We Have Always Fought

[Sapheron]

I'm going to jump in on Vertigo's side of this debate.

Women can (and do, and have) reach similar heights of martial prowess to men. As Luiglin just said, a trained, fit woman with something pointy is well capable of stabbing someone up. However, also as Luiglin said (well, kind of suggested, ish, and maybe I'm twisting words a little) except in the most exceptional of cases they aren't going to be using a big two handed sword like a man can. Differences in average size and weight, in bone and muscle structure and in natural hormone levels make fundamental biological differences that make men more effective fighters.

In some cultures women did fight. As I understand it, considerable numbers of scythian and sarmatian women went into battle, as did those of some tribes in germany. Perhaps other places as well. However, these are exceptions, and even in these societies combat was primarily the domain and responsibility of men. Elsewhere throughout history, Brienne of Tarth style individual women also broke free of the mold. All of these represent a minority, exceptions, and a in a fantasy novel about humans, this trend should follow. If your culture is one with similar social pressures to those faces on the steppes of kazakhstan, and your style of warfare one that similarly lends itself towards women having less of a disadvantage against their male counterparts, then by all means an exception can take place and be in your novel. If, as GRRM did, you want to have an individual exceptional woman who's luck (Brienne might call it something else) in genetics, upbringing and simple chance leads them to be stronger and physically larger than the norm and so capable of wearing plate armour, swinging a longsword and keeping up with the boys then by all means do so.

If, however, the cultures and style of warfare in your a reflect almost anything else though, significant numbers of women being warriors in a novel doesn't make sense. It's similar to saying that in your book the average man lactates and takes a role in feeding babies (obviously not quite an equivalent, as with training your combat skills can be improved, whereas your powers of lactation are far more predetermined); at that point you're changing biology and your characters aren't quite human any more. Of course, if you want that, feel free. If your people are in fact very similar humanoid beings in whose species men and woman have similar size, skeletal and muscular structures, feel free, and more power to you. But you can't do it with humans because that isn't how humans are.

I would like to point out (though I'm repeating what someone else said) that not having women and men equal on the battlefield doesn't mean that they aren't equal elsewhere in society compared to any given society (past or present).

 

[Luiglin]

Agree to both of those last two posts. My response was more that I can easily believe in a female fighter as long as the situation made sense.

By the way, historically daggers and poniards were occasionally quite effectively used by light armoured troops against full plate.

 

[Hex]

I think, as someone said earlier, that what distinguishes women and men in most societies is that women are much more important for the survival and continuation of the society than men are (sure, you need a couple of men around for continuing the species but that's about it).

Men are just more expendable than women so they tend to be the people who march off to war. It doesn't mean that women can't or haven't, just generally that they have better, more important things to do.

And I don't mean that they have the babies(*) but women are also often really the people responsible for producing food (back to the old hunters=flashy but not very effective/ gatherers=producing most of the food).

It's a feature of lots of fantasy writing that it suggests -- no matter how much some pretend not to -- that war is glorious and important and the point of existence, whereas I'm sure there's an argument to suggest that war's a way of keeping the nutcases busy while everyone else (and I'm not dividing along man/ woman lines here) gets on with living and making the things that matter.



(*) Though that's part of it -- and, while I'm wandering off on this tangent, swinging a broadsword while pregnancy is helpfully leaching away your muscle tone and softening your ligaments might be more challenging than training to swing a broadsword in different circumstances.

 

[HareBrain]

It's a feature of lots of fantasy writing that it suggests -- no matter how much some pretend not to -- that war is glorious and important and the point of existence, whereas I'm sure there's an argument to suggest that war's a way of keeping the nutcases busy while everyone else (and I'm not dividing along man/ woman lines here) gets on with living and making the things that matter.

I was thinking something along similar lines. There seems to be a bit of a conflation going on -- women being under-represented in fantasy, and women being under-represented as warriors. But that conflation raises the question, why is so much fantasy about fighting? It's part of the old thing about "equality" basically meaning everyone acting like men. And not just any men, but the sort of men we probably quite admire but wouldn't really want any of our relatives to marry.

And why did all the female warriors pictured in the linked article all have such wildly impractical hair? This was supposed to be an article promoting the idea that including female warriors wasn't unrealistic, no? So why pander to a stereotype only one step up from the chainmail bikini?

 

[Nerds_feather]

I'm going to jump in on Vertigo's side of this debate.

Women can (and do, and have) reach similar heights of martial prowess to men. As Luiglin just said, a trained, fit woman with something pointy is well capable of stabbing someone up. However, also as Luiglin said (well, kind of suggested, ish, and maybe I'm twisting words a little) except in the most exceptional of cases they aren't going to be using a big two handed sword like a man can. Differences in average size and weight, in bone and muscle structure and in natural hormone levels make fundamental biological differences that make men more effective fighters.

In some cultures women did fight. As I understand it, considerable numbers of scythian and sarmatian women went into battle, as did those of some tribes in germany. Perhaps other places as well. However, these are exceptions, and even in these societies combat was primarily the domain and responsibility of men. Elsewhere throughout history, Brienne of Tarth style individual women also broke free of the mold. All of these represent a minority, exceptions, and a in a fantasy novel about humans, this trend should follow. If your culture is one with similar social pressures to those faces on the steppes of kazakhstan, and your style of warfare one that similarly lends itself towards women having less of a disadvantage against their male counterparts, then by all means an exception can take place and be in your novel. If, as GRRM did, you want to have an individual exceptional woman who's luck (Brienne might call it something else) in genetics, upbringing and simple chance leads them to be stronger and physically larger than the norm and so capable of wearing plate armour, swinging a longsword and keeping up with the boys then by all means do so.

If, however, the cultures and style of warfare in your a reflect almost anything else though, significant numbers of women being warriors in a novel doesn't make sense. It's similar to saying that in your book the average man lactates and takes a role in feeding babies (obviously not quite an equivalent, as with training your combat skills can be improved, whereas your powers of lactation are far more predetermined); at that point you're changing biology and your characters aren't quite human any more. Of course, if you want that, feel free. If your people are in fact very similar humanoid beings in whose species men and woman have similar size, skeletal and muscular structures, feel free, and more power to you. But you can't do it with humans because that isn't how humans are.

I would like to point out (though I'm repeating what someone else said) that not having women and men equal on the battlefield doesn't mean that they aren't equal elsewhere in society compared to any given society (past or present).

It makes sense if you set the rules so that it makes sense. Off the top of my head, I see several scenarios in which women *could* be equals to men on a fantasy battlefield:

1. Technological: the people of a hypothetical society use light armor and weapons. (There's no requirement, after all, to use late medieval armor in a fantasy world.)

2. Physical: the women in the hypothetical society are unusually strong. (There's no requirement, after all, to strictly adhere to real-world physiology. The high-castes in The Book of the New Sun are extremely tall, for example.)

3. Religious: a hypothetical society has a religion that stresses the obligation of women (or some women) to train and fight. (People do all kinds of things and make all kinds of sacrifices for religious devotional reasons)

4. Logistical: armies in the hypothetical society have all-female units that specialize in the kinds of warfare that make use of female dexterity, balance and don't emphasize male brute strength and aggression. (Why not?)

5. Magical: women are the ones who wield magic, and they use this as a form of warfare. (This has been done many times already.)

The rationale just has to be well-explained and internally consistent.

 

[Vertigo]

Now those last few posts are much more reasonable in my view. Yes, have exceptional women fighters, why not? there've been plenty in history. Even have women fighters the norm; if, and it's a really important 'if' I think, you can justify it; provide adequate reasoning to make it realistic.

However I really think that Hex has hit the nail on the head and managed to say what I've been trying (and failing) to express. The problem is that saying women shouldn't be fighting seems to be seen as a negative thing to say (with regard to the women) and hence non-PC. But actually throughout history they have tended to do the really important work necessary for a species to survive; the nurturing work like looking after the children (the future) and providing the bulk of the food. Surely much more pride should be taken in fulfilling those roles than going off to kill people. Sadly the latter, violent role has ended up somehow getting all the glamour.

I remember when I used to live in the Shetland Isles reading about how stuff was done in the 'old days.' It seems during the summer the men went out fishing (the dangerous work) and during the winter they sat around swapping stories with their mates. Meanwhile throughout the entire year the women farmed the land, looked after the children, made the clothing, dug the peat for fire, cooked the food etc. They literally never stopped; whilst carrying the dried peat cuttings back to the croft they would still be continuing their knitting. It was a tough life, particularly if you were a woman.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Something worth remembering about the mediaeval period is that while there is a trend to the later period for armies to be professional, the backbone of most armies of the period was still conscripted peasants - who would certainly not be dressing in plate armour, and certainly not trained in arms.

The main barrier to women fighting is not strength but attitudes.

Your general peasants, or cottagers as they are perhaps better called - would often be involved in very strenuous work, and I'd wager that your average mediaeval woman cottager would be physically much stronger than your average modern day British man (not least because of the widespread office and service work).

However, no one here is going to argue that someone who uses an Xbox is incapable of training in Western Martial Arts (ie, historical reconstruction of sword play).

The problem for women is one of attitudes, especially through religion (principally among what we'd normally table as Judeo-Christian-Islam) which preserve and enforce patriarchal values - ie, that women should be subservient.

Now, that is a very simplified argument and there are plenty of exceptions (women were deacons in the Roman Catholic Church in the early Middle Ages, for example).

The fact is, though, that social pressures made women feel like they were supposed to be the servants of their husbands.

To empower the women in fantasy, you simply have to fight that attitude.

There's no reason for a J-C-I derivative religion to be dominant - so-called "pagan" religions can be very liberating at times, and it's no accident that women at the start of the Roman Empire could be especially empowered.

There are also issues of class: the nobles outranked the free who outranked the slaves - no exceptions for any modern bias for gender or colour.

This starts to become an part of the later mediaeval period with the increasing importance of the merchant class, which although arguably parochial still allowed for women to develop themselves.

My general point is to look at issues of culture and see how they effect people, and not to presume too much because the mediaeval period is more complex on issues of gender than it looks.

And remember, there is plenty to look at outside of mediaeval north-west Europe for inspiration, which in itself was just a period of catch-up to the rest of the Mediterranean.

 

[Tywin]

(Disclaimer: My point of this post isn't to qualitatively compare men versus women, it is to point out for us as writers the direction we might want to take if we want to write stories that are believable.)

Maybe we should look at statistics and real-world results.

Ronda Rousey is debatably the best female fighter in the world (very little debate, she dominates the competition), she would hurt most men, but she is not competitive with comparable male fighters, even in her weight class.

Moreover, at 136lbs she is not competitive against larger males, even those at far lower skill levels than her, although it must be said that the same goes for men. There's a reason that there are weight classes. I am personally 185lbs, when I roll with men over 225lbs there needs to be a significant skill difference for me to win.

If MMA fighting isn't objective enough, we can look at very measurable statistics for physical strength in powerlifting. Again using myself as an example, I am a casual weight lifting male and my bench press is at around 315lbs. This puts me within reach of the woman who holds the American record at my weight class:
http://www.usapowerlifting.com/records/american/women-benchpress.htm

The weights for males of comparable size and athletic ability jumps up by about 200lbs:
http://www.usapowerlifting.com/records/american/men-benchpress.htm

I'm pointing this out because from the perspective of an author or a reader, if we are looking for believable storylines we should probably have some base in real-life physics and physiology.

This is especially important if our setting is one where the warriors/Soldiers primary weapon is powered by the strength of their own muscles.

If we write in a medieval or fantasy setting can women fight? Yes. Should they be clubbing men to death with a mace in melee combat? No. Can they fight effectively with a spear? Maybe. Can they fire a bow capable of killing an enemy? Probably. Can they fire a crossbow? Definitely.

 

[Hex]

I'm not sure that being subservient is different from being a soldier, really. I thought the whole point of armies (modern ones, anyway) was to have a clear chain of command and if you're at the bottom of that chain, you're about as subservient as anyone can be.

I suspect a woman in charge of a cottage, with chickens and perhaps the odd pig would have significantly more power than a low-ranking soldier, for all he's armed.

Again, I think you could argue that an intelligent landowner would know full well that if he conscripted men and women equally, his estates would fall to pieces because there would be no one to work the land, produce food, look after the kids etc etc etc. Someone has to stay at home and make sure there's something to come back for, and, if you see humans like cattle, and I think it's a reasonable argument that some landowners did, then -- again -- males are expendable and females less so.

What's also interesting about equating war with worth and interest, is that the men who write about this sort of stuff don't tend to be those who go off to war, so they're celebrating people very different from themselves -- the ones you (probably) wouldn't want to marry your sister (with the occasional exception like the sexy poet warrior chap in Guy Gavriel Kay's Lions of Al-Rassan).

Just to address the point about how war is glorious and living is not -- you need it to be that way. People want to live, and produce children (well, they mightn't want to produce children but before the 1960s that was often the outcome of other stuff they wanted to do), as Gumboot said above, most people aren't actually hugely keen on killing other people, or on marching through the cold and wet, or on risking death themselves. So, you need wonderful stories about how glorious it is. And testosterone.(*)

(*) which might, in other circumstances, be sloshing around threatening the status quo.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Something worth remembering about the mediaeval period is that while there is a trend to the later period for armies to be professional, the backbone of most armies of the period was still conscripted peasants - who would certainly not be dressing in plate armour, and certainly not trained in arms.

The main barrier to women fighting is not strength but attitudes.

Your general peasants, or cottagers as they are perhaps better called - would often be involved in very strenuous work, and I'd wager that your average mediaeval woman cottager would be physically much stronger than your average modern day British man (not least because of the widespread office and service work).

However, no one here is going to argue that someone who uses an Xbox is incapable of training in Western Martial Arts (ie, historical reconstruction of sword play).

The problem for women is one of attitudes, especially through religion (principally among what we'd normally table as Judeo-Christian-Islam) which preserve and enforce patriarchal values - ie, that women should be subservient.

Now, that is a very simplified argument and there are plenty of exceptions (women were deacons in the Roman Catholic Church in the early Middle Ages, for example).

The fact is, though, that social pressures made women feel like they were supposed to be the servants of their husbands.

To empower the women in fantasy, you simply have to fight that attitude.

There's no reason for a J-C-I derivative religion to be dominant - so-called "pagan" religions can be very liberating at times, and it's no accident that women at the start of the Roman Empire could be especially empowered.

There are also issues of class: the nobles outranked the free who outranked the slaves - no exceptions for any modern bias for gender or colour.

This starts to become an part of the later mediaeval period with the increasing importance of the merchant class, which although arguably parochial still allowed for women to develop themselves.

My general point is to look at issues of culture and see how they effect people, and not to presume too much because the mediaeval period is more complex on issues of gender than it looks.

And remember, there is plenty to look at outside of mediaeval north-west Europe for inspiration, which in itself was just a period of catch-up to the rest of the Mediterranean.

Brian nailed it here. A lot of the things we assume are "natural" are actually products of long-term cultural/social/historical processes.

...and besides, though it doesn't really need to be said again at this point, "this is fantasy." There is MAGIC.

 

[Vertigo]

Your general peasants, or cottagers as they are perhaps better called - would often be involved in very strenuous work, and I'd wager that your average mediaeval woman cottager would be physically much stronger than your average modern day British man (not least because of the widespread office and service work).

In all fairness Brian, it's not useful to compare medieval women with modern men. Doing so much less manual labour we are now mostly a bunch of weaklings in comparison. What you have to compare with is the men working alongside those women and I think you will find they will have been significantly stronger; as per Tywin's post.

Also your point about the armies being untrained is I think important. Without well trained armies you are going to rely even more heavily upon muscle; without training your best bet is to hit the other person just as hard as you possibly can. So you are going to go out and recruit the stongest people into your 'army.'

Again I'm not discussing the occasional well trained warrior; male or female they would almost certainly have made mincemeat out of the untrained ranks in their enemies forces. When I read the Iliad recently one of the things that struck me was how the 'heroes' - the well-trained warriors - all looked for the enemy 'heroes' to fight; they were not interested in fighting the common soldiers of whom almost no mention was made. About the only time the heroes actually engaged the common soldiers was if they were unfortunate enough to be blocking the way to the hero he wanted to go and fight. So again there is this separation between highly trained important soldiers and the rank and file. My argument is that you might get a few women in the former role but almost none in the latter, where in the absence of skill, muscle (and endurance) would generally be the deciding factor.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Just to address the point about how war is glorious and living is not -- you need it to be that way. People want to live, and produce children (well, they mightn't want to produce children but before the 1960s that was often the outcome of other stuff they wanted to do), as Gumboot said above, most people aren't actually hugely keen on killing other people, or on marching through the cold and wet, or on risking death themselves. So, you need wonderful stories about how glorious it is. And testosterone.(*)

(*) which might, in other circumstances, be sloshing around threatening the status quo.

I'm going a bit off topic, so apologies...

I think the idea of war being glorious and patriotic I think only applied to the aristocrachy, and as we appear to be sort of in the medieval period, all bound up in chivalry and the such like.

For the common soldier, it was either a profession as a mercenary* or there was opportunities, in swag from pillaging or booty from ransoming important prisoners. And I suppose brave acts if noticed by the rich and lordy could result in honours and advancement.

So I think most common soldiers would be enticed on campaign by financial gain and the chance of turning favourably their 'wheel of fortune' than any desire for glory. However both outcomes were virtually non-existent if you just stayed on your feudal farm and worked the land for the lord.

Of course the above this does not apply to the poor sods being forced levied to protect their own towns and lands, but their motivation would have been fear of losing their own skins, protecting their people/family/land or the demands of their lord. (and if they won, pillaging the losers!)



==============================

*perhaps even a forced option if your land is overpopulated - I've heard estimates that up to a million swiss men in the period medieval to modern times may have left the cantons purely to fight as mercenaries. Take that fact with a pinch of salt, though, it's from memory - I'd have to dig out the reference that I got it from...

 

[svalbard]

*perhaps even a forced option if your land is overpopulated - I've heard estimates that up to a million swiss men in the period medieval to modern times may have left the cantons purely to fight as mercenaries. Take that fact with a pinch of salt, though, it's from memory - I'd have to dig out the reference that I got it from...

That number could be close to the mark. They were famed as mercenaries. Odd now when you think about Switzerland as it is today.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think with conscripted armies there was less concern about strength and more about finding enough men of the right age to fill out your quota (that is, the number of men you were pledged to provide your overlord in time of war), and for the conscripted men perhaps nothing at all about saving their homes and families, because they might be sent off to foreign wars.

And I agree with what has been said about the women on the estate being viewed as cattle, breeding stock to be kept at home and not sent off into battle. Surely this must have been the case when the men were only so much cannon fodder.

But for those who make the argument that it's about societal attitudes that could be changed in a fantasy world, and it's all fantasy so we can do what we want, I notice that few if any are addressing the issue already raised by TJ and some of the rest: where does a ready supply of warriors come from if there aren't enough women birthing the next generation of babies? For a society that is often at war -- a society under threat of extinction because invading armies are massacring peasants, or a society where young people routinely go off to war to prove their worth, or a society where competing nobles are always squabbling and have their little rival armies they move about like pawns to solve their petty quarrels -- then the role of women as child-bearers and nurturers would become more important not less if this imaginary society is to be at all logical. It doesn't matter how strong we can imagine the women to be, or the roles that might be found for them in combat, or a society that allows women to fight, or any of the rest of it: if people are in short supply, then you need women making more. Women who can't make them -- who have been shown to be infertile -- might be allowed to train as fighters, or women who have already filled their quotas, maybe. And of course female rulers who can do what they darn well please (but again, they've probably produced a few heirs first), and women who have no choice because the castle or the clan is already under attack. But it doesn't make sense to just say "we'll have a society where women have an equal chance to train as fighters" and just ignore the question of where the next generation will come from, not if you want your world to make any kind of sense.

Boudicca and her daughters had a powerful grudge, and she at least was possibly past the age of childbearing, and she commanded her armies from her chariot but did she actually fight? Does somebody here know? Do we know if her daughters had children, or were they virgins when they were raped? (Are we talking about a pissed-off grandmother instead of a beautiful warrior queen?)

But what really annoys me is something that people have already pointed out, and that is the subtext I think I read in so much of the woman-warrior dialogue, and that is "why can't we have women who are trained fighters, to prove that women are as good as men?" As if they aren't already as good. Or if they are, the only way we can prove that is by arguing for the fact that they can be as good at killing people as men are. Why not write stories about a world where women are respected for the other roles they play (respected by the inhabitants of that world or society, and most of all by the author). I don't mean that they should be limited to the role of mother and earn respect only by producing and raising children. I mean respected as healers or teachers, or those who preserve the history through tales and songs, or other important roles where excellence is acquired through continued learning and service, rather than just drop what you are doing whenever someone wants to move around a few armies. If we want to imagine a world where women are equally respected, why not do that?

In the meantime, of course, writing a story that doesn't glorify war quite so much, which would be a good thing in itself.

 

[HareBrain]

Excellent post, Teresa.

In the meantime, of course, writing a story that doesn't glorify war quite so much, which would be a good thing in itself.

I think there has been a tendency recently to show how horrible war is, and I'm not sure there are many fantasy writers these days who could be accused of glorifying it in the usual sense. But it's impossible to get away from the fact that many readers and writers see war as cool and exciting even when it's horrible (as long as they're not experiencing it themselves), and of course it's an effective way to introduce drama, tension and risk. Personally, I find the nitty-gritty of combat often quickly outstays its welcome, and I much prefer to see the manoeuvring behind the armies, but I can't deny there's something about having a good old scrap occasionally. And yet, The Tombs of Atuan, one of my favourite fantasy novels ever, has no fighting at all. Playing Devil's advocate, is the preponderance of fighting in fantasy, by whichever gender, just down to the same kind of lazy, lowest-level-of-human-nature thinking that drives much advertising: not using sex to sell, but swords?

 

[Mirannan]

Heinlein put one of the points being made rather succinctly, and rather well as he usually did. Something like "Women ought to be able to defend themselves, but they shouldn't have to." The point being that, as has already been said, women (of childbearing age, at any rate!) are much less disposable than men for basic reasons - at least with people as they are now. Of course, this is in terms of the most basic of survival, nothing else.

It is extremely likely, in fact inevitable, that if all the men have been lured away somehow and the camp/village/town only has those males too old or young to fight effectively and the women left in it, then they would have to do their best to defend themselves; and also, perhaps if such a situation is at all likely they ought to be trained to do so. Incidentally, women who are trained to fight are likely to be fitter than those who are not - at least in the social classes in which idleness would otherwise be an option. And being fitter is likely to mean better outcomes for pregnancy. I believe studies have been done confirming that.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Teresa,

There are loads of scenarios a fantasy author could use to have large numbers of women fighters. I listed some. Here's another: caste distinctions, i.e. subpopulation X is for breeding, Y for fighting, etc.

Or how about some magical/metaphysical force like the Dread God Drakkius casts a spell that makes 4 out of 5 births female? If you suddenly have a lot of women and not a lot of men, the society is probably going to require those women to do all the things "traditionally" associated with maleness.

The possibilities are as endless as the imagination.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But again, Nerds_feather, why? Why is it so desirable to have a story where women who excel in combat with steel weapons are common? Why take what is unusual for a woman in our world and make that the norm for women in our secondary worlds, as if there would be something better about a world where that were true? The exceptional woman with such gifts is no less worthy than women with traditional female qualities, but the reverse is true. So what is so special and wonderful about the idea of woman warriors? Why must women wield swords in order to be cool? Why bend a world in all sorts of directions in order to provide a rationale, when we might say instead, "Let's have a world where every natural gift is accorded the same kind of respect, wherever it appears, in a woman or a man. Whether it be what we have regarded as a traditionally male gift or one that has been regarded as traditionally female, whoever has it will be valued and taught to make the fullest use of their capabilities."

Fantasy as sheer escapism serves a purpose -- we can all use a rest from the mundane world. But can't we think of any place more interesting to escape to than a world of women with bulging biceps? Fantasy as an aesthetic exercise can be a glorious thing. But what makes the idea of a woman warrior so aesthetically pleasing? Fantasy as an exploration of our human nature may be the best of all -- by showing ourselves against new backdrops and in new situations we may be able see our most human qualities more clearly. But what is so appealing about packaging those qualities inside a woman with a man's physique?

It's not like it's a new and exciting idea. Jiril of Joiry was hewing off the limbs of her opponents back in the 1930's.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Why take what is unusual for a woman in our world and make that the norm for women in our secondary worlds, as if there would be something better about a world where that were true?

The point is that it's not unusual in the real world, historically or in modern times, for women to fight. It's certainly not the norm, but it's not freakishly rare either. That's the whole point. Only by willfully ignoring history and all societies outside the modern West could one possibly think that women can't or don't fight. The weight of societal pressures and narrative reinforces this false perception of women as lesser than or incapable.

The argument against women warriors is that it's unrealistic, but when it's shown that in fact many women throughout history have fought the argument shifts to "well it's fantasy, you don't have to worry about realism". I don't know what's more maddening, that many posters clearly didn't bother to read the article, or that a fair number of posters arguing against women being capable of fighting are themselves women.

 

[Luiglin]

But what really annoys me is something that people have already pointed out, and that is the subtext I think I read in so much of the woman-warrior dialogue, and that is "why can't we have women who are trained fighters, to prove that women are as good as men?"

I hope my posts didn't come over sounding like that because that certainly wasn't my intention. Apologies if they did.

I was trying to put over my belief that someone trained well enough should be a match whatever their sex. Maybe fighting was a bad example but I just picked up the suggestion from an earlier post. I could have said magic user, healer, thief or gong farmer ( I do love that job name ). Unusual characters beyond the norm are why I love fantasy and sci-Fi because the situations where they exist are not real life.

To me a modern thriller set in the 'real' world where a spy does extraordinary things and comes through unscathed are less believable when compared to a small halfling carrying a magic ring across a continent to a volcano