Way to ignore my actual point, dumbass. If Chuck Norris gets cowboy-magic, the girls get cowboy-magic. If not, then nobody gets cowboy-magic. But get ready for the good guys to lose more fights, and for fiction to look like the sad third act of "Last Action Hero".
Accepting everything you say here as true: 1. The existence of rare outliers implied by the above could mean that any given female protagonist/antagonist could be one of the outliers. 2. The training/life experience/desperation/luck of the character could do a lot to mitigate the advantage that men might otherwise have over her 3.That what you say is true for 2023 humans in the real world does not necessarily mean that it will always will be true in fictional ones. In the Trek Universe, there have been numerous advances in tech, cross-breeding with other species, improved diet, cultural changes that could potentially serve to even the playing field between men and women in hand-to-hand. In the Star Wars universe, the Force makes a Rey or Ahsoka capable of outfighting larger people. In the Matrix, Trinity's awareness of the Matrix and training allows her to kick the crap out of still-enslaved humans and computer programs. Buffy has magic that allows her to kick anyone's ass despite being 5'4" and maybe weighing in at 100 pounds. Most superheroes regardless of gender have some level of superpowers, gadgetry and/or training that let them kick multiple people's asses in a fight.
I don't care about Moll beating up Starfleet officers. Reason 1: Jadzia Dax. Reason 2: Kira Nerys Reason 3: Tasha Yar Moll is fine hand-to-hand. The stupidity is in A) Dr. Fucking Culber lasting longer than TWO armed security officers, and B) Not having 50 fucking security officers beam right into Sickbay to contain her.
Superpowers and rare gifts ought to be acknowledged, then. I have no problem with Buffy for exactly that reason.
Let's just accept that a lot of hand-to-hand fights are unrealistic in Trek and elsewhere, whether it's that such fights do not automatically and quickly ending in favor of the genetically engineered human, alien, android, mass group of attackers involved; people resorting to hand-to-hand when they have access to weapons, etc. In other cases, it mostly doesn't matter. It could be that Moll is a baseline human woman no different from those in 2024. It could be that she's a quarter Augment, or that she's packing prosthetic limbs, or she uses some subcutaneous tech that gives her an advantage in hand-to-hand. It mostly doesn't matter how she can kick the ass of men who are bigger than her -- it just matters that she can and did.
And that's why I have no problem with Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor. They overcome physical disadvantage with TOOLS.
Ok. Apply those same standards to Rocky. Rambo. Chuck Norris (as previously mentioned) Why is it acceptable to see a male character perform obviously ridiculous feats of strength, but not female characters? This question is also directed to FF.
Zoe has no super powers nor do we see monotonous scenes in which she is being trained or working out, yet you accept her ability to fight. Why?
Which women fighters do you have a problem with? I bet they use tools or training or have some other thing going on that explains why they can succeed in hand-to-hand against bigger men.
Everyone in "Birds Of Prey/Harley Quinn" used a nasty brutal melee weapon in the final fight. CHUDs still cried.
Because men are genererally more capable of physical feats. Chuck Norris was a champion kickboxer, for fuck's sake. There is credibility there you can't fake with camera tricks and compliant stunt men. Same with Gina Carrano.
Remember when Jadzia Dax easily fought hand to hand with Jem'Hadar while trading witty repartee? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Motherfucker, Martin Short was doing a parody of Chuck hobbling around like an old man, and stuntmen falling down as he waved his hands in the fucking 90's.
Yeah, another TV show was inconsistent with the strength of bad guys. One moment Worf can barely take them hand-to-hand, then that. :dayton;
No. Men can have realistic physical capabilities of a male, which are on average going to be measurable higher than a female, and anything beyond that should be acknowledged as superpowers.
Explain what? That he was some kind of highly trained Ranger or Special Forces, AND an experienced combat veteran? Women couldn't even get into those forces until they lowered the fitness requirements.
Special forces training makes machine gun fire weave around you like rain off an Armor All-ed windshield. Don't you know that? It's science.
Please. That kind of training would not be sufficient for one person to wage a war against and entire town.