I think the issue here is that when the boy powers up, it's an aggressive act, an act of violence, whereas when a girl suddenly develops OMGHEALINGPOWERZxINFINITEEE, it's an essentially nurturing/defensive act - which goes right back to the whole sexism thing of boy = fighter, girl = defender/life-giver.
Now if there were an explanation in the canon that went something like "due to the biological functions of males vs females, females naturally are better attuned to healing energies than males are, while males are more attuned to explosive bursts of power" it would be... kind of sexist anyway, but I could see it making a certain amount of sense on that biological level. But I don't think that the writers think about that, I think it's just somewhere in the back of their head and they don't really examine why that female character is a healer rather than the male, or why their male characters have a habit of going to a new level at the drop of a hat. They just go by instinct (or at least ingrained habit) and do it the way that "makes sense" to them.
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Date: 28 Sep 2010 07:45 pm (UTC)I think the issue here is that when the boy powers up, it's an aggressive act, an act of violence, whereas when a girl suddenly develops OMGHEALINGPOWERZxINFINITEEE, it's an essentially nurturing/defensive act - which goes right back to the whole sexism thing of boy = fighter, girl = defender/life-giver.
Now if there were an explanation in the canon that went something like "due to the biological functions of males vs females, females naturally are better attuned to healing energies than males are, while males are more attuned to explosive bursts of power" it would be... kind of sexist anyway, but I could see it making a certain amount of sense on that biological level. But I don't think that the writers think about that, I think it's just somewhere in the back of their head and they don't really examine why that female character is a healer rather than the male, or why their male characters have a habit of going to a new level at the drop of a hat. They just go by instinct (or at least ingrained habit) and do it the way that "makes sense" to them.