So we are just going to ignore all of the Byzantine records? The Danish ones as well?
John Skylitzes, a Byzantine historian attests to them when the Varangians (Greek name given to Vikings) were defeated in Bulgaria in 971 AD, female warriors were among the fallen. The Greenland saga, based on historical truth, has a pregnant woman fighting off Native Americans. Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish historian, has more shieldmaidens fighting in 750 AD on the Danish side. These are historical accounts. Not someone taking a look at a statue, coming to the correct conclusion that it was a Valkirye most likely, and than state that there were no female warriors in a warrior culture at all.
Furthermore archaeology in both the British Isles and Scandinavia has shown an equal distribution of male and female grave sites, leading to a belief of an equal distribution when it came to immigration into the British Isles. Furthermore some women have had weaponry with them in their graves. I am not even going to go into legendary shieldmaidens. I will only say that in that regards, legends have a kernel of truth to them.
Also you made the assertion of sexual dimorphism, which you sourced, so it was up to you to source, not me.
Edit: of course she is British. If there is one thing the Brits excell at is ignoring other sources with regards to other people.
Well, yes, I, for one, am going to ignore them - at least until I can actually see them. The Greeland saga I'm happy to put into the same category as the Odyssey; the one Byzantine account and the one Danish account you mentioned, I have questions about. Are they contemporary accounts? If not, how long after the supposed events in question were they written? Herodotus was actually a lot more reliable than a lot of people initially thought, but even he had myths in his Histories that clearly were exaggerations or whole-cloth fabrications.
Given that modern Viking scholars can't agree on the existence of shieldmaidens, I'd say the evidence for their existence is a lot slimmer than you'd like to admit.
Also, why do people keep acting like I didn't provide exhaustive scientific evidence of the male/female upper body strength differential?
Your prerogative if you want to ignore sources nd archaeology. It is clear I can't change your mind. And that is something I don't actually want to.Second I saw your sources on the difference potential. I took that and I stopped pestering people bout it. My only opinion is that the difference can be overcome with a clever application of training, diet, willpower and physics.
Edit: The Byzantine seems to be from the 10-11th century so contemporary to his events. The Danish seems to be from the 13th century, just like the rest of the Scandinavian reports talking about the Vikings.
See, it's the fact this topic even exists that I often turn into a bitter, hateful person.
I don't even know where to begin being mad. Start with idiots being sexist because there is no gender divide in strength in a video game, and that should be viewed as unrealistic? Or how about this not being the first instance in this series of the supposed claim. Cassandra isn't the first female character to wield a longsword as her primary weapon. Even ignoring the Warden or Hawke, did these people forget that Aveline existed in DA2? She used the exact same setup as Cassandra does, longsword + shield.
Or I can just stop at the most mind blowing part, whining about their ability to use longswords, but no comments on the use of greatswords and battle axes? That'd be stupid too, but at least I'd see where the hell they were coming from.
Your prerogative if you want to ignore sources nd archaeology. It is clear I can't change your mind. And that is something I don't actually want to.Second I saw your sources on the difference potential. I took that and I stopped pestering people bout it. My only opinion is that the difference can be overcome with a clever application of training, diet, willpower and physics.
Edit: The Byzantine seems to be from the 10-11th century so contemporary to his events. The Danish seems to be from the 13th century, just like the rest of the Scandinavian reports talking about the Vikings.
The point I'm making is that I'm not ignoring the sources; at best, I'm ignoring what you're asserting the sources say. You haven't actually provided them, so I have no idea if your interpretation's accurate or not. The only thing you've mentioned that I'm even remotely familiar with is the discovery of arms buried with Viking women - arms, mind, not arms and armor. Wikipedia tells me there's no consensus among historians who study the period on what this means as it relates to the probability of shieldmaidens, and I'm also unable to find exactly what arms in particular they're referencing - was it something like a seax, the long knife that everybody had, or are they talking actual implements of war?
Questions like these ought to be answered, in my view; instead, people seem content to go, "A blade got found in a female grave! WARRIOR WOMEN PROOF FINALLY OMG!" That doesn't seem like good history to me.
I used Wikipedia as well for my source. Arms usually means weapons dude. Also some of the graves dug were found with a sword and shield, so more than just the seax. And Wikipedia again shows that there are more historians that believe in the existence of shieldmaidens than not. I will trust the Scandinavian historians on their own history before I trust a British historian to be able to make an "educated" guess about non-British cultures (hint: They are ignorant of other cultures).
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/09/female-viking-warriors-proof-swords
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/07/invasion-of-the-viking-women-unearthed/1?csp=34tech&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+usatoday-TechTopStories+%28Tech+-+Top+Stories%29&siteID=je6NUbpObpQ-K0N7ZWh0LJjcLzI4zsnGxg#.VAX0LNNesn8
That should answer your question.
http://vikingburials3589.blogspot.ca/2012/03/beside-every-great-man-women-in-viking.html Interesting read, which references even more burial sites and the fact that women did wield weapons.
But like I said, you trust a British scholar and I trust Scandinavian scholars. Also I am not trying to change your mind and I don't want to.
Here are some other sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Skylitzes (Byzantine source) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxo_Grammaticus (Danish source). Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieldmaiden
Captcha: Move along. Captcha is right, nothing to see here.
Excuse me, but why are you still trying to disprove the existence, nay, possibility of a society of female warriors in the past? Even if they're actually a myth, and the Shieldmaidens never existed outside of fiction, deviating from the discussion for this long does absolutely nothing to prove it.
I believe the discussion at hand was, oh look, some 194iq redditors (in reddit iq mind you), are trying to form an argument based around the notion that gender equality should not exist in fiction, because look at all of these real world stats, and that really rustles their jimmies that the only thing they seemingly cannot accept are females with big swords, now let's hate on them because those people are the ones giving everyone else, especially gamers, a bad name.
I mean, if they can't accept females with big swords, then this youtube video will probably give them a seizure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK1k8455prQ
Want to know why I'm bitter, why I sound butthurt about the whole thing? Because there are people out there who legitimately want to oppress women, who actually believe that they belong in the kitchen, making sandwiches, and they're not being sarcastic, and about half of the posts here are from people trying to convince themselves that, well, these boys have a point, while still not accepting their argument, because even if you have a shred of humanity left in you, and lack all of the mental agility in the world, you probably are better than the cheeto-huffing neckbeard who claims women don't have a right, in fiction, to use slightly bigger swords.
These people are what you should be directing your vitriol at, not eachother. These people don't have a point. It went right out of the window when they hinted that it's not just about a depiction of a gender in a video game, but the depiction of a gender in a video game that's already out, that they probably paid for (or own), and covers a fantasy setting with so many more things to focus on (and be mad about).
Arms usually means weapons dude. Also some of the graves dug were found with a sword and shield, so more than just the seax. And Wikipedia again shows that there are more historians that believe in the existence of shieldmaidens than not.
Wikipedia points to exactly three historians in referencing an opinion on the existence of shieldmaidens, so you're technically correct. Wikipedia also states there is no historical consensus on their existence, and very, very few historical references to them.
I will trust the Scandinavian historians on their own history before I trust a British historian to be able to make an "educated" guess about non-British cultures (hint: They are ignorant of other cultures).
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/09/female-viking-warriors-proof-swords
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/07/invasion-of-the-viking-women-unearthed/1?csp=34tech&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+usatoday-TechTopStories+%28Tech+-+Top+Stories%29&siteID=je6NUbpObpQ-K0N7ZWh0LJjcLzI4zsnGxg#.VAX0LNNesn8
That should answer your question.
http://vikingburials3589.blogspot.ca/2012/03/beside-every-great-man-women-in-viking.html Interesting read, which references even more burial sites and the fact that women did wield weapons.
It references the fact that women were found buried with weapons. It also references the fact that infants were found buried with weapons. Now, presumably we're not assuming that just because they were found buried with weapons, said infants were in fact battle-hardened warriors.
The Tor.com reference specifically points to a cogent comment for more insight. I'll spoiler it below, because it mirrors my feelings on the matter pretty precisely:
I'm a historian who studies burial in the early middle ages, and the burial of women with weapons is one of my specialties! I'm in the process of publishing research about a woman buried with a spear in the 6th century, and am excited to see this important topic being discussed here outside the ivory tower at Tor.com.
The bad news first: 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. The 2011 study that the article cites concludes: 'Although the results presented here cannot be used to determine the number of female settlers, they do suggest that the ratio of females to males may have been somewhere between a third to roughly equal.' The key thing to note is the word 'settlers': the article is arguing that women migrated from Scandinavia to England with the invading Viking army in the 9th century. Several of these women, the article notes, were buried with weapons, but they are still far outnumbered by the armed men. Most of the women settlers mentioned in the study were buried with 'traditional' female outfits: brooches that held up their aprons.
The good news, though: while women buried with weapons are rare, they *are* being found, and this is in large part thanks to an increased willingness to trust the bone specialists. Archaeologists have been using bones to identify the biological sex of skeletons for the past century, but when burials were found which didn't fit their notions of 'normal,' they tended to assume that the bone analysts had made a mistake. This is not entirely unreasonable, because bones are often so badly decomposed that it is impossible to tell the sex of the person. But I can point to cases where the bones clearly belong to a woman, and the archaeologists insisted that it had to be a man because only men were warriors. That's modern sexism plain and simple, and bad archaeology. But thankfully, archaeologists in recent decades have become aware of this problem, and as a result, more and more women are showing up with weapons!
But women with weapons are still a minority, usually fewer than 10% at any given cemetery. Sometimes there are no women with weapons in a cemetery at all. So they existed, but the evidence suggests weapons were still most commonly associated with men.
There are a few things to conclude from this.
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. There was no rule (as far as we know) that warriors had to be buried with their weapons. What if they wanted to leave them to their daughters instead? And who says a warrior woman can't wear a dress to her own funeral? There might be many warrior women who are invisible because they were buried in 'traditional' female outfits.
Second, we can't be sure that everyone buried with a weapon was a warrior. We find infants buried with weapons sometimes; they clearly weren't fighters (though perhaps they would have been had they grown up?). Weapons were powerful ritual objects with lots of magic and social power, and a woman might be buried with one for a reason other than fighting, such as her connection to the ruling family, ownership of land, or role as priestess or magical healer.
Third, we shouldn't rush to map our modern ideas of how gender *should have been* onto the past. We should study the past for what it is, whether that's good or bad. Archaeologists who ignored evidence that Viking women weren't all housewives caused great harm, but going to the other side and saying that men and women were equal on the Viking battlefield isn't really any better. It minimizes the reality of gender inequality that Viking women had to struggle against, much like the inequality faced by their modern counterparts.
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. Because some women *did* fight, even if they weren't in the majority, and that's incredibly important. 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.
But like I said, you trust a British scholar and I trust Scandinavian scholars. Also I am not trying to change your mind and I don't want to.
Well, that's good, I guess. Because I "trust" far more than a solitary British scholar. There's been an awful lot of scholarship on the Vikings, after all, and female warriors in general. They were exceptionally rare, though such rare exceptions did exist.
Here are some other sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Skylitzes (Byzantine source) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxo_Grammaticus (Danish source).
So, neither contemporary sources, as I suspected. Your Byzantine references a battle fought in 971, while he himself was born nearly a century later. Much the same Saxo Grammaticus, on the other hand, born around 1150, reaches even further back to assert shieldmaidens fought in a battle in 750.
Is it possible they're right? Sure. It's equally possible they're retelling folk stories as fact, which is something one encounters frequently in early historians.
If you're strongly invested in the notion of battlefield equality in the Migration Period/Early Middle Ages, then I think that's pretty harmless. Just be aware you'll be battling from a position that doesn't have much evidentiary weight behind it, and little in the way of scholarly support.
I don't think you are understanding what I am trying to say. I am not saying that shieldmaidens made up 50% of the raiding parties of the Vikings. I am saying that there were female warriors, some who were buried with their weapons. I am saying I believe in their existence. There is scholarly support, there is archaeological evidence and if we ignored historical sources just cause of the distance between their writing and the events, then we know nothing of the Vikings, except from archaeological sites, prior to 1000 AD.
I am not invested in battlefield equality in the Middle Ages, because it was impossible then, due to the culture and the lack of proper diet availability. Hell some countries still have issues integrating women in combat situations (US) in their army. I also believe that shieldmaidens (or female warriors) existed, were rare, but enough to warrant a reference in several historical accounts and archaeological sites.
Funny enough, I have now seen half a bazillion people saying that women could use longswords (although obviously less effective than men), but no one who has yet claimed the opposite..Is that really a thing, are there really those people? Because I haven't been able to find any. This whole thing seems a bit like click bait riding on the currently oh so popular social justice discussion.
But it made for an interesting thread, so I won't complain.
I don't think you are understanding what I am trying to say. I am not saying that shieldmaidens made up 50% of the raiding parties of the Vikings. I am saying that there were female warriors, some who were buried with their weapons. I am saying I believe in their existence. There is scholarly support, there is archaeological evidence and if we ignored historical sources just cause of the distance between their writing and the events, then we know nothing of the Vikings, except from archaeological sites, prior to 1000 AD.
And I'm simply saying that the very article you culled your sources from states, quite clearly, there is no consensus on whether or not shieldmaidens actually existed, and the archaeological evidence left behind by the Vikings that might shed some light on the matter is unclear.
Hell some countries still have issues integrating women in combat situations (US) in their army.
The Marines have been trying for years now to get women to pass the bare minimum male standards. They went through dozens - possibly hundreds - of candidates before they finally managed to get a woman through IOC, which is a grueling program, but far from the most grueling. The specific sticking point at this time? Pull-ups [http://archive.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20140127/NEWS/301270047/Marine-Corps-struggles-challenge-making-women-do-pullups]. We've gone years now where they've been unable to get even half of female Marines - not exactly athletically disinclined individuals - to manage three pull-ups.
And the Army just opened up Ranger school to women. Crucially, they've said they're not allowing women in on different standards than the men. Apropos nothing, an eighty pound ruck is less than half the body weight of the typical male candidate, and will be well more than half the body weight of the typical female candidate. The Eglin phase will be hella interesting to watch.
I also believe that shieldmaidens (or female warriors) existed, were rare, but enough to warrant a reference in several historical accounts and archaeological sites.
Perhaps. But usually if a phenomenon is rare, there won't be too many accounts talking of it. ANd you are also forgetting that the Vikings didn't keep too many records up until the 12th century, only the runestones. So most of the knowledge we have of them is through archaeological evidence, foreign historical sources and late 12-early 13th century Danish records.
Furthermore legends always have a kernel of truth to them. Did Ragnar Lodbrok and his wife Lagertha exist? Most likely. Did they do all of the things they are supposed to have done? NO.
Also good on the US. That is what feminism wanted. Equal representation and opportunity. Now the pull-up issue I don't know much about it, but I would think those women would get the necessary training to overcome that issue.
Funny enough, I have now seen half a bazillion people saying that women could use longswords (although obviously less effective than men), but no one who has yet claimed the opposite..Is that really a thing, are there really those people? Because I haven't been able to find any. This whole thing seems a bit like click bait riding on the currently oh so popular social justice discussion.
But it made for an interesting thread, so I won't complain.
I saw a post about someone wishing female characters weilding large weapons be buffed up as they felt the scrawnyness of them made larger weapons look a little odd. Basically only that type of comment but I only look using my phone during my break so I could have missed a real claim
I feel thankful for the fact that I haven't seen the people arguing this. Have no trouble believing they exist though, about a year back we had someone arguing that Bikini plate was the most effective form of armor for women to use. Their basis was that it hurts too much for a woman to be hit in the boob, as opposed to, say, disemboweled in the midriff
Actually there is overwhelming evidence to support this scenario as being perfectly historically accurate and believable.
Scissors can be proven to have existed in historical times without doubt: https://www.pinterest.com/cathyr19355/viking-scissors/
And if you look just at the evidence of scissors found in the ancient graves you'll find plenty in the graves of women, proving that they were used by women:
http://koelner-dom.de/index.php?id=16692&L=1
In that source a Frankish woman was buried in a grave that contained scissors, a war javelin, a throwing axe and a shield: proof that the scissors were used as weapons of war.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rvT_aYLCKfIC&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=scissors+in+woman%27s+grave&source=bl&ots=ZF_RMX93Iu&sig=V_ws-7eClm4ICvhmdS9djw2ac4Q&hl=en&sa=X&ei=I_bDVPD8FeSw7AaZ6oHgCg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=scissors%20in%20woman%27s%20grave&f=false
Here we see regular scissors buried alongside 'shears' - the technical term for a very large pair of scissors, so we have proof that these scissors were made of varying sizes and lengths.
That proves scissors existed, were wielded by women in battle and were larger than traditional scissors of today (up to an unknown limit that I speculate could well include larger than a big-ass mountain) We can amicably concur that Kill la Kill is obviously perfectly historically accurate in this battle scene.
Even if you reject this inarguable evidence I have gathered here, there is no arguing against this quote from an renowned historian and academic Steven Coates:
When the boys were dispatched to their uncles they were seized and separated from their household. Lothar and Childebert then sent their henchman Arcadius to the Queen with a pair of scissors in one hand and a sword in the other.
When you send henchmen to a Queen you bring your most fierce-some weapons. We can understand from this that the scissors were clearly feared above all others, proving the videos authenticity. Yes this is a parody of the other posts trying to argue with certainty things which we cannot prove for certain. and yes I spent way too much time personally compiling all those links.
Talking about Tolkien's work and using the word allegory for it is disgusting.
He went out of his way not to be that, especially when it came to things like weapons and armour and that's reflected in the lack of plate and other Late Middle Age items because the Migration Age didn't have them.
Everything save the use of gunpowder at Helmsdeep conformed to what was used and worn in cica 600AD Europe.
With that said there's a large different between a longsword and a greatsword and I have a feeling they're being mixed up here, not that a greatsword itself was all that heavy for someone trained, and thus has the musculature for it (same for a longbow) to use one.
Also I'm really, really starting to miss the old RPG stats of Male and Female characters with men getting good raw strength bonus' while women getting others , usually a constitution or dexterity bonus.
What a load of crap, nobody is saying women cant use swords. You made this up so you could dispute it. I am reminded of the "fake geek girl" controversy that nobody supported, the only reason anyone even knew about it was from people decrying it as evil. Same thing here, you should be ashamed.
Vis-a-vis historians and dates: The records of the Punic Wars were written almost half a century after the Second Punic War, and yet we seem to take those more or less at face value.
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