semiotic_pirate (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
semiotic_pirate) wrote2004-12-28 05:35 pm
semiotic_pirate) wrote2004-12-28 05:35 pm
Entry tags:
As requested: Women as Warriors, a short essay.
Okay, like it says in the subject line, this post is being done in response to a request about an essay I had mentioned previously writing... Let me know what you all think of it. (As an aside, this was written right about the time we were invading Afghanistan.)
War Leaders and Activists
WS 124
TOPIC: Women as warriors, leaders, and protesters for change. How the historical authority of women carries into the present.
For the same reasons that women enter politics – to make changes – women have been known to take up the mantle of war-leader. To allow and accept the stereotype of a naturally peaceful woman able to lead us into a more unified harmony is fallacy. Individual men and women may be able to do this, but it is not so much due to an inherent quality than it is to the effects of civilized culture. The reason why women resemble this stereotype is the constant socialization to be the peacemakers. My mother herself told me I should aspire to this, because it is what we do, it is who we are as women. In today’s world, women are more conciliatory toward assorted issues because women are not the “alpha” of the political sphere, we do not hold the dominant, arrogant, entrenched power that men grasp so tightly.
Throughout the ages I found many examples of women in power, as well as women as full blown warrior leaders. This isn’t just your assumed “behind the scenes” power either (though there was plenty of that too). Women have been Pharaoh, Senatrix, Queen, Regent, High Priestess, warrior-leader and co-ruler, all over the world. Women have been advisors, spies, assassins, ambassadors, administrators, and sheriffs. There is plenty of documentation of these facts, they just aren’t bandied about in everyday conversation, nor even found in most history books, of course not, it is HIStory, not HERstory. Like Rosalind Franklin, (the initial discoverer of the double-helix of DNA through radio-crystallography) women’s achievements in today’s patriarchal upswing are repressed and subsumed into ownership by male culture itself. I think that we must fight this, to truly do the best for our society as well as ourselves as individuals.
However, referring back to that pernicious stereotype, you cannot say that women cannot be as savage or bloodthirsty as men – when given the opportunity and motivation. Look at Countess Bathory of Transylvania, she bathed in the blood of virgins because it was touted as a youth treatment. I point to the following examples throughout history, not because I believe bloodshed to be the answer to solving our problems, but because there is such anathema toward the woman as warrior in our current world-culture.
Throughout North America, Native women became chiefs, warriors, and shamans. Some, like Weetamo of the Wampanoags and Lozen of the Apache were prominent leaders in native resistance. Others, like the Kutenai Qánqon-kámek-klaúlha, served as mediators and ambassadors. In the far west, women who lived like men were seen as a third gender. The female berdache took on men's work and engaged in same-sex marriage. Women hunters and warriors brought food for their families and defended their communities, like the famous Kutenai titqattek (berdache), Madame Boisverd, a warrior woman who became an inter-tribal courier and a prophet in the early 1800s, and Woman Chief, a berdache and chief of the Crow nation, achieved the third highest rank in her tribe. Among the Mojave, the hwami (berdache) became powerful shamans and medicine women. The Klamath and Shasta twilinna'ek (berdache) were women who manifested cross-gender or strong-hearted behavior.
There was the Rani of India and the Lensmand of Denmark. Matriarchal warrior tribes and matrilineal tribal descent are common threads throughout African history and in some cases have survived into modern times. Among the ancient Celts women rulers and warriors were extremely common. The first recorded effort to bar women from military participation was a law passed in 590 A.D. at the synod of Druim Ceat. (After the Celts were exposed to Roman culture.) It proved to be unenforceable when the women warriors refused to lay down their arms and comply with it. In Asia during the Warring States period in Japan, daughters of noble Japanese families (Bushi women) were trained in the use of the bow and the naginata, a glaive-like weapon, both for use in the fields of battle as well as the protection of the home. Joan of Arc was not the only woman of Medieval Europe to lead soldiers in battle: Queens, noblewomen and nuns had been doing so for centuries. Women accompanied all the Crusades. The First Crusade (1096-1099) included almost equal numbers of men and women including such famous Queens as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor of Castile, Marguerite de Provence, Florine of Denmark and Berengaria of Navarre. The list of warrior women continues throughout world history. Names like Septima Zenobia, Salaym Bint Malham, Aife of Alba, Maire o Ciaragain, Graine Ni Maille, Empress Wu Chao, Kogo Jingo, and Pimiku, the first known ruler of Japan are but a handful of respected leaders who protected their people in battle. Non-noble women who took up arms are noted as well such as the two sisters, Amaron and Kenau Hasselaar, who in 1568 defended the Dutch city of Haarlem against a Spanish invasion by leading a battalion of 300 women. American history has its own women warriors. In 1779, Margaret Corbin became the first female veteran to receive a military pension. Hundreds of women, including Deborah Sampson Gannet, alias Private Robert Shurtleff, disguised themselves as men to fight in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Despite women's historic and modern role in combat, the debate over the proper role for women warriors continues today in the United States.
Those countries and cultures with the longest history of women as rulers and leaders – even occasionally – are those that now have the best treatment of women. Those cultures – if they survived throughout the ages (Sparta was unfortunately, destroyed and subsumed) – are the most egalitarian and have the highest numbers of women in official political positions. It is the same with democracy.
Today, women fight a guerrilla war through grass-roots protest and activism. Women today in cultures without this history (or one that is not as prominent) fight from the bottom up, and are slowly gaining a foothold in the arena of top down politics as well. This is especially important for cultures that have little or no history of women in positions of power – like Afghanistan. This is a good thing, being able to close in on a problem in a pincer movement is a good strategy.
War Leaders and Activists
WS 124
TOPIC: Women as warriors, leaders, and protesters for change. How the historical authority of women carries into the present.
For the same reasons that women enter politics – to make changes – women have been known to take up the mantle of war-leader. To allow and accept the stereotype of a naturally peaceful woman able to lead us into a more unified harmony is fallacy. Individual men and women may be able to do this, but it is not so much due to an inherent quality than it is to the effects of civilized culture. The reason why women resemble this stereotype is the constant socialization to be the peacemakers. My mother herself told me I should aspire to this, because it is what we do, it is who we are as women. In today’s world, women are more conciliatory toward assorted issues because women are not the “alpha” of the political sphere, we do not hold the dominant, arrogant, entrenched power that men grasp so tightly.
Throughout the ages I found many examples of women in power, as well as women as full blown warrior leaders. This isn’t just your assumed “behind the scenes” power either (though there was plenty of that too). Women have been Pharaoh, Senatrix, Queen, Regent, High Priestess, warrior-leader and co-ruler, all over the world. Women have been advisors, spies, assassins, ambassadors, administrators, and sheriffs. There is plenty of documentation of these facts, they just aren’t bandied about in everyday conversation, nor even found in most history books, of course not, it is HIStory, not HERstory. Like Rosalind Franklin, (the initial discoverer of the double-helix of DNA through radio-crystallography) women’s achievements in today’s patriarchal upswing are repressed and subsumed into ownership by male culture itself. I think that we must fight this, to truly do the best for our society as well as ourselves as individuals.
However, referring back to that pernicious stereotype, you cannot say that women cannot be as savage or bloodthirsty as men – when given the opportunity and motivation. Look at Countess Bathory of Transylvania, she bathed in the blood of virgins because it was touted as a youth treatment. I point to the following examples throughout history, not because I believe bloodshed to be the answer to solving our problems, but because there is such anathema toward the woman as warrior in our current world-culture.
Throughout North America, Native women became chiefs, warriors, and shamans. Some, like Weetamo of the Wampanoags and Lozen of the Apache were prominent leaders in native resistance. Others, like the Kutenai Qánqon-kámek-klaúlha, served as mediators and ambassadors. In the far west, women who lived like men were seen as a third gender. The female berdache took on men's work and engaged in same-sex marriage. Women hunters and warriors brought food for their families and defended their communities, like the famous Kutenai titqattek (berdache), Madame Boisverd, a warrior woman who became an inter-tribal courier and a prophet in the early 1800s, and Woman Chief, a berdache and chief of the Crow nation, achieved the third highest rank in her tribe. Among the Mojave, the hwami (berdache) became powerful shamans and medicine women. The Klamath and Shasta twilinna'ek (berdache) were women who manifested cross-gender or strong-hearted behavior.
There was the Rani of India and the Lensmand of Denmark. Matriarchal warrior tribes and matrilineal tribal descent are common threads throughout African history and in some cases have survived into modern times. Among the ancient Celts women rulers and warriors were extremely common. The first recorded effort to bar women from military participation was a law passed in 590 A.D. at the synod of Druim Ceat. (After the Celts were exposed to Roman culture.) It proved to be unenforceable when the women warriors refused to lay down their arms and comply with it. In Asia during the Warring States period in Japan, daughters of noble Japanese families (Bushi women) were trained in the use of the bow and the naginata, a glaive-like weapon, both for use in the fields of battle as well as the protection of the home. Joan of Arc was not the only woman of Medieval Europe to lead soldiers in battle: Queens, noblewomen and nuns had been doing so for centuries. Women accompanied all the Crusades. The First Crusade (1096-1099) included almost equal numbers of men and women including such famous Queens as Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor of Castile, Marguerite de Provence, Florine of Denmark and Berengaria of Navarre. The list of warrior women continues throughout world history. Names like Septima Zenobia, Salaym Bint Malham, Aife of Alba, Maire o Ciaragain, Graine Ni Maille, Empress Wu Chao, Kogo Jingo, and Pimiku, the first known ruler of Japan are but a handful of respected leaders who protected their people in battle. Non-noble women who took up arms are noted as well such as the two sisters, Amaron and Kenau Hasselaar, who in 1568 defended the Dutch city of Haarlem against a Spanish invasion by leading a battalion of 300 women. American history has its own women warriors. In 1779, Margaret Corbin became the first female veteran to receive a military pension. Hundreds of women, including Deborah Sampson Gannet, alias Private Robert Shurtleff, disguised themselves as men to fight in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Despite women's historic and modern role in combat, the debate over the proper role for women warriors continues today in the United States.
Those countries and cultures with the longest history of women as rulers and leaders – even occasionally – are those that now have the best treatment of women. Those cultures – if they survived throughout the ages (Sparta was unfortunately, destroyed and subsumed) – are the most egalitarian and have the highest numbers of women in official political positions. It is the same with democracy.
Today, women fight a guerrilla war through grass-roots protest and activism. Women today in cultures without this history (or one that is not as prominent) fight from the bottom up, and are slowly gaining a foothold in the arena of top down politics as well. This is especially important for cultures that have little or no history of women in positions of power – like Afghanistan. This is a good thing, being able to close in on a problem in a pincer movement is a good strategy.