Need help from women, or those who are knowledgeable, about female characters

Certainly, Stalin made use of every available body (penal battalions, for example). Another example is that if someone paid for a tank to be built, they could command the tank in battle. A husband and wife paid for a tank, he was the gunner and she was the commander. They fought across Russia and all the way into Berlin. A really amazing story. While this examples certainly are not the norm, they can be seeds for fictional characters.
Godspeed!

 

And the women who are better suited to fighting on the front lines than working at home? And vice versa?

 

I'm a little hazy on the tech level of this setting. It sounds like pseudo-Medieval/early Renaissance, but I'm hesitant to go with that assumption until I know for sure. Most of the examples given here are post-gunpowder, which is fine and all if your setting has that invention (and I'll point out that the rise of reliable firearms does a lot to negate individual strength as a consideration in combat), but examples from earlier periods might be more useful to you if this setting is pre-gunpowder.

 

I never considered that it might read like that...this is why different opinions are good. I suppose I don't have to describe them as much as I did all at once.

That's good to know, I was under the impression that the draft was instated. Thanks for the link there. In this world I have though, the two countries have been at war for nearly a thousand years or so. Not constant fighting, but there hasn't been peace for a long, long time. There is a draft of sorts that calls for a certain number of people to be in the military, and after fighting for this long it's become almost necessary to include both genders. Disease and food are not factors in this world, they have plenty of farms and no famine, though I may include that in the future just as a story element, but it hasn't been an issue in their history at least. Magic is used to also cure illness, and alchemy as well depending on the situation, but I wasn't planning on discussing either of those too much. Pregnancy is a realistic issue, but this world is not one that simply sees women as baby machines. There's no Christians to be adverse to abortion, nor is there enough fighting to deplete the population so that it would be necessary to focus on birth at all. Choice is a reality in this world, since it's only Christianity and die-hard conservatives that are against choice. It's unrealistic to think all worlds would exist in this way. That being said, there may be some small groups that hold those conservative values, but it won't be a majority in my novel by any means.

That's something I've taken steps to avoid already. Everyone, male or female, is not defined by any predisposition or standard. It's a bit more diverse. So yeah.

 

No, swords and sorcery only. Magic is fairly common in the form of enchantments, they have a lot of rules tied to how it's used, but most soldiers can get some basic enchantment if they want to. It's hard to explain though, and would take a while for me to do so, but basically the military will pay for certain soldiers to receive simple enchantments based on how they perform and their time served.

 

Maybe every household has to send at least one able-bodied individual? They could choose who enlists.

Just as a side note, pro-life is not solely a Christian or religious position. People who don't believe in the existence of an eternal soul or follow any doctrines that deem abortion a sin can still think abortion is equivalent to murdering an innocent human being.

 

Yeah, that's a good idea actually, haven't thought of that. Definitely something I'll be adding.

This is true, but I will say that it's really mostly a Christian thing in our modern society at least. It exists outside of Christianity, but not as often in modern times. In the past, it was harder to do without proper technology and stuff, but then I haven't really studied that enough. However, sexual education has proven to lead to less teen pregnancy and less unwanted pregnancy, and simply being aware can lead to choice without the need to have abortion.

Side note: I mean no offense to anyone here who is pro-life. I am pro-choice, but pro-lifers forget that pro-choice also includes the choice of keeping a child as well - it's not the boogeyman out to kill all the kids - as well as avoiding pregnancy entirely through readily available birth control. I'm not here to argue this though, just don't mean to offend since I really don't mean any offense by anything in this thread. I'm just looking for advice about the story I'm writing.

 

Birth control, rubbers, and other forms of contraception have made both unwanted pregnancies and abortions less of an issue. If you have magic contraception in your world, you'd probably still have people who think contraception is murder and abortion is murder, but I'd imagine these people would be in the minority. I'd even argue effective contraceptive methods have also contributed to women's empowerment/emancipation.

 

I seem to recall reading something about the Japanese apologizing to aborted children for being unable to welcome them into the world, or some such thing. I suspect that if there were a strong motivation to take away women's autonomy, that could be converted to a government-enforced ban on abortion.

I don't think that you need Christianity to take a minority's disapproval of all abortion from a philosophical view to government action. I do think that you do need the desire to take away women's control over their bodies and lives.

That's not to say that I would accuse most anti-abortion individuals of having that motivation. My argument is that the shift from philosophy/teaching to government control requires another motive on the part of a substantial number of powerful people.

 

The issue isn't whether or not it's allowed, it's a matter of how many we expect to be there. If 1 in 10 of the front line fighters were women, I would consider that very progressive indeed while retaining true to the fact that the majority of women are more useful in the equally important support role/home front than fighting against men - or worse, at the actual front.

 

Might have magical contraceptives, but so far it hasn't been a story critical thing, but highly likely in the world/universe I have here. Since I am wanting to have some parallels to modern society, I might add in some contraceptive debates and stuff, the controversy at least might be interesting. One of my goals here is to break away from the typical "women stay home and cook, clean, and wait for the men to get home from fighting" society that is prevalent in most war/fantasy/medieval settings. I think it's time we start writing something a bit different. At the same time, it's also unrealistic to think everyone in said world would completely agree with women having that freedom, and it would add complexity to the story to have their be that controversy. I'm wanting to keep it as a more rural perception though, and since the royalty here is in favor of equality, the minority that isn't would not have much say except in their smaller communities.

I see your point. I actually wasn't aware that Japan was having that issue come up. My philosophy is that men should not be making any decisions when it comes to this subject. All my life I've primarily seen the conservative/religious groups be the only ones upset about pro choice, I just haven't taken in the perspective that non-religious people would feel the same since I haven't seen many examples. That's on me though. I suppose everyone can have their reasons for any decision or viewpoint. To force anything on anyone though is a problem, either way, let people do what they want, so long as they aren't telling someone else what to do.

 

Alright, that clears it up.

This depends upon the society in question, the specific circumstances, and the tech level. The Scythians, who fought mostly as horse archers with contingents of shock cavalry, had somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-37% of their warriors as women. This is evidenced by the weapons found in Scythian graves. Their Sarmatian neighbors were similar on this front.

Similarly, Appian describes the Bracari in a way that seems to suggest all of their women were warriors, though they didn't all fight unless things were desperate (as they were in the incident he describes).

For a more modern example of composition depending on culture, the N'nonmiton (or Dahomey Amazons) made up a third of Dahomey's military at its peak. And of that military they far and away put up the most resistance against the invading French.

As for circumstances, look at the Teutones, Ambrones, and Cimbri during their mass migration southward. Specifically, at the Battles of Aquae Sextae and Vercellae. At Aquae Sextae, Teutone and Ambrone women joined the battle as parts of the Germanic host routed across the river. They slew any routers they came across, then engaged the Romans in hand to hand combat with swords and axes. At Vercellae, the Cimbri women drew their wagons and carts into a circle and fought with axes and pikes even after the main battle was over. Considering they were noted in the broad strokes summaries typical of Roman historians, they must have been significant in numbers. And while Germanic women did fight on occasions, they fought in such numbers at these battles because the tribe was migrating; defeat meant death or slavery. Which is also why, when defeat became clear, they killed their children and committed suicide.

You're describing a sort of homefront that didn't really exist in pre-Industrial societies. Many of the support roles that existed were skilled labor and required greater strength (blacksmiths, for example), so they were often male. This would seem to apply to OP's setting, where the culture seems to be shifting to a more egalitarian one, so they'd probably still skew towards male domination of those roles. And let's not forget that unless there's a war for survival going on (like the Eastern Front in WW2 or mass migrations like the Germanic tribes mentioned above) a relatively small portion of the total population would be fighting. Even half the army being women probably wouldn't have an impact on those support roles usually filled by women.

 

So what's wrong with a 50/50 split then? Men can work in a supporting role just as easily, and there's plenty of strength required on both fronts.

 

The home front doesn't require competitive strength though. If the opposition has all men and the other army has 50/50 and they're both equally trained and equipped, the one with all men has the advantage in melee and range, as shooting a war bow requires tremendous strength. The more strength the bigger and more powerful the war bow that can be fired at greater range. It occurs to me that the side that wants to win is going to use those advantages and then, the other side will either follow suit or try something else to match it,

 

You're telling me that being a blacksmith doesn't require considerable strength? That is hilarious. Plow based agriculture also requires a lot of upper body strength. This is why women have a larger role in hoe-based agriculture like what's common in subsaharan Africa: it requires less strength. Those are the two big support roles in a pre-Industrial societies: food to feed your troops and someone to make and repair weapons and armor.

You're assuming all other force multipliers are equal. Leadership, how rested, fed, and watered your soldiers are, terrain advantage, morale, the list goes on and on. And of course, foreign foes rarely have the same equipment, training, or tactics.

 

I said competitive strength. The "considerable" strength is a non argument because tell me what's better. Sending as many women as it requires to lift something at home, or sending in half your troops at women, only to face a repeated storm of war arrows fired at at a range where you can't respond and regiments start breaking and running. Forcing you to have more men as archers to respond, leaving more women as melee troops against guys when the melee does happen. You'd be unlikely to win that unless you outnumber the opponent or have superior training. There's no reason to suspect either would be the case.

If the opponent is at a disadvantage already, you could win even more cleanly with the mostly male army.

Again, the caveat is I'm assuming we're talking about human beings who do not have magic that boost women to martial parity.

 

I wouldn't tell a female bodybuilder that... just saying.

 

Well, that's assuming that the only possible way to cock a bow is with a single-person single-action feat of strength. Is there something about the nature of bow-cocking devices that mean that they couldn't possibly have been invented in historical times?

Sure, then you can argue that it takes longer to use a crank or some other device. But it took a while to load a flintlock or a cannon, so it's not as if there's a precedent that more-than-a-moment-to-load weapons are unusable.

And you can argue that there's an advantage to loading faster. And of course there is. But there's also an advantage to having more people who can potentially fight.

I think that the fact that most of the well-knowns weapons of history may have been used by Big Manly Men doesn't necessarily mean that that's the only way that it can be.

 

My advice would be not to worry too much on the fact they are female. Worry about who they are as a person. Yes, there are things women tend to do in general as there are things that men tend to do in general, but that is not the entirety of a person. Think less in, "How would a woman react to this?" "What do women talk about?" "What kind of music to women listen to?" And think more in terms of , "How would my character react to this?" "What kind of things do my characters talk about?" "What kind of music might this character like?"

I see a lot of these articles that are, "How to write a female/male character?" and I always shake my head. I feel like when you think of it that way, you're on a one way street to a one dimensional character.

Just think about your character. Think about who she is as a person, and she could be anything: a tomboy, a girly-girl, a mixture of the previous, an artist, a cynical somebody with huge opinion, an optimistic person who sees the beauty in everything. She can be empathetic, apathetic, mean, sarcastic, fun-loving, outgoing, shy, adventurous. She could be a whirlwind of things. There is no limit, gender or otherwise. Piece together who you think she is, what you think she enjoys, how you think she reacts to people and events, and how she sees the world. It doesn't matter, and there is no wrong way to do it.

 

So you're just going to gloss over the part about how the number of people fighting would've generally been a small percentage of the total population? You think ancient armies would conscript a blacksmith to be a foot soldier rather than conscript him to sit back and mend their equipment, or hire him to sit at home and fill orders for weapons and armor for them?

Are you aware that bows with heavier draw weights have substantially slower rates of fire? You could simply overwhelm them with volume of fire. Besides that, the only bows that might theoretically fit your scenario are probably English longbows, a weapon that outclassed all other bows in their era, no matter who wielded them.

There was no substantive difference between male Scythian horse archers and female Scythian horse archers when it came to range and penetration. We're talking about a people who regularly trounced all male Greek, Persian, and Assyrian armies with their own forces, which were between a quarter to over a third female. Alexander the Great and his father Philip managed to win a couple victories over them, but they were by and large strategically insignificant. And at Jaxartes River, Alexander had to use siege engines (specifically ballistae) to counter their advantage in missile troops. Yes, they could shoot far enough that the only contemporary weapon that could outrange them were meant for use against cities.

Long story short, your scenarios seem to be tailored to support your predetermined conclusion, rather than reflect what real world history shows us about women's ability in pre-gunpowder warfare. And considering that OP's setting does have magic enhancement, there's no reason there couldn't be armies with a 50/50 gender split where the women are as good as or better than baseline men even in melee combat, assuming there were enough women who wanted to fight. And that basically comes down to cultural attitudes.

 

Slow rates of fire don't matter. I'm talking about massed ranks of archers from distance firing volleys that darken the skies. Not legolas style rapid fire. The latter isn't what wins wars.

If that's the case in any particular fantasy story than that's even less pressure on the women to fight en masse. I'm not sure what your point is here.

Horse archers were not standard historically by any means. They were quite uncommon due to having many drawbacks. People assume they're some ubertroop when they are generally inferior to massed ranks of archery - which was the standard use of archers. Horse archers have very specialized roles. They can't take fortifications, defend points, fire with any kind of density or hold positions. They are out ranged and out shot by foot archers. You are factually incorrect by implying a horse archer out ranges the foot archer with a heavy war bow. If horse archers were as dominant as you claim, why weren't everybody using them? They weren't because there are plenty of solutions against them,



Real world history shows the percentages of over a third female and with that high degree of horse archers was the exception. Not the rule. Are you implying that military strategists outside of those provinces largely ignored the horse archer for no reason?

 

The problem with that line of reasoning is that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Males can bodybuild too and so we're back to square one.

 

So you're saying that women shouldn't be strong because "men can do it too, so why should they bother"? I'm not sure what to say here...any person that's going to be using strength has to build up muscle, male or female. Have you ever heard of the Amazons? I'm talking about the tribals, not the website. There's been several societies that are female dominate. The women are the warriors and hunters. The animal kingdom would also disagree with you as well, but that's an entirely different subject. However, there's also non-human females in my story, and those races are sometimes more physically strong than humans anyway, so bringing other examples in is relevant at least.

 

I'm working on a short story right now featuring the Mongols.

I bet the Europeans, Muslims, Chinese and everyone else who fought the Mongols wished that 'horse archers' were not standard. It seems to me that, if you lumped all the lands, people cultures together the only real standard you would have is people trying to kill each other. Back to the topic of the post: women can fight and fight well. They can succeeded as soldiers, commanders and leaders of nations. It doesn't matter if it is an accepted 'standard' or not, they have done it, they are doing it, and will be doing it.

 

I think it's hard for some people to accept though. Apparently, Western civilization especially, has a complex thinking about women being warriors. It threatens manhood somehow, but in reality, a real man is secure in his sexuality. It doesn't make him weak, gay, or less important because he got "beat by a girl". Just means that someone else was the better fighter, doesn't matter the gender. Not sure why it's such a problem, but I think it has to do with generational culture. As to what started that culture...I'm at a complete loss, but I'd take a stab at Victorian era Britain maybe as a possible culprit.