• Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    The story in my family goes that my USian grandfather, who was a bombardier on the western front and was downed near the end of the war, was stuck in a POW camp for months. He claims he was liberated by an all-women, Soviet tanker squadron, and he spent the better part of the rest of life trying to explain just how bloodthirsty these women were. They were apparently the most bloodlusted people he’d ever met.

    In the little bit of research I’ve done, he likely stretched the truth or pulled from other stories, but still some neat folklore.

    • SerLava [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 days ago

      They were Soviet women right?

      It makes sense- ever since the cold war the Western narrative has really downplayed the mass murder of Russians and other Soviets by Germany. It was even bigger than the Holocaust and I sort of have to think of it in those terms to even slightly comprehend it.

      Like imagine the Inglourious Basterds but there’s 12 million of them running around at any given time. The absolute rage

      • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        Yep, Soviet women. I just edited my comment since I forgot to mention that.

        And yep, that’s my take as well. These people were finally on the offensive and were ready to get theirs - with utmost vengeance.

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      3 days ago

      He claims he was liberated by an all-women, Soviet tanker squadron, and he spent the better part of the rest of life trying to explain just how bloodthirsty these women were.

      I have this thing I don’t talk about here because I’m sure it would be an enormous struggle session but I personally believe that differences in crime rates between men and women are caused by lifelong socialisation and that if socialised differently you would get exactly the outcome of what you’re describing from these cool tank women.

      I picked up this belief up within punk cultures where social behaviours among women are extremely far from normal compared to the rest of society and I just have this deep belief that any woman is capable of that.

      • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        3 days ago

        I have gone back and forward on the question. But about nasty punx grrls, remember that there is selection bias in a) getting interested in punk, then b) sticking around in the scene. Many punk scenes known as very macho cultures, with shouting, mosh pits, fighting and so on. so the women who persist are those who are able to thrive in such an environment.

        One friend of mine told me that every woman should try cocaine at least once, so she can know what it feels like to have total confidence and not give a FUCK.

      • PowerLurker [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        i mean this as a genuine clarification question, but why is this a controversial take? “socialization by way of violent unjust hierarchy that privileges men is why men tend to be more violent” seems like pretty clearly correct materialist analysis. i think the more positive inverse of what you’re saying is true too: if we broke down the hierarchies of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy, we would overall see a more peaceful, gentle, empathetic species across identity lines.

        am i misunderstanding your statement? or is this more of a “yeah i think this is intuitively correct, but one of those things that hexbear has kind of a silly kneejerk blindspot around so i tend to play it cool in this particular online social environment” kind of situation?

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          2 days ago

          I’m just hesitant to make the argument because it’s pretty often that “women are less violent” or “women are less criminal” comes up and it always feels like there’s a biological implication to that when I lean much more into believing it’s socialisation. I am nervous that it will upset someone that leans into the idea that it’s inherent more than social and to be frank I don’t even think it’s worth arguing or getting upset over. I’m not really that attached to it ending up one way or the other but rather simply saying what I believe.

          • PowerLurker [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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            2 days ago

            word, i think your leanings are correct. i’m just surprised “patriarchal conditioning is why men are more violent” would be a potentially controversial stance on a loosely-Marxist forum. but hexbear has surprised me before.

      • Formerlyfarman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        3 days ago

        I would generally agree, that socialization plays the major role. As far as premeditated conscious aggression goes.

        In 'The female of the species is deadlier than the male"

        Kipling’s argument was that a lot of animal species fight duels, but these duels are more or less ritualistic, meant to intimidate and force the other one to back away rather than to cause harm. So there is presumably a phisiological mechanism that prevents males from engaging in actual figthing, and then from going in for the kill in these types of situations.

        While females only fight when they are forced too, for prey, self defence, or when defending their young. So there is no reason not to go for the kill.

        In a human context, this would probably make a lady commander who was socialized for it, more decisive all things equal.

        On the other hand, testosterone meses with stress responses, so the type of stochastic violence when someone suddenly snaps seems more likely to be male regardless of socialization.

        • SootySootySoot [any]@hexbear.net
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          3 days ago

          These are interesting thoughts, but we should be super-pooper careful when trying to apply random evopsych speculation to real world modern humans. ‘testosterone messes with stress therefore sudden stochastic violence seems more likely to be male’ is a wild claim based our very poor understanding of a very complex thing.

          It’s that kind of reasoning that backed a millenia of consensus that women are scientifically proven to be stupider, then it turned out it was all socialisation.

          • Formerlyfarman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            2 days ago

            Thanks, of course socialization is the most important factor.

            while I admit I find Kipling’s arguments plausible, and I do at some level believe that, at the end of the day he is a victorian poet, and not a rigorous scientist. The rhymes play a part at making such an argument more convincing.

            I apologize for the comments of testosterone. You are of course right that it is more complex than that. And now that I think of it, it was disrespectful of me to assume other people’s experience. It occurs to me that we have several people here who have been both a man and a woman, now I am curious as to wether they feel a difference in their reactions, but I’m not sure it’s appropriate to ask.

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          2 days ago

          Interesting theories. I kinda like the theory that males have a history of performance aggression, it’s certainly part of the whole territory control and mating priority routine in apes that the females don’t have so much.

    • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 days ago

      I could never distinguish between propaganda and reality because I had no primary exposure to it and the narratives were meant to scare Germans, but the Soviet female snipers/night bombers seem as hardcore as SAS units.

  • TrustedFeline [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    3 days ago

    https://birdinflight.com/en/inspiration/20221111-nobuo-kiuchi-drawings.html

    “You have to sweep thoroughly!”. We had such a terrible auntie-officer. But it was fun

    I’m fuckin losing it reading this. I wanna be a pow in a ukrainian soviet guarded by dommy mommies so bad, but I swear I don’t want to join the inmperial japanese army

    Once I had to appear in front of the doctor in a not quite decent way. She was especially worried about emaciated soldiers, persistently putting them to bed: “Time to sleep!”. She had a nice voice.

    one of many moments of humanity, interracial harmony and gender equality in that short article (which also has higher res pics)

  • AernaLingus [any]@hexbear.net
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    3 days ago

    The artist (木内信夫/Nobuo Kiuchi) has a website which has translations in English, Italian, Russian, and Chinese; to view the illustrations, click “Enter” and then select one of the stories from the right hand column (it’s a classic old website with separate frames for navigation and the main content). The quality of the English translation is passable but not great, so you may want to try the other translations if you speak those languages or see if using the Japanese version of the website and running it through machine translation yields better results.