“No, there probably wasn’t gender equality on the battlefield.”
Depends on how you define equality. The term equality, implies treatment.
“while many women have been found buried with weapons, the evidence doesn’t support the claim made in the title of equal gender representation on the battlefield. ”
That doesn’t say anything about how Viking women were treated as warriors. Why would anyone expect that in a culture where women and men can both fight in the military, that both sexes would have the same numerical representation? Most women can’t compete with men in terms of the physical nature of medieval warfare but some can and there are certainly women who can outperform weak males.
It would be more useful to know how female warriors were actually treated. Could they command troops? Were they part of elite squads? Were they placed in a shield wall? Were they housed and fed along side men or separately? Did they receive the same training as males? Were differences in treatment due to derogatory attitudes or due to exalted status?
“First, we’re just talking about graves (because that’s what survives for archaeologists to dig up). Just because a woman is buried in an apron, does not mean she wasn’t a warrior before she died.”
No, it doesn’t but if a woman was a warrior or had a physical confrontation with one, there would likely be sings on the skeleton. Archaeologists might interpret a woman with these types of wounds as having been a victim of brutality rather than mutual participant and it would be interesting to know if the Archaeologist community is taking another look to see if differences can be found.
“Third, we shouldn’t rush to map our modern ideas of how gender *should have been* onto the past.”
Yes.
“We should study the past for what it is, whether that’s good or bad.”
For sure.
“But finally, we do need to continue to reimagine the world of sword and sorcery to reflect the real role played by women in the past. ”
Well, we should always be using our imaginations or else why even write? I don’t think Fantasy needs to reflect reality.
“Because some women *did* fight, even if they weren’t in the majority, and that’s incredibly important. ”
Yes, but it also isn’t new news and it certainly isn’t new to Fantasy. You can look back decades and see find books were women play significant or even out-sized roles.
“And shoot, when we write fantasy, why not imagine that 50% of the warriors on the battlefield were women? That might not be how it was, but this is fantasy, and we can write the world as it SHOULD be.”
SMH. It is Fantasy, you can imagine whatever you want for a fictional alternate universe but in the real world we can’t depend on progressive fairy tales. Numerical equality for the sake of numerical equality is stupid. What should happen, is that our warriors are selected based on merit, how capable they are to be warriors. Without a doubt some women are up to it, if they choose to take the path, but it will never be a 50/50 split.
The purpose of a weapon is as an enhancement beyond unarmed fighting ability for any gender. Kitchens are full of weapons. Woman have always used weapons even if not on a battlefield. A small knife is a common weapon for personal self defense.
Shields and body armor are more useful in determining ‘warriors’ I would think?
“No, there probably wasn’t gender equality on the battlefield.”
Depends on how you define equality. The term equality, implies treatment.
“while many women have been found buried with weapons, the evidence doesn’t support the claim made in the title of equal gender representation on the battlefield. ”
That doesn’t say anything about how Viking women were treated as warriors. Why would anyone expect that in a culture where women and men can both fight in the military, that both sexes would have the same numerical representation? Most women can’t compete with men in terms of the physical nature of medieval warfare but some can and there are certainly women who can outperform weak males.
It would be more useful to know how female warriors were actually treated. Could they command troops? Were they part of elite squads? Were they placed in a shield wall? Were they housed and fed along side men or separately? Did they receive the same training as males? Were differences in treatment due to derogatory attitudes or due to exalted status?
“First, we’re just talking about graves (because that’s what survives for archaeologists to dig up). Just because a woman is buried in an apron, does not mean she wasn’t a warrior before she died.”
No, it doesn’t but if a woman was a warrior or had a physical confrontation with one, there would likely be sings on the skeleton. Archaeologists might interpret a woman with these types of wounds as having been a victim of brutality rather than mutual participant and it would be interesting to know if the Archaeologist community is taking another look to see if differences can be found.
“Third, we shouldn’t rush to map our modern ideas of how gender *should have been* onto the past.”
Yes.
“We should study the past for what it is, whether that’s good or bad.”
For sure.
“But finally, we do need to continue to reimagine the world of sword and sorcery to reflect the real role played by women in the past. ”
Well, we should always be using our imaginations or else why even write? I don’t think Fantasy needs to reflect reality.
“Because some women *did* fight, even if they weren’t in the majority, and that’s incredibly important. ”
Yes, but it also isn’t new news and it certainly isn’t new to Fantasy. You can look back decades and see find books were women play significant or even out-sized roles.
“And shoot, when we write fantasy, why not imagine that 50% of the warriors on the battlefield were women? That might not be how it was, but this is fantasy, and we can write the world as it SHOULD be.”
SMH. It is Fantasy, you can imagine whatever you want for a fictional alternate universe but in the real world we can’t depend on progressive fairy tales. Numerical equality for the sake of numerical equality is stupid. What should happen, is that our warriors are selected based on merit, how capable they are to be warriors. Without a doubt some women are up to it, if they choose to take the path, but it will never be a 50/50 split.
The purpose of a weapon is as an enhancement beyond unarmed fighting ability for any gender. Kitchens are full of weapons. Woman have always used weapons even if not on a battlefield. A small knife is a common weapon for personal self defense.
Shields and body armor are more useful in determining ‘warriors’ I would think?