEowyn]

There's been a lot of discussion of it in the comic's comments. Paladin's pretty clearly trying to recast old myths to be pro-technology. It's not blindness to the symbolism of Icarus or John Henry; it's deliberate subversion.

I like what the comic's doing very much - it gives us a clear sense of Paladin's worldview without her needing to say a word about it.

It's yet another perspective on how to make the world a better place. Thus far we've got Allison (social change), Feral (self-sacrifice to help individual people), Moonshadow (vigilantism), Pintsize (superheroism) and now Paladin (technological advancement). And whatever Patrick's trying to achieve (in the long run - I know he wants to find out who was killing metahumans, but what change that would make is unclear).

Allison's and Paladin's views are definitely two of the big perspectives in the real world. Can the world be fixed just by more scientific and technological progress, or does it require fundamental change in our economy/society/institutions?

[Fjolnir]

Speaking of deliberate subversions of anti-tech/ knowledge myths, here's Alan and Ada....

[Cikomyr]

Is it me, or her experiments have a rather... Dark connotation?

[The Glyphstone]

Maybe, but more in the sense of 'groping in the dark' rather than dark=evil. At best, it's the amorality of SCIENCE. She's trying to create from scratch something that, like Allison said, humans haven't even completely worked out for themselves yet, so it's going to be extremely trial and error. The problem is that 'error' in this case means the death of a sentient or pseudo-sentient person.

[Cikomyr]

Maybe, but more in the sense of 'groping in the dark' rather than dark=evil. At best, it's the amorality of SCIENCE. She's trying to create from scratch something that, like Allison said, humans haven't even completely worked out for themselves yet, so it's going to be extremely trial and error. The problem is that 'error' in this case means the death of a sentient or pseudo-sentient person.

I did not meant that she is amoral, or that her desires is dark..

I just meant that.. well, the results were damn dark. AI either become genocidal or suicidal? Holy jeebus

[Eric Tolle]

I did not meant that she is amoral, or that her desires is dark..

I just meant that.. well, the results were damn dark. AI either become genocidal or suicidal? Holy jeebus

It's that whole Frankenstein thing.

Also, I can't help but think that creating an AI from the top down, as opposed to a product of evolution, would have a lot of missteps. In effect, it's recapitulating evolution, but in a trial and error kind of way.

Unless of course,the AI are smart enough to see the big picture...


It's interesting that the two characters who are most rational about their attempts to make the world better are BOTH groping in the dark. Both Allison and Paladin are finding that there are no easy, simple solutions. That in itself is a nice meta-commentary.


Also, interesting to see an outside view of Patrick.

[Fjolnir]

Bad ideas incoming!

[The Glyphstone]

And back to the drawing board.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

If the gal with super-strength has a social injustice problem she should;


1) Build a massive power generator out of scrapmetal - she's strong enough to shape iron like clay, yes?

2) Offer to sell nearly limitless electricity 8 hours / day.

3) Use money to gain influence.

4) Use influence to fix stuff.



The comic woefully understates the influence and usefulness of powers in the world, especially the seemingly violence-only ones. Almost any superpower could have tremendous impact in modern society if you consider things carefully enough - just see how TO exercises can use 1st level spells to destroy the world.