Women warriors in literature and culture

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Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret, William Etty (1833)

The portrayal of women warriors in literature and popular culture is a subject of study in history, literary studies, film studies, folklore history, and mythology. The archetypal figure of the woman warrior is an example of a normal thing that happens in some cultures, while also being a counter stereotype, opposing the normal construction of war, violence and aggression as masculine.[1]: 269  This convention-defying position makes the female warrior a prominent site of investigation for discourses surrounding female power and gender roles in society.

Folklore and mythology

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Medieval women helping to defend the city from attack
See also: List of women warriors in folklore

Greek legends of the Amazons

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The Amazons were an entire tribe of woman warriors in Greek legend. The earliest known recording of the Amazons can be found in Homer's epic poem the Iliad, in which Homer described them as Amazon antianeirai, a term with multiple translations including "the equal of men."[2] "Amazon" has become an eponym for woman warriors and athletes in both modern and ancient society.

In British mythology, Queen Cordelia fought off several contenders for her throne by personally leading the army in its battles as well as defending her home from her own warring family members, until she eventually commits suicide due to grief. Another example in ancient British history is the historical Queen Boudica, who led a rebellion against the Roman Empire.

In his On the Bravery of Women, the Greco-Roman historian Plutarch describes how the women of Argos fought against King Cleomenes and the Spartans under the command of Telesilla in the fifth century BCE.[3][4]

Scythian women

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Among Scythians, warrior women were not unknown. Archaeologists have uncovered more than 40 graves of female warrior leaders. The Roman general, Pompey defeated Scythians fighting for Mithridates VI of Pontus, and in his triumph displayed female warrior rulers among the leaders he defeated. Scythian lifestyle included equality among the sexes, and some women took the opportunities that a warrior lifestyle offered to both men and women.[5] Scythian culture touched on both Greece and India, both of whom have tales of warrior women in their histories and mythologies.

Indian folklore

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Accounts of martial women were included in the Ramayana (ca. 500 BCE) and Mahabharata (ca. 400 BCE) In Hindu mythology, Chitrāngadā, wife of Arjuna, was the commander of her father's armies. Satyabhama was a warrior wife of the god Krishna who led an army against Narakasura; she was an archer and expert in wartime tactics. Shikhandini was a princess who learned "archery, martial arts, war-techniques" and fought to avenge herself for past wrongs in another life; she eventually became a man (through supernatural intervention). Kaikeyi was the wife of a king who drove his chariot in battle and saved his life.[6]

Other examples of warrior women in India may be seen in sculpture.

  • India, Bala Krishna Temple at Hampi. Woman with bow, an attendant removing a thorn from her foot. Early 16th century C.E.
    India, Bala Krishna Temple at Hampi. Woman with bow, an attendant removing a thorn from her foot. Early 16th century C.E.
  • Srirangam, India. Sculpture of warrior woman from the Vijayanagar period, 16th century, Sesha Mandapa hall of the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple.
    Srirangam, India. Sculpture of warrior woman from the Vijayanagar period, 16th century, Sesha Mandapa hall of the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple.
  • Sculpture of warrior woman from the Vijayanagar period, 16th century, Sesha Mandapa hall of the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple
    Sculpture of warrior woman from the Vijayanagar period, 16th century, Sesha Mandapa hall of the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple
  • India. A warrior woman sacrifices herself, cutting her own throat.
    India. A warrior woman sacrifices herself, cutting her own throat.

Religion

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Several women are described in the Hebrew Bible as participating in wars or battles, including the prophetess Deborah, Rahab, and the unnamed "woman of Thebez".

Hind bint ‘Utbah was an Arab woman in the late 6th and early 7th centuries who converted to Islam. She took part in the Battle of Yarmouk in 636, fighting the Romans and encouraging the male soldiers to join her.[7]

Khawlah bint al-Azwar was a prominent woman Muslim warrior in the 7th century, leading battles in what are today Syria, Jordan and Palestine.[8]

Ghazala the Kharijite was also a commander in battle, making famous generals like al-Hajjaj flee. Her courage was extolled in poems.

Joan of Arc was a warrior in the 15th century and considered a heroine in France for her role in the Hundred Years' War. Joan of Arc alleged that she had a connection to the saints of her church and that they communicated with her to tell her to join the war effort of the French in 1429. Her effort in the battle of Orléans in May 1429 contributed to the retreat of the English from the city.[9] She was later canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. In modern popular culture, Joan of Arc has been depicted many times, including in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928 film), a silent historical film from Danish director Carl TH. Dreyer.[10] The film depicts the real trial of Joan of Arc leading up to her execution.

Mai Bhago was a Sikh warrior of 18th century. She encouraged and rallied the soldiers who abandoned Guru Gobind Singh during the siege of Anandpur Sahib to refight. She, alongside 40 soldiers confronted the Mughal Army and fought the Battle of Muktsar. She wore a masculine attire during her lifetime and by doing so, challenged patriarchy and started the debate around 'Role of Women' among Scholars and Philosophers. She was honored the title of being the bodyguard of Guru Gobind Singh during his exhile in Nanded, Maharashtra. Many ballads and folksongs glorify her bravery and she is revered as a Feminist Icon.

Folk and fairy tales

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In one Chinese legend recorded by Gan Bao, a girl named Li Ji slays a serpent who devoured many maidens in her village (Li Ji Slays the Giant Serpent or Li Chi Slays the Serpent).[11][12][13][14][15][16]

The narrative of the woman warrior sometimes involves the motif of crossdressing or disguising herself as a man or a male soldier. These stories belong to the cycle of La Doncella Guerrera, or The Warrior Maiden.[17] One popular instance of this is the legendary heroine Hua Mulan of Chinese history. Mulan's earliest records date back to the time of China's Northern and Southern Dynasties era (4th to 6th century AD).[18] In the ballad, Mulan disguises herself as a man and takes her father's place in war to protect him. Since it was first written, the original story has been retold many times by different authors.[19] Hua Mulan was further popularized, especially in the United States, through Disney's 1998 feature film Mulan.[20]

18th century depiction of Mulan

In many cases, the disguised maiden enters the service of a king and discovers the queen's infidelity. The queen is punished and the king marries the warrior maiden.[21] One example is A afilhada de São Pedro ("St. Peter's Goddaughter"), a Portuguese folktale collected by Consiglieri Pedroso.[22] These stories are classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index index as ATU 513, "The Extraordinary Companions" and subtypes, and ATU 514, "The Shift of Sex".[23]

Other fairy tales include:

Literature, film, and television

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See also: List of female action heroes and villains

Literary women warriors include "Gordafarid" (Persian: گردآفريد) in the ancient Persian epic poem The Shāhnāmeh, Delhemma in Arabic epic literature, Mulan, Camilla in the Aeneid, Belphoebe and Britomart in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Bradamante and Marfisa in Orlando Furioso, Clorinda and (reluctantly) Erminia in La Gerusalemme liberata, and Grendel's mother.

The woman warrior is part of a long tradition in many different cultures including Chinese and Japanese martial arts films, but their reach and appeal to Western audiences is possibly much more recent, coinciding with the greatly increased number of female heroes in American media since 1990.[28]: 136 [29]: 25  Films have brought women warriors to the silver screen, such as in King Arthur (2004 film), in which Keira Knightley plays heroine Guinevere, originally the love interest of King Arthur. In this iteration, Guinevere is portrayed as a warrior of equal strength as her male counterparts.[30]

Women warriors have also grown in recent years in part due to the popularity of comics and franchises inspired by them, most notably films by Marvel Studios and films within the DC Extended Universe. Characters such as Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Wasp, Black Widow, and, more recently, Jane Foster, a female iteration of the hero Thor, originally were superheroines in popular DC and Marvel comics series, as well as others.[31]

In feminism

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Women warriors have been taken up as a symbol for feminist empowerment, emphasizing women's agency and capacity for power instead of the common pattern of female victim-hood.[1]: 269  Professor Sherrie Inness in Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture[32] and Frances Early and Kathleen Kennedy in Athena's Daughters: Television's New Women Warriors,[33] for example, focus on figures such as Xena, from the television series Xena: Warrior Princess or Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the introduction to their text, Early and Kennedy discuss what they describe as a link between the image of women warriors and girl power.[34]

Violence

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Although there is a distinction between positive aggression and violence, fictional representations of female violence like Kill Bill still have the power to function positively, equipping women for real-life situations that require outward aggression.[35]: 108, 237  Beyond the individual level, fictional depictions of violence by women can be a political tool to draw attention to real-world issues of violence, such as the ongoing violence against Indigenous women.[36] Others say that a violent heroine undermines the feminist ethics against male violence, even when she is posited as a defender of women, for example in films such as Hard Candy.[1]: 269  The 2020 film Promising Young Woman also explores the idea of a warrior woman railing against deadly sexual inequity, using either passive or active violence in order to restore some sense of justice to a world skewed towards sympathy for sexually violent men. Often the violence is only implicit, or threatened, and exists in juxtaposition to the film's pastel colour palette and stereotypically feminine aesthetic.

See also

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Lists
Related articles

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c Stringer, Rebecca (2011). "From Victim to Vigilante: Gender, Violence, and Revenge in The Brave One (2007) and Hard Candy (2005)". In Radner, Hilary; Stringer, Rebecca (eds.). Feminism at the Movies. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203152416. ISBN 978-0-203-15241-6.[permanent dead link]
  2. ^ Foreman, Amanda. "The Amazon Women: Is There Any Truth Behind the Myth?". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 2022-03-31. Retrieved 2021-01-31.
  3. ^ "Plutarch • On the Bravery of Women — Sections I‑XV". penelope.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2014-11-18.
  4. ^ Plant, I.M. (2004). Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 33. ISBN 9780806136219. Retrieved 2014-11-18.
  5. ^ Smith, Patrick Scott, M. A. (30 June 2020). "Scythian Women". World History Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved 7 October 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ Rashmi Vajpayee. "Discovering the Forgotten Female Warriors of Mahabharata". Archived from the original on 2021-07-11. Retrieved 2021-07-11.
  7. ^ Azmy, Ahmed (7 March 2017). "Arab Women at War: Battles, Assassinations, and Army Leaders". Raseef22. Archived from the original on 21 April 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  8. ^ "15 Important Muslim Women in History". Islamophobia Today. Archived from the original on 6 October 2021. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  9. ^ "Joan of Arc | Biography, Death, Accomplishments, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
  10. ^ "The Passion of Joan of Arc". The Criterion Collection. Archived from the original on 2021-03-03. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
  11. ^ Gan Bao. In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record, translated into English by Kenneth J. DeWoskin and James Irving Crump. Stanford University Press, 1996. pp. 230-231. ISBN 0-8047-2506-3
  12. ^ Ch, Russell Maeth (1 September 1990). "El cuento de Li Ji". Estudios de Asia y África (in Spanish). 3 (83): 537–539. JSTOR 40312235. Archived from the original on 24 October 2021. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  13. ^ Journey of a Goddess: Chen Jinggu Subdues the Snake Demon. Translated, edited, and with an introduction by Fan Pen Li Chen. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. 2017. p. 31. ISBN 978-14384-6-7078
  14. ^ Idema, Wilt L. Personal Salvation and Filial Piety: Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her Acolytes. University of Hawai'i Press. 2008. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-8248-3215-5
  15. ^ He, Saihanjula (2000). Critical Fantasies: Structure of Chinese Folk Tales (Thesis). Archived from the original on 2022-03-03. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  16. ^ Ting, N.-T. (1969). "[Review of Folktales of China, by W. Eberhard]". The Journal of American Folklore. 82 (326): 381–384 [383]. doi:10.2307/539788. ... China is perhaps the only nation that produced a female dragon-slayer, Li Chi, and a very ancient heroine at that!
  17. ^ Delpech, François (1984). "Essai d'identification d'un type de conte. Première partie. Le sauvage et la fille travestie". Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez. 20 (1): 285–312. doi:10.3406/casa.1984.2419.
  18. ^ "'The Ballad of Mulan': A Rhyming Translation". Society of Classical Poets. 2018-09-23. Archived from the original on 2020-11-29. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
  19. ^ Kwa, Shiamin; Idema, Wilt L. (2010-08-13). Mulan: Five Versions of a Classic Chinese Legend, with Related Texts. Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-60384-871-8.
  20. ^ "Mulan: the history of the Chinese legend behind the film". HistoryExtra. Archived from the original on 2021-02-26. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
  21. ^ Delpech, François (1985). "Essai d'identification d'un type de conte. Deuxième partie: Antoine, la princesse muette et l'amour médecin". Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez. 21 (1): 255–280. doi:10.3406/casa.1985.2446.
  22. ^ Pedroso, Consiglieri. Portuguese folk-tales. London: E. Stock. 1882. pp. 53-59.
  23. ^ Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. pp. 53-55. ISBN 978-0520035379
  24. ^ Ralston, William Ralston Shedden. Russian fairy tales: a choice collection of Muscovite folk-lore. New York: Pollard & Moss. 1887. p. 108.
  25. ^ Hooker, Jessica (January 1990). "The Hen Who Sang: Swordbearing Women in Eastern European Fairytales". Folklore. 101 (2): 178–184. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1990.9715792.
  26. ^ Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Peter Lang. 2010 [2004]. pp. 144—145. ISBN 978-0-8204-6769-6
  27. ^ Bierhorst, John (2019). "Myths and Folktales in Latin America". The Fairy Tale World. pp. 199–209. doi:10.4324/9781315108407-17. ISBN 9781315108407. S2CID 167043433.
  28. ^ Dawn, Heinecken (2003). The Warrior Women of Television: A Feminist Cultural Analysis of the Female Body in Popular Media. New York: Peter Lang.
  29. ^ Tasker, Yvonne (1993). Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema. New York: Routledge.
  30. ^ Gaboury, Jennifer. "Women Warriors Are the Rage in Hollywood--But What Was the Truth?". History News Network. Archived from the original on 2021-02-05. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
  31. ^ "Avenging Women | Avengers | Marvel Comic Reading Lists". Marvel Entertainment. Archived from the original on 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-03-06.
  32. ^ Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture Archived 2008-05-11 at the Wayback Machine
  33. ^ Athena’s Daughters: Television’s New Women Warriors Archived 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine
  34. ^ "Book review". Archived from the original on 2007-06-10. Retrieved 2008-05-07.
  35. ^ Lavin, Maud (2010). Push Comes to Shove: New Images of Aggressive Women. London: MIT.
  36. ^ Verstraten, Katelyn (22 June 2013). "For Indigenous Women, Radical Art as a Last Resort". The Tyee. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 1 November 2015.

Further reading

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Legendary women warriors.
Look up Warrior in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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