I’m going to weigh in with my two cents on the idea of “Warrior women” especially in literature. The problem I find with the idea of warrior women is that at its heart it says that women have to fulfill the same roles as men to be strong and effective in a given story. It doesn’t click in my head. I’ve always been of the belief that women don't have to parallel what is popular for male characters in order to be effective, popular, and strong in a given story/culture. Men and Women are designed differently, and have complementary strengths as well as some parallel ones. There isn’t any defined “place” for women or men, but they’re not the same thing. Everyone is unique and has unique strengths, but a woman doesn’t have to be a warrior or even act without masculine influence in order to be strong and empowered.
Perspective on where a woman fits into the world does change over time. The idea of where women and men’s strengths lie fluctuates from one generation to the next, but the thing of it is, is that even with that there is no reason for those strengths to be the same. I’m reminded of a line from Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life where the “boys” (the oldest in his early 20s the youngest about 18) are romping around upstairs and the cook says “this is why all children should be born girls” and the mother responds with “Yes, but if they were all girls there wouldn’t be any…oh never mind.” Now I know how that line can look, but it’s the same way in general as well. There’s a complementary action for men and women that when put together creates some astonishing things.
Women don’t have to be warriors or something similar in order to have amazing strength. Look at Arwen vs. Eowyn. Of all the things that were discussed in regards to the film versions of Lord of the Rings the one that bugged me the most was the idea of having Arwen lead the elves at Helm’s Deep. That is not what Arwen’s strength is. While Eowyn’s very much lays in the fact that she is not a man and so can do things that men can’t, Arwen’s is what I call a “quiet strength.” Hers is as much about giving up the future she expects for the future she desieres-her family and long life for a new family and a long love as Eowyn’s is in the fact that she is able to do what she must and then is willing to accept help to heal from it.
Even the queen from Beowulf has an amazing strength during one of the feast scenes. She exists in her role as queen and as the woman who serves the wine to the warriors, but she stands up and calls the king out (respectfully) for nearly disinheriting their sons in favor of Beowulf-a stranger from a distant land. She is very respectful and within her bounds, but she still does it. Even the old medieval Romances often had the women saving the knights, not the other way around (See: Marie de France’s Lanval). Elaine, Lady of Shalot, took her life in her hands by looking out the window upon Camelot and then leaving her tower because of what she felt for Lancelot. She’s an amazingly strong character. Yes, she has a tragic end for stepping out of the bounds that were laid for her, but she chose to do so. That sort of strength speaks to me of empowerment to a woman who might be disempowered otherwise.
There are many women throughout literature who fit the title of empowered, but very few of them are outright warriors. I think there’s a problem when a woman has to be powerful in order to be empowered. In such cases you find that the strength of many literary women is undermined. I think I strayed from my original thought, but that’s my two bits.
There are so many examples throughout literature where you find strong and powerful women who are often strong within the bounds of their culture and time period. Of course there are many times you don't find this, but the number is somewhat astounding considering how often one hears about how sexist the past was.
Victor Hugo has some amazing female characters, and Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice is a great example of a woman from her time period who stood up within her boundaries for herself.
What's always bothered me is you're right, different generations have different ideas, but historical fiction and the like tends to use the current standards on all characters.
Nobody is saying that women are "trying to be like men" because it implies that those things are basically "male" things.
There need to be women warriors in culture, because there are male warriors. There need to be women neurosurgeons, male nurses, and female truck drivers. There need to be men pushing baby strollers and businesswomen. There is nothing in the biology of men and women that prevents them from doing jobs or playing roles that men play. The "biology" argument is a convenient one for people that don't actually understand human physiology.
Things from other time periods catch a break, but we have NO excuse in this modern day and age for the rampant sexism and minimalization that runs in the blood of our society.
Rigid gender roles need to be abolished in our society. Those roles will probably still exist, but women and men need to exercise them freely and not be criticized for them. They are hurtful, they kill, they result in rape and abuse and suicide and bullying and girls getting pregnant and having sex because their culture teaches them they're not anything but incubators for the Almighty Penis.
I’m going to try really hard not to be inflammatory here, but that reply hurt.
I’m curious where you found the text you quoted in your first paragraph because looking over my post I don’t see that phrase anywhere within it. I did mention roles, yes, but in a “there aren’t set roles, but there are certain expected roles.” You also appear to have disregarded the rest of my post past the first paragraph. I agree that some women are more than able to fulfill the role of the warrior (See the Eowyn example I cited.) But I respectfully disagree that it is a role that /needs/ to be filled. By anyone. A hero/heroine, yes, but when I think of “warrior” the first thing I think of is “barbarian” not “hero.” That is my own /personal/ perspective on the /word/ itself, not an attack against the character type.
I feel that something in my post has been vastly taken out of context or misread. I never meant to imply that I encourage “rampant sexism and minimilzation.” Nor that my view backed up things that result in rape and suicide. In all honesty I find that paragraph hurtful and quite frankly insulting. My intent with my post was to show examples of women throughout literature (I’m not talking history, that is not my area, I am talking fiction as that’s where this conversation started) who showed strength without being warriors/soldiers/even necessarily heroines.
Claiming that I used the “biology” argument is setting up a strawman as I wasn’t actually making any argument. I was stating an opinion that men and women are better suited to different actions. Women, often and typically, have a higher pain tolerance while men, typically though not always (in either of these cases), have a greater ability for muscle tone simply because their bodies hold less fat naturally. Now you are welcome to accuse me of ignoring human physiology, but I was talking literarily not physically or even within reality in my previous post.
I was laying out women who I have come to have a respect for within literature (all the way back to one who pre-dates the written English language). I simply don’t believe that men and women have to hold the same position in order for them to be equal. That’s like saying…no it’s too late for me to come up with a comparison that won’t be taken the wrong way. I’m not saying that there’s something wrong with a woman being a warrior, or a man being a homemaker-I am saying that they don’t /have/ to be in those positions in order for the genders to be equal.
A woman is just as capable of being strong as a homemaker as she is fighting on a battlefield. The strongest woman I know was a single mother of 2 for nearly 10 years. She homeschooled them and gave them the best upbringing she could on the social security left after her husband of nearly 17 years died. She went back to school and got her masters /while raising these kids/ and I suppose in her own way she could be called a “warrior woman,” but first and foremost she was a mother. There is nothing wrong with a woman living in the role of homemaker, just as there is absolutely nothing wrong with a woman living the life of a doctor, physicist, actress, truck driver, what have you. My personal opinion is that glorification of any one potential role undermines the strength of women who choose to be in others. That’s the beauty of the society we live in is that we as women now have a /choice/ as to whether we wish to be barefoot in the kitchen or working our way up to be CEO of a major corporation.
I'm sorry. I...completely misunderstood what you were saying. When you said "there aren't set roles, but there are expected roles", I flipped and I shouldn't have. By 'roles' I thought you were speaking specifically to 'jobs' and I thought you were using biology to justify it, which is a bullshit, fake-science argument I've heard too many times. "Women are biologically weaker and more emotional than men, and therefore should be kept out of xyz". I took something from it that wasn't intended and lashed out. I shouldn't have.
I understand what you're saying now, and of course every type of female (and male) strength should be respected in whatever form it takes. The "to be a strong female, you have to be a soldier/warrior/fighter/whatever" is not fair and it does exist. There is a slant against women and men who choose jobs outside of what people. For instance, there's still the strong sentiment in our society that girls in the military aren't real soldiers and that men who go into elementary education must be pedophiles. I see significant danger in pretending that prejudice isn't there.
As far as fiction goes, I think part of the reason why people latch onto the idea of women (and men) in nontraditional gender roles is that it's only JUST recently that we're allowed to explore and investigate them as writers and a society, and I don't see anything wrong with special emphasis being put on depicting characters that way. I feel we are constantly on the verge of slipping back into traditional gender roles and incredibly sexist legislation, and it's necessary to remind people how far we've come.
I think where my perspective differs is that I don't believe emphasis of one thing is the same as undermining the others. It's a conversation I saw a while back about how so many female writers have an emphasis on "dominance" in their work and the OP was wondering why that was, and the reaction was 'because those traditional views of sex and dominance are only just laxing and writers are exploring them'.
But again, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to lose it like that and I did completely misunderstand what you were saying.
Perspective on where a woman fits into the world does change over time. The idea of where women and men’s strengths lie fluctuates from one generation to the next, but the thing of it is, is that even with that there is no reason for those strengths to be the same. I’m reminded of a line from Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life where the “boys” (the oldest in his early 20s the youngest about 18) are romping around upstairs and the cook says “this is why all children should be born girls” and the mother responds with “Yes, but if they were all girls there wouldn’t be any…oh never mind.” Now I know how that line can look, but it’s the same way in general as well. There’s a complementary action for men and women that when put together creates some astonishing things.
Women don’t have to be warriors or something similar in order to have amazing strength. Look at Arwen vs. Eowyn. Of all the things that were discussed in regards to the film versions of Lord of the Rings the one that bugged me the most was the idea of having Arwen lead the elves at Helm’s Deep. That is not what Arwen’s strength is. While Eowyn’s very much lays in the fact that she is not a man and so can do things that men can’t, Arwen’s is what I call a “quiet strength.” Hers is as much about giving up the future she expects for the future she desieres-her family and long life for a new family and a long love as Eowyn’s is in the fact that she is able to do what she must and then is willing to accept help to heal from it.
Even the queen from Beowulf has an amazing strength during one of the feast scenes. She exists in her role as queen and as the woman who serves the wine to the warriors, but she stands up and calls the king out (respectfully) for nearly disinheriting their sons in favor of Beowulf-a stranger from a distant land. She is very respectful and within her bounds, but she still does it. Even the old medieval Romances often had the women saving the knights, not the other way around (See: Marie de France’s Lanval). Elaine, Lady of Shalot, took her life in her hands by looking out the window upon Camelot and then leaving her tower because of what she felt for Lancelot. She’s an amazingly strong character. Yes, she has a tragic end for stepping out of the bounds that were laid for her, but she chose to do so. That sort of strength speaks to me of empowerment to a woman who might be disempowered otherwise.
There are many women throughout literature who fit the title of empowered, but very few of them are outright warriors. I think there’s a problem when a woman has to be powerful in order to be empowered. In such cases you find that the strength of many literary women is undermined. I think I strayed from my original thought, but that’s my two bits.
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Victor Hugo has some amazing female characters, and Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice is a great example of a woman from her time period who stood up within her boundaries for herself.
What's always bothered me is you're right, different generations have different ideas, but historical fiction and the like tends to use the current standards on all characters.
Reply
There need to be women warriors in culture, because there are male warriors. There need to be women neurosurgeons, male nurses, and female truck drivers. There need to be men pushing baby strollers and businesswomen. There is nothing in the biology of men and women that prevents them from doing jobs or playing roles that men play. The "biology" argument is a convenient one for people that don't actually understand human physiology.
Things from other time periods catch a break, but we have NO excuse in this modern day and age for the rampant sexism and minimalization that runs in the blood of our society.
Rigid gender roles need to be abolished in our society. Those roles will probably still exist, but women and men need to exercise them freely and not be criticized for them. They are hurtful, they kill, they result in rape and abuse and suicide and bullying and girls getting pregnant and having sex because their culture teaches them they're not anything but incubators for the Almighty Penis.
Reply
I’m curious where you found the text you quoted in your first paragraph because looking over my post I don’t see that phrase anywhere within it. I did mention roles, yes, but in a “there aren’t set roles, but there are certain expected roles.” You also appear to have disregarded the rest of my post past the first paragraph. I agree that some women are more than able to fulfill the role of the warrior (See the Eowyn example I cited.) But I respectfully disagree that it is a role that /needs/ to be filled. By anyone. A hero/heroine, yes, but when I think of “warrior” the first thing I think of is “barbarian” not “hero.” That is my own /personal/ perspective on the /word/ itself, not an attack against the character type.
I feel that something in my post has been vastly taken out of context or misread. I never meant to imply that I encourage “rampant sexism and minimilzation.” Nor that my view backed up things that result in rape and suicide. In all honesty I find that paragraph hurtful and quite frankly insulting. My intent with my post was to show examples of women throughout literature (I’m not talking history, that is not my area, I am talking fiction as that’s where this conversation started) who showed strength without being warriors/soldiers/even necessarily heroines.
Claiming that I used the “biology” argument is setting up a strawman as I wasn’t actually making any argument. I was stating an opinion that men and women are better suited to different actions. Women, often and typically, have a higher pain tolerance while men, typically though not always (in either of these cases), have a greater ability for muscle tone simply because their bodies hold less fat naturally. Now you are welcome to accuse me of ignoring human physiology, but I was talking literarily not physically or even within reality in my previous post.
I was laying out women who I have come to have a respect for within literature (all the way back to one who pre-dates the written English language). I simply don’t believe that men and women have to hold the same position in order for them to be equal. That’s like saying…no it’s too late for me to come up with a comparison that won’t be taken the wrong way. I’m not saying that there’s something wrong with a woman being a warrior, or a man being a homemaker-I am saying that they don’t /have/ to be in those positions in order for the genders to be equal.
A woman is just as capable of being strong as a homemaker as she is fighting on a battlefield. The strongest woman I know was a single mother of 2 for nearly 10 years. She homeschooled them and gave them the best upbringing she could on the social security left after her husband of nearly 17 years died. She went back to school and got her masters /while raising these kids/ and I suppose in her own way she could be called a “warrior woman,” but first and foremost she was a mother. There is nothing wrong with a woman living in the role of homemaker, just as there is absolutely nothing wrong with a woman living the life of a doctor, physicist, actress, truck driver, what have you. My personal opinion is that glorification of any one potential role undermines the strength of women who choose to be in others. That’s the beauty of the society we live in is that we as women now have a /choice/ as to whether we wish to be barefoot in the kitchen or working our way up to be CEO of a major corporation.
Reply
I understand what you're saying now, and of course every type of female (and male) strength should be respected in whatever form it takes. The "to be a strong female, you have to be a soldier/warrior/fighter/whatever" is not fair and it does exist. There is a slant against women and men who choose jobs outside of what people. For instance, there's still the strong sentiment in our society that girls in the military aren't real soldiers and that men who go into elementary education must be pedophiles. I see significant danger in pretending that prejudice isn't there.
As far as fiction goes, I think part of the reason why people latch onto the idea of women (and men) in nontraditional gender roles is that it's only JUST recently that we're allowed to explore and investigate them as writers and a society, and I don't see anything wrong with special emphasis being put on depicting characters that way. I feel we are constantly on the verge of slipping back into traditional gender roles and incredibly sexist legislation, and it's necessary to remind people how far we've come.
I think where my perspective differs is that I don't believe emphasis of one thing is the same as undermining the others. It's a conversation I saw a while back about how so many female writers have an emphasis on "dominance" in their work and the OP was wondering why that was, and the reaction was 'because those traditional views of sex and dominance are only just laxing and writers are exploring them'.
But again, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to lose it like that and I did completely misunderstand what you were saying.
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