History Main / MenAreTheExpendableGender

''GearsOfWar'' The first two games and the novelizations play this straight with the military. Only men do the fighting. All fertile women are used for reproductive purposes, while non-fertile women serve in support roles. The third game, however, subverts this. The women fight alongside the men. This is because humanity is down to its last throes and needs every available body to fight.

* Most of the zombies you encounter in-game in {{Resident Evil}} series are male.

[[folder: Truth In Television]]

A sub-trope of the [[DoubleStandard double standard]]. In media, female characters are assumed to start with audience sympathy, male characters have to earn it and usually lose it if they fail to be appropriately manly and heroic. This leads to differences in how the genders are portrayed. It is worth noting that this trope may have some basis ([[YourMilageMayVary and justification]]) in evolutionary psychology as women form the limiting variable in reproduction and population growth (a single man and a group of women can produce far more children than a single woman and a group of men).

* In the Supernatural episode ''Exit on Main Street'', Dean is attacked by three Djinn, two male one female. He beats one to death, his father stabs another and a third they trap in a sack. Guess which one was female.

* ''MidnightMeatTrain'''s first onscreen death is a woman whose head is smashed in with a meat tenderizer. Later in the movie it gets hard to tell if it's played straight or averted, because the camera rarely settles on the victims long enough to tell their gender.

* ''MobileSuitGundam'', particularly in the Universal Century series, does a good job of keeping significant male and female death rate about the same, contributing to director Yoshiyuki Tomino's KillEmAll reputation. Of particular note is ''Victory Gundam's'' infamous all-female Shrike Team, that dies off one by one from the moment they're introduced.

*** Check the crews of the Earth Alliance warships [[spoiler:and bases]]. When [[spoiler:GENESIS wipes out the Earth Alliance lunar bases you see women explode alongside men, and female wounded/dead pilots]]. Also see in Gundam Seed Destiny [[spoiler:when the Earth Alliance smashes rebels in western Eurasia plenty of females are killed]]. Also, see the [[spoiler:CYCLOPS syste, destroying JOSH-A. You see females go plop there]].

*** Check the crews of the Earth Alliance warships and bases. When [[spoiler:GENESIS wipes out the Earth Alliance lunar bases you see women explode alongside men]]. Also see in Gundam Seed Destiny [[spoiler:when the Earth Alliance smashes rebels in western Eurasia plenty of females are killed]].

* In MichaelBay 's ''{{Armageddon}}'', at the climax scene in the space shuttle, the protagonists stand around and draw straws to decide who will make the HeroicSacrifice. The one female member of the team, the BadAss co-pilot of the shuttle ([[InformedAbility or so we're told]]), is notably absent. This goes UpToEleven when you remember that she's only the '''''co-pilot''''', and the ''actual'' pilot who flies the damn thing, Col. Willie Sharp, is right there at the drawing, ready to kill himself.

* In MichaelBay 's ''{{Armageddon}}'', at the climax scene in the space shuttle, the protagonists stand around and draw straws to decide who will make the HeroicSacrifice. The one female member of the team, the co-pilot of the shuttle, is notably absent. Justified in that she's one of the two people that Colonel Sharp says are needed to fly the ship.

* Every action movie ever made.
* In MichaelBay 's ''{{Armageddon}}'', at the climax scene in the space shuttle, the protagonists stand around and draw straws to decide who will make the HeroicSacrifice. The one female member of the team, the BadAss co-pilot of the shuttle ([[InformedAbility or so we're told]]), is notably absent. This goes UpToEleven when you remember that she's only the '''''co-pilot''''', and the ''actual'' pilot who flies the damn thing, Col. Willie Sharp, is right there at the drawing, ready to kill himself.

A sub-trope of the [[DoubleStandard double standard]]. In media, female characters are assumed to start with audience sympathy, male characters have to earn it and usually lose it if they fail to be appropriately manly and heroic. This leads to differences in how the genders are portrayed. It is worth noting that this trope may have some basis ([[YourMilageMayVary and justification]]) in evolutionary psychology as women form the limiting variable in reproduction and population growth (a single man and a group of women can produce far more children in than a single woman and a group of men).

A sub-trope of the [[DoubleStandard double standard]]. In media, female characters are assumed to start with audience sympathy, male characters have to earn it and usually lose it if they fail to be appropriately manly and heroic. This leads to differences in how the genders are portrayed.

* When Grendel attacks the hall in ''{{Beowulf}}'', he targets all men, except for one woman whose death was far less explicit (as it was implied but not seen) then that of her male companions. The hall was filled at the time with revellers of both genders.

* Walter shoots, Phyllis in ''Double Indemnity,'' disgusted at her manipulation of him, shortly before dying himself. Despite the fact that he did all the actual killing and most of the cover up, the film makes sure to [[{{FemmeFatale}} depict Phyllis as a shady lady right from the beginning]] and thus make her look like an evil manipulator and Walter look like a [[{{ThisLoserIsYou}} helpless schmuck.]]

* J. Bruce Ismay was harshly criticized for saving himself as the ''Titanic'' sank, rather than stay with his company's ship and give his spot to a woman or child.

Female characters are also expected to treat themselves as less expendable than male characters. Female characters do not lose sympathy for preserving their own lives or safety at the cost of other characters' lives and safety. Male characters lose considerable sympathy if they don't at least try to bend over backwards and help save female characters' lives even if the cost is their own. (Imagine the climactic [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready death scene]] in {{Titanic}} with the genders reversed.) This can also extend to male characters protecting female characters, as they would children, from knowing about negative situations. (Completely ignoring the possibility that, as an adult with experience, a female character might have valuable insight into solving the problem a negative situation presents.) On the other hand, if the woman is, or could be, pregnant, this is sometimes brought forward in extenuation, softening if not averting the trope: she has to save herself to protect the child.

->"To put it simply: men are neither supposed nor allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of the culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it."

-->Peter Marin, [[http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1403/Marin/Marin.html Jill Gets Welfare--Jack Becomes Homeless]]

->"World Ends Tomorrow: Women, Children Hit Hardest."

-->Unknown

Media with {{gorn}} will still kill off female characters, except in far more sanitary ways. Men may be being hacked apart by the {{Big Bad}}, but women will simply scream and slump over. Or scream and the scene cuts away. Or if men are being brutally beaten to death, women will be strangled instead. Female characters will die, on screen, in a way that will not result in a closed casket funeral. If there is female {{Gorn}} death, expect it to be described or implied rather then shown.

A subset of this trope relates to the treatment of male vs. female bodies. It is more acceptable to show all aspects of male death, from brutal mutilation to the corpse itself. It's also more acceptable to [[DueToTheDead manhandle or disrespect a male corpse]]. Lighthearted jokes from morticians, detectives and coroners are more common with male rather then female corpses.

Another [[UnfortunateImplications unfortunate implication]] is that male characters tend to have more personal conflict thus make far better protagonists then female characters who are portrayed as morally perfect to begin with. While the main male character is doing all the growth the hard way, the female characters function as little more then moral mouthpieces. For example, the common Hollywood romance formula, 'emotionally flawed man falls in love with a woman who teaches him some moral lesson in order for him to be worthy of her.' See GoingNative, MightyWhitey and CloserToEarth.

2. If so, was her death considered no more noteworthy then the deaths of other anonymous male extras?