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Artistic License – Biology would cover it, as well as Anthropic Principle (if she couldn't stab him, the plot point couldn't work). You might try Muscles Are Meaningless.
Thank you to both! I think Artistic License – Biology covers it closest, with a dash of Muscles Are Meaningless and Waif-Fu added to the mix.
Yay! (I completely forgot about Waif-Fu...)
For the record, its neither unrealistic or unheard-of for a woman to physically overpower a man. You have to consider differences in bodyweight, physical strength, and training as well as gender.
I wouldn't mind failure so much, if I didn't fail so much.
Yes, but the OP explains this is about a small woman outpowering a man who should be physically stronger.
^^ I didn't say it was unrealistic or unheard of, I just said it was rare in Real Life. The average man has roughly 2-4 times the upper body strength of the average woman. There are certainly highly trained female athletes who close the gap and exceed it, but that's not the norm.
Looking more closely, I am wondering if the definitions of Waif-Fu and Muscles Are Meaningless would cover what I'm trying to describe. I'll ponder it some more and welcome any fresh input/perspective. Perhaps something workable for the Launch Pad might grow out of it.
Edited by M2Medium
The more I look at this, the more I think Waif-Fu and Muscles Are Meaningless don't cover what I'm describing. They're related, just as Artistic License – Biology and Anthropic Principle would be related. On Resident Alien, there's a scene where Ax-Crazy Lisa is strangling David. She's a slender woman, David's a fit military officer who probably outweighs her by 50-60 pounds. She's behind him with her right arm around his neck, and he is just flailing uselessly and making no attempt to break free. His arms aren't restrained. Again, just as in the Bullet Train example I mentioned above, the strength/height/weight advantage is all his. All he has to do is reach up, grab her right arm with both hands, and yank downwards as hard as he can, using the combined strength of his triceps, rear deltoids, and lats. It's no contest. He'll break her chokehold, and likely break her arm as well. I'll start putting together other examples for a possible Launch Pad proposal.
Have you looked at Wouldn't Hit a Girl? The description discusses the issue. Also, if the guy is generally a good fighter, perhaps he's been thrown a curved Idiot Ball ?
^ Thank you! Both of those would be related to what I'm describing, which would be situations where a woman has the upper hand in a fight or a struggle, whereas in Real Life, they wouldn't. I look at the two examples I've already provided above, and think of how instructors for women's self-defense classes will always tell them that a woman trying to grapple with a man is not a good idea. What I'm trying to do is put something together for situations where a man should easily be able to escape from or defeat a woman, because of the strength advantage men generally have, but for the purposes of the plot he can't. If I post something up on the Launch Pad, then the troper community can weigh in or whether or not it's a Pass or a Fail. I really appreciate your comments and perspective.
Artistic License is definitely involved here
You're welcome.
These is probably somewhere under the Artistic License index, but I'm not seeing it. One of the things that has always bothered me in film and TV is situations where a woman is outmuscling a man, which is something very rare in Real Life. Sure, they are female powerlifters that can outmuscle men, but most actresses aren't in that category. A prime example would be in Bullet Train where the female assassin The Hornet is trying to stab Brad Pitt's character with a syringe filled with snake venom, and Brad Pitt's character is acting like it's taking all his upper body strength to keep her from stabbing him with the syringe, even though he's in the superior position (all she can exert force with is the bicep on her right arm, while he can use his triceps, pecs, and delts combined to exert force on her arm). A man Pitt's size could have snapped her arm like a twig. This may be a case of Too Common To Trope that I'll just have to learn to accept.