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The topic of gender in ancient armies and fighting classes seems to come up a great deal. The idea that the majority of fighters in a low tech, pre firearms societies are probably male has been labeled everything from a mistake to a practical conspiracy to promote a sexist view of women's role in history. This site for example:

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/ (http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/)

What is the deal on this? Have I been mislead/mistaken? I'm not a major history buff.

I suspect that this is one of those topics where the scope and scale of what's being assessed are important when forming an answer. That is, it's highly likely that you'll be able to find some female fighters in any given conflict - and people will often trot such instances out as being an iron-clad refutation of the "all battles are fought by men (and men alone)" narrative - but that's not what's really being asked (in my view).

What's more germane to the topic is to what degree were female fighters institutionalized in a given society (either in all-female units, or as part of mixed-sex units), and how did such units compare to all-male units in terms of their size, number of engagements, ratios of victories to defeats, etc.

In other words, there's a difference between citing outliers and citing standard practices, something that gets blurred a lot when history and personal ideology don't mesh as well as one would like.

That said, in answer to the questions you actually asked, I have no idea; I'm not a history buff either.

Like a great many things, the answer to this issue is, "it depends". Not all cultures are alike, so there isn't a general one size fits all answer.

I remember reading recently that many of the bodies recovered from Viking burial sites that were buried with weaponry have turned out to be female and that in times past, archeologists didn't bother identifying the gender of skeletons discovered in such graves and assumed they were all male.

So the shield maiden is one  historical example of females in a military role.

Every culture needs to be examined individually.

When talking antiquity, for the most part fighting was an aristocratic pursuit. Only those wealthy enough to afford their weapons and armour (and if wealthier still, a mount and collection of remounts) could fight. So that immediately rules out the vast majority of the population.

Moving on to particular cultures, in most settled, agrarian peoples, men did the fighting. Many practised some form of closeting of women (Greeks, Romans, etc), though again that was more relevant to the higher echelons of society, poor women had to work.

Many nomadic or mobile cultures had less qualms about women under arms, or more likely when you were a small group on the move, everyone had to be able to defend the group. Scythians were noted for a significant minority (around 20% in what is now Ukraine) of grave-finds being women. That means female lords and warleaders, not merely warriors. There are recurring accounts of Illyrian noblewomen who hunted and fought like men.

Quote from: Nexus;789956What is the deal on this? Have I been mislead/mistaken? I'm not a major history buff.

I recall reading about some ancient king whose harem was also his standing army. But the general rule is that the vast (vast vast) majority of fighters in history are men.

Women making up a significant proportion of any army was unusual enough that it was remarked upon by observers as bizarre, titillating, or monstrous. There certainly weren't any female soldiers in the armies of antiquity that we know a lot about - the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Persians. Nor in China, that I know of. In more primitive or informal warrior cultures, they seem to have cropped up now and then. But there's no reason to believe even there they were anything but a small minority.

As soon as humans had property, and thus an incentive to make sure their property was handed down to children who they fathered, women were regarded as assets that had to be guarded. They had children as soon as they were biologically fertile, and typically the more kids the better from the point of view of husbands, chiefs, and kings. So why would men let their daughters or wives go off to war, where they not only risked being impregnated by unknown men, but getting killed and lost to the tribe or nation as a breeder and mother?

The past is a foreign country. They operated in a fundamentally environment than we do, and had fundamentally different beliefs. And I find the desire on the parts of some to revise the past in order to suit modern sensibilities abhorrent.

Yeah, the recent academic brouhaha about women in historical militaries is just so much noise making by postmodernist ideologues. The vast majority of soldiers throughout history, whether professional or levy, were men. Which isn't to say women were never found on the battlefield, nor that those who were never accomplished anything noteworthy, but they were very much the exceptions that proved the rule.

Here's a pretty good video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9vcRzerT2E&list=UU-yewGHQbNFpDrGM0diZOLA) done on the subject not too long ago with a corresponding pile of source links in the info bar.

As I read it, the article linked from the OP isn't claiming that women were generally as common in fighting as men. It's saying that women fighters have often been a significant minority, like the example of 20% of the ANC resistance fighters.

Men have almost always been the strong majority of the fighters overall. I don't think this has to do with sexual dimorphism of size so much as reproduction.  A community can lose 50% of its men, and still recover within a generation as long as the women survive and can bear children.  So even if women were bigger and stronger, I think there would be cultural pressure for them to stay out of the front lines.

Quote from: Kiero;789965Moving on to particular cultures, in most settled, agrarian peoples, men did the fighting. Many practised some form of closeting of women (Greeks, Romans, etc), though again that was more relevant to the higher echelons of society, poor women had to work.

The phrasing "men did the fighting" seems oddly phrased as an absolute. The question should be more about how uncommon and/or in what circumstances women fight - not about if men did the fighting or women did as a binary. I would agree that women fighters are less common in settled, agrarian people compared to nomads - but there are still many examples of women fighting in agrarian societies, such as the Persians.

Quote from: Haffrung;789980Women making up a significant proportion of any army was unusual enough that it was remarked upon by observers as bizarre, titillating, or monstrous. There certainly weren't any female soldiers in the armies of antiquity that we know a lot about - the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Persians. Nor in China, that I know of. In more primitive or informal warrior cultures, they seem to have cropped up now and then. But there's no reason to believe even there they were anything but a small minority.

I've seen numerous references to significant women in the Persian armies. Here's one example reference (found by spontaneous web search - I don't have a primary source handy):

http://www.throneworld.com/oathofempire/en/sassanids.htm

QuoteA final remarkable aspect of Sassanian expeditions involved women. Lieu notes that at least in the earliest periods "the presence of substantial numbers of women" is noted by Roman authors. The writer Zonaras (260) said that among the fallen Iranians there were "found women also, dressed and armed like men," some taken alive. At Singara (343) there were noted women "conscripted"as "sutlers in the army." These are not noted after the middle of the 4th century.

Written evidence of female warriors does exist, pretty much from Tukydides onwards, throughout the middle ages with varying degrees of credibility. Some of those reports are likely to be exaggerated, others are more reliable. It is, for example unlikely that Viking raiders in France were accompanied by locusts with scorpion tails  (as written in at least two chronicles of those events). Medieval writers often refered to biblical themes or tropes introduced by classical writers such as Pliny's Natural History that included mythical beings such as Cynocephali (dog-headed people), Satyrs (well, you know) Blemmyes (hedless beings with thir faces on their chests) - as well as Amazons. This is most often a literary trope indicating the reader that the writer has the necessary education to know these tropes and pastiches.

However, what the more reliable sources seem to have in common is that contemporaries saw female warriors as extraordinary enough to explicitly mention their gender in these sources if they occured.

As far as I know, the excavated mass graves created after battles (Visby, Towton, Alacros) does not not include the remains of any combattant identified as female. That doesn't mean that all of the bodies have been identified correctly or that there were no female soldiers present, but it would indicate a certain rarity.

All in all, it is unlikely that there never were any female soldiers. But, they probably weren't particularly common. And we know pretty certainly that in the non-fighting force part of pre-modern armies (the classic supply train), camp followers, suppliers and traders of both gender worked to supply the troops. For late medieval or early modern mercenary units it is also common knowledge that the soldiers were accompanied by their families who traveled with the tross. So, women (and children - anti child labor notions are a more modern idea) were a part of the infrastructure to maintain a fighting force, but probably usually not a part of the fighting force itself.

How relevant the historical indicators are for a fictional setting that only uses medieval motifs and pastiches however, is a completely subjective matter. I personally think that from a roleplaying perspective, even in a strictly historical game, when it comes to player characters, female warriors of all kinds shouldn't be an issue. PCs are supposed to be extraordinary anyway.

Quote from: jhkim;789993As I read it, the article linked from the OP isn't claiming that women were generally as common in fighting as men. It's saying that women fighters have often been a significant minority, like the example of 20% of the ANC resistance fighters.

The ANC is a 20th century organization.

Quote from: jhkim;789993The phrasing "men did the fighting" seems oddly phrased as an absolute.

No more absolute than 'adults did the fighting*.' I don't see the point in qualifying every statement that doesn't cover 100 per cent of the cases.

* Actually, I'd be willing to wager a lot more boys younger than 14 have fought in battle than women.

A lot depends on where the battle is, at a walled town, women would fight along side the men; in the field, 90% male.

Regardless of historical fact, a RPG means you can have whomever and whatever the fuck you want take up arms for any reason.

I don't put any special requirements on female characters in my games.* But neither are people that do strive for some thing like verisimilitude by having them be rare and exceptional in their setting aren't being evil sexist bastards. Or at least that not damning evidence.

*I do have cultures, organizations, people and social elements that aren't 100 percent gender equal though. I confess.

Edit: Its also nice to see that "don't respond to banned posters" rule allows you to continue to hammer their point and posts along you don't quote them directly.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;790016Regardless of historical fact, a RPG means you can have whomever and whatever the fuck you want take up arms for any reason.

In a fantasy game maybe, but if you're playing an actual historical one, then not without justifications.

In my own game, I made clear to the female player in the group that she wouldn't have a free choice of origin (essentially, she couldn't be a Greek without some contortions of logic), if she wanted to play a combatant*. Fortunately "warrior princess" was a perfectly valid initial concept, so there wasn't really an issue beyond deciding exactly where she was from.

*Though in fairness, there were certain limitations on the other PCs anyway, none of them are from the lowest stratum of the social order and two of them are aristocrats, one genuine royalty.

Quote from: Nexus;789956The topic of gender in ancient armies and fighting classes seems to come up a great deal. The idea that the majority of fighters in a low tech, pre firearms societies are probably male has been labeled everything from a mistake to a practical conspiracy to promote a sexist view of women's role in history. This site for example:

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/ (http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/)

What is the deal on this? Have I been mislead/mistaken? I'm not a major history buff.

The deal is that we all have been mislead/mistaken.
The question is only how much.
Like the Viking Shieldmaidens example that assumed were male warriors, but were proven to be female warriors ... or rather migrants that had moved elsewhere.

However, as the case is with the "shieidmaidens", this is just the beginning, as there are several more cases of where archaeologists has just assumed that people buried with weapons was males.
There has even been cases of findings of obvious women buried with weapons, where it was claimed that it was a pair that was buried, but that the male parts had been destroyed, and the female bones had not.

As can be seen in this thread, people comes crawling out of the woodwork to confirm that only males existed as warriors and soldiers, when it is obvious that that was not the case.

However, some instead say that they "always" accepted that there were women warriors, just that they were a minority.
They just don't want to accept that they used to be wrong, or perhaps that they do some "damage control".

Thing is, damage control is good when it serves the truth.
The current truth as we know it is that we do not know how many has been misidentified, including how many males that has been believed to be women.

There is even the situation that proof has been destroyed when the archaeological findings has been "wrong".
Yes, destruction of evidence.
From scientists.
But they probably thought they were doing the right thing ....

Quote from: Catelf;790022As can be seen in this thread, people comes crawling out of the woodwork to confirm that only males existed as warriors and soldiers, when it is obvious that that was not the case.

Who has claimed that?

Quote from: Catelf;790022Thing is, damage control is good when it serves the truth.
The current truth as we know it is that we do not know how many has been misidentified, including how many males that has been believed to be women.

By that line of reasoning (if we can call it that), maybe half of Rome's legionnaires were 10 to 14 year olds. I mean, we don't have any proof they weren't, do we?

Quote from: Catelf;790022There is even the situation that proof has been destroyed when the archaeological findings has been "wrong".
Yes, destruction of evidence.
From scientists.
But they probably thought they were doing the right thing ....

Ah, it's a conspiracy. Got it... [backs out of room slowly].

Quote from: Warboss Squee;790016Regardless of historical fact, a RPG means you can have whomever and whatever the fuck you want take up arms for any reason.

Yep. But don't expect the whole world to represent modern ideals (unless everyone at the table is keen for that).

Quote from: Haffrung;790026Yep. But don't expect the whole world to represent modern ideals (unless everyone at the table is keen for that).

My point, you have found it. Although, I suppose I could have been more clear.  Fitional settings, do whatever revs your engine, historical? Warriors were predominately men, but there were exceptions.  Feel free to be that exception, but don't try to rewrite history to fit your narrative.

A lot of the supposed "evidence" showing female fighters in history is misleading.

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/raining-on-your-parade-about-those-women-viking-warriors/

Generally speaking, it can't be a common occurrence. Not if you want your civilization/culture/country to survive in the long run.

You need women to have babies. You can't afford to use them as soldiers. Men's role in the reproductive process isn't nearly as important or as involved.

Beyond that, what happens when your army needs to go on maternity leave? Thanks to birth control we can have mixed armies today, but what would it be like before that?

That said, some of these things go away in fantasy. I would imagine there would be an easy magical form of birth control.

I would imagine there would be a lot of half-orc women in armies, since they probably don't have a lot of marriage prospects and they would be big/strong enough to fight well.

The recent "Viking warriors were 1/2 women!" articles that went around were an astounding case of ideologically motivated illiteracy.

Quote from: Nexus;789956The topic of gender in ancient armies and fighting classes seems to come up a great deal. The idea that the majority of fighters in a low tech, pre firearms societies are probably male has been labeled everything from a mistake to a practical conspiracy to promote a sexist view of women's role in history.

Quote from: Haffrung;789997No more absolute than 'adults did the fighting*.' I don't see the point in qualifying every statement that doesn't cover 100 per cent of the cases.

* Actually, I'd be willing to wager a lot more boys younger than 14 have fought in battle than women.

The point is that I think the OP is attacking a straw man.  Nexus is arguing against the claim that the idea of majority-male fighters is a mistake or conspiracy. As far as I have seen, everyone (including the linked article) agrees that:

1) The vast majority of fighters historically have been male.
2) There have been many exceptional circumstances throughout history where women (and children) fought, which are worth note.

Quote from: jhkim;790057The point is that I think the OP is attacking a straw man.  Nexus is arguing against the claim that the idea of majority-male fighters is a mistake or conspiracy. As far as I have seen, everyone (including the linked article) agrees that:

1) The vast majority of fighters historically have been male.
2) There have been many exceptional circumstances throughout history where women (and children) fought, which are worth note.

I was asking about what the facts were from people that know something about history (more than me). I've seen it claimed that idea that majority of fighters were male called a fantasy, a lie and fabrication. That women even large groups of women acting as warriors is so common that its nothing special only their "erasure" from history makes it special.

You can go TBP and check the Exalted-Ask the Developers thread right damn now and seen allot it in the last few pages. And that sure as Hell not the first time its come up.

Quote from: jhkim;789993As I read it, the article linked from the OP isn't claiming that women were generally as common in fighting as men. It's saying that women fighters have often been a significant minority, like the example of 20% of the ANC resistance fighters.

That's a modern organization. You took something different from the article than I did. I read it as claiming the woman fighters were so historically common that, without the manipulation of the facts and their "erasure" from history it would be considered a common place and not noteworthy. . What do you consider a significant minority?

Quote from: jhkim;789994I've seen numerous references to significant women in the Persian armies. Here's one example reference (found by spontaneous web search - I don't have a primary source handy):

http://www.throneworld.com/oathofempire/en/sassanids.htm

The presence of a large number of women fighters is noted as being "remarkable" not business as usua which is what I've seen put fourth in the past. Specifically the its only revisionist and sexist history that makes the presence of woman warriors even noteworthy. That doesn't require they be present in equal numbers but close enough and common enough that wouldn't make an impression when it happens, it wouldn't remarkable, certainly.

Quote from: Haffrung;790025Who has claimed that?



By that line of reasoning (if we can call it that), maybe half of Rome's legionnaires were 10 to 14 year olds. I mean, we don't have any proof they weren't, do we?



Ah, it's a conspiracy. Got it... [backs out of room slowly].

Read back, yes, all replies, I might Edit this to show the reply or replies in particular.
EDIT:
Like this

Quote from: Haffrung;789980Women making up a significant proportion of any army was unusual enough that it was remarked upon by observers as bizarre, titillating, or monstrous. There certainly weren't any female soldiers in the armies of antiquity that we know a lot about - the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Persians. Nor in China, that I know of.

You really mean there were no females at all in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian armies back then?

I was looking for other quotes too, but they had actually formulated themselves more carefully to begin with, even if it only was other variants of "as far as I know".
So, am I guilty of a little hyperbole?
Perhaps, perhaps not.



Age is not the same as sex, but I assume you propose that roman children grew fast at that time?
Otherwise your comparison do not make sense.

conspiracy?
Actually, no.
Conspiracy is a bunch of people getting together to decide for others.
This was decisions made by people independent of each other, because it fit the expectations.

Quote from: Catelf;790074You really mean there were no females at all in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian armies back then?

Do you have any idea how chauvinistic and conservative Greek and to an even greater degree Roman mores of the time were? "Proper" Greek and Roman women were expected to be sequestered away from the world, engaged in worthy crafts and outside of the sight of men not of their immediate family.

While there would certainly have been camp followers in a Greek, Hellenistic or Roman army who were women (usually poor women and foreign women), actual Greek or Roman female warriors would have been vanishingly rare. There was no tradition for it, unlike amongst other people like the Illyrians, Scythians and others.

The only settled society that actually allowed women to train the athletic pursuits (a pretty necessary precursor for the skills a warrior needed), the Spartans, didn't let them fight.

Swear to heaven, there are so many people heavily invested in turning this into "OMG lying feminazi revisionists!!!"  No wonder countries with a large number of women in the service in wartime -- the Soviet Union in WWII being the best documented example -- are likewise so heavily invested in pretending it never happened fifteen minutes after the battlefield's quiet: we can't bring ourselves to admit that dames can fight, can we?

But that's nothing new.  For those of you who aren't history buffs, it may (or may not) surprise you that we've likewise been heavily invested in declaring other groups besides women incapable of being soldiers.  Blacks were marginalized as not having what it took for much of United States history: I'm minded of a quote from a Confederate Senator towards the end of the Civil War, when in desperation the Confederacy was debating whether or not to allow blacks into the CSA Army: "The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end.  If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong."  For over half a century the Philippines were United States soil, and for almost all of that time, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we deemed Filipinos too small and weak to serve in the US military as anything other than stewards and cooks.

Is your average woman as physically capable as your average man?  Nope.  But hell, look at me.  I'm in my mid-50s, overweight, diabetic, asthmatic and with fibromyalgia, a bad back and worsening eyesight, and I had to give up swordfighting a dozen years ago because my wrists and knees were shot.  I know a whole lot of women fitter than I am.

Beyond that, what really makes me laugh is the number of antis out there whose names are found in many a thread pissing all over "realism" arguments.  Seriously?  You think it's okay for flying dragons, for 3'8" halflings to be nearly as strong as 6' humans, for physics-warping magic, but the notion that there are women who could compete athletically with men (despite, oh, the overwhelming evidence that this is in fact so), that's what ruptures your suspension of disbelief?

Aha.

Quote from: Kiero;790081Do you have any idea how chauvinistic and conservative Greek and to an even greater degree Roman mores of the time were? "Proper" Greek and Roman women were expected to be sequestered away from the world, engaged in worthy crafts and outside of the sight of men not of their immediate family.

While there would certainly have been camp followers in a Greek, Hellenistic or Roman army who were women (usually poor women and foreign women), actual Greek or Roman female warriors would have been vanishingly rare. There was no tradition for it, unlike amongst other people like the Illyrians, Scythians and others.

The only settled society that actually allowed women to train the athletic pursuits (a pretty necessary precursor for the skills a warrior needed), the Spartans, didn't let them fight.

I have an idea, yes, but it is still a difference between "none whatsoever" and "very rare".

And that is currently the running point here:
We Do Not Know, and We Thought we Knew, but Were Wrong.
The question is How Much.

Edit:
Perhaps we even were wrong about the Spartans ... or perhaps that just is a futile wish.

I've rarely seen such a self-righteous strawman as Ravenswing's.

As to the topic, who gives a shit? Unless you're playing 'medieval flea-pits: the misery sim' do what you like.

Catelf, History moves very slowly when it comes to revising what we know in light of new evidence. I haven't been following the shield maiden issue, so no idea if this is evidence that changes what we know or not (based on what I've seen it could have any number of explanations and historians are probably join go to continue debating the relevance of the find for some time). I studied history and the way I was taught to do it was leave the conclusions you want to see at the door (so in this case, both any modern desire you might have for warrior women but also any assumptions you might have about women not being able to fight in battle) and let the evidence guide your analysis. But that is a slow process. It is one of ongoing debate within the field and one where new evidence or reexaminations of existing evidence take time to evaluate.

All that said, I don't personally care what a person does in an RPG in this respect. When it comes to a fantasy setting, I am not terribly worried about real world history. When it comes to historical settings, there are different approaches that are entirely valid. I see history more as a venue in an RPG but I don't think playing in a historical period requires a masters degree in the region and time. So I am not going to get bent out of shape if there are anachronisms in a historical campaign I am playing in. There are many genres where that is standard because the goal is to use history as canvass to have fun, not as a tool of education. There is nothing wrong with taking a light and easy approach to history in an RPG if that is what you want to do.

When I did Servants of Gaius we did try to stay faithful to the historical role of women and men. Part of this was because I didn't want to gloss over how women were treated in ancient Rome. That is also why we didn't take out slavery (that and the Roman economy and culture was built upon it). But we also said in the book that people can ignore that stuff if they wish. I see this as a decision groups need to make on their own. And I do think heeding how it makes some of your players feel isn't a bad idea (but I think GMs who ask may get surprising responses from both directions). Personally I don't want to exclude or offend anyone in my group just to prove I grasp some aspects of world history. And I am not there to teach real world history either. I just want folks to have a good time. So if players in the group are troubled because they can't play female Roman senators or generals, I will happily run Servants of Gaius where that is possible. What I have found though is many women, don't want me to gloss that aspect because doing so minimizes it (that isn't the universal response but it is one I've seen a lot of). Some issues are also still actively debated and in those instances, I think it is fair to make a decision that suits your needs.

Quote from: Ravenswing;790088Swear to heaven, there are so many people heavily invested in turning this into "OMG lying feminazi revisionists!!!"  No wonder countries with a large number of women in the service in wartime -- the Soviet Union in WWII being the best documented example -- are likewise so heavily invested in pretending it never happened fifteen minutes after the battlefield's quiet: we can't bring ourselves to admit that dames can fight, can we?

But that's nothing new.  For those of you who aren't history buffs, it may (or may not) surprise you that we've likewise been heavily invested in declaring other groups besides women incapable of being soldiers.  Blacks were marginalized as not having what it took for much of United States history: I'm minded of a quote from a Confederate Senator towards the end of the Civil War, when in desperation the Confederacy was debating whether or not to allow blacks into the CSA Army: "The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end.  If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong."  For over half a century the Philippines were United States soil, and for almost all of that time, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we deemed Filipinos too small and weak to serve in the US military as anything other than stewards and cooks.

Is your average woman as physically capable as your average man?  Nope.  But hell, look at me.  I'm in my mid-50s, overweight, diabetic, asthmatic and with fibromyalgia, a bad back and worsening eyesight, and I had to give up swordfighting a dozen years ago because my wrists and knees were shot.  I know a whole lot of women fitter than I am.

Beyond that, what really makes me laugh is the number of antis out there whose names are found in many a thread pissing all over "realism" arguments.  Seriously?  You think it's okay for flying dragons, for 3'8" halflings to be nearly as strong as 6' humans, for physics-warping magic, but the notion that there are women who could compete athletically with men (despite, oh, the overwhelming evidence that this is in fact so), that's what ruptures your suspension of disbelief?

Aha.

I'm not a history buff but I'm fairly sure the Soviet Union wasn't a pre industrial, pre firearms society.  Which was the topic. No one that I've seen has made any claims about modern militaries or warfare. Nor has anyone made any claims that "Girls Can't Fight!" but that historically, female fighters were more rare than some would have you believe.

I could be wrong.

I'm also pretty sure that many posters have said its fine to change or ignore gender issues in fantasy since they're, well, fantasy. I was asking about and interested in history.

But don't let little things like what the topic actually was and what the people involve actually that knock you off the high horse you've climbed on.

Quote from: One Horse Town;790090I've rarely seen such a self-righteous strawman as Ravenswing's.

As to the topic, who gives a shit? Unless you're playing 'medieval flea-pits: the misery sim' do what you like.

Ravenswing isn't the strawman here.
He points out the strawmen that other ones uses.

Quote from: Catelf;790093Ravenswing isn't the strawman here.
He points out the strawmen that other ones uses.

His whole post was attacking a premise that people on this thread weren't presenting. You work it out.

Quote from: One Horse Town;790090I've rarely seen such a self-righteous strawman as Ravenswing's.

As to the topic, who gives a shit?

Obviously I do in part due to curiosity, partly if I ever do what want to run a historical setting or history based event in another genre or a setting with higher degree of verisimilitude than I normally strive for. I figured this was a place I could ask the question with being pilloried for daring to even ask and get viewpoints from more than one side. Rough as this place is, its pretty open to discussions and its a general RPG forum. The others I'm on more specialized.

Quote from: Catelf;790089I have an idea, yes, but it is still a difference between "none whatsoever" and "very rare".

Do you understand how social institutions work? How powerfully conformist most ancient societies were?

Women were not even allowed into a gymnasium in ancient Greece. Period. They could not vote. Period. So for all practical purposes, they were not genuine citizens. How would a female warrior even train? Where would she get her armour and weapons from?

And another angle: Why in god's name would a woman want to join the citizen army? In ancient Greece, an unmarried woman out in public at the market was half-way to being a whore. A married woman was the property of her husband. Do you have any notion of what it would mean to defy those norms in a society where family and clan meant everything? Where a husband or father could beat his wife or daughter with the righteous sanction of all civil and religious authorities?

As has been pointed out, Sparta had by far the more liberal attitude towards women among Greek polities. And yet even in Sparta, which was forever desperately short of soldiers to carry out its wars and guard against helot uprising, women were not armed to fight.

Furthermore, almost all pre-modern armies were roving rape gangs. 'Camp-followers' is a euphemism for women who prostituted themselves to soldiers in return for food. After battle, these armies raped anything that moved. Old women, girls, boys. Why would a woman voluntarily put herself in such an environment? How could she protect herself?

The whole notion of pre-industrial women becoming soldiers in any kind of numbers is rattle-brained, and only betrays the lack of understanding of human history and nature on the part of the fools making the claim. The sad thing is most people today are so profoundly ignorant of history that these claims find traction among the naive and ideologically-blinkered.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;790091-snip-

This might surprise you, but I agree with you entirely from what I understand, and I seem to understand it all(at least this time).

All one really can do when one aims to make a historical game is to follow the knowledge that one knows, and assume that it is at least correct enough.

And knowledge within the sciences, including archaeology, goes slow indeed, but occasionally they do seem to take leaps, and this thing with sorting out misidentifications might prove to be a leap, or not.
It is at least clear that it is a small step.

And indeed, rpgs in fictive worlds is indeed in itself fiction/fantasy that do not have to be realistic at all.

Quote from: Haffrung;790096Do you understand how social institutions work? How powerfully conformist most ancient societies were?

And you say that you do?
Did you live at that time?
You know what history and archaeology tells you to, and some of that has been outright lying.
It may not be by much, but the point still stands:
Your information is partially wrong.

Quote from: One Horse Town;790094His whole post was attacking a premise that people on this thread weren't presenting. You work it out.

You seem to have a point.

But even though the particular strawman that Ravenswing put up hasn't shown up here, it do look like one that could have.

His main mistake was using a historically modern example, and thinking that would work.
One could say that he has a good point anyway, despite the seeming bad example:
The point is that he shows that there has been warring women in modern times, and the following conclusion that it is very possible that warring women has existed in all cultures, one way or another, despite how "allowed" they were.

I think you may be arguing against an extreme no one is putting fourth. That at some point(s) in the hundreds of years of Greek and Roman history that some women did fight is pretty certain. Weren't their female gladiators at some point?

But these women were probably not a regular part of the army or a standard of military forces. That seems to be very rare.

Quote from: Ravenswing;790088Swear to heaven, there are so many people heavily invested in turning this into "OMG lying feminazi revisionists!!!" No wonder countries with a large number of women in the service in wartime -- the Soviet Union in WWII being the best documented example -- are likewise so heavily invested in pretending it never happened fifteen minutes after the battlefield's quiet: we can't bring ourselves to admit that dames can fight, can we?

The modern era is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Flying planes, crewing ships, driving tanks, firing guns are all gender-neutral activities that don't require any of the same physical attributes than wearing harness and carrying your weapons around to fight someone else up close does.

Quote from: Ravenswing;790088Is your average woman as physically capable as your average man?  Nope.  But hell, look at me.  I'm in my mid-50s, overweight, diabetic, asthmatic and with fibromyalgia, a bad back and worsening eyesight, and I had to give up swordfighting a dozen years ago because my wrists and knees were shot.  I know a whole lot of women fitter than I am.

I'm in my mid-30s, athletic, fit, with no health conditions whatsoever; I still run, go to the gym and train full contact martial arts. I'm invariably the fittest person in the room almost regardless of context. There's a whole lot of men who aren't as fit as I am, never mind women.

Quote from: Ravenswing;790088Beyond that, what really makes me laugh is the number of antis out there whose names are found in many a thread pissing all over "realism" arguments.  Seriously?  You think it's okay for flying dragons, for 3'8" halflings to be nearly as strong as 6' humans, for physics-warping magic, but the notion that there are women who could compete athletically with men (despite, oh, the overwhelming evidence that this is in fact so), that's what ruptures your suspension of disbelief?

Aha.

Not everyone is playing fantasy. And as I've already said, there are plenty of means to get female combatant characters in a strictly historical game, you just don't have a free reign to declare your origin. Not all the different from the low likelihood that you could be a trained warrior if you were poor.

Quote from: Catelf;790089I have an idea, yes, but it is still a difference between "none whatsoever" and "very rare".

And that is currently the running point here:
We Do Not Know, and We Thought we Knew, but Were Wrong.
The question is How Much.

Edit:
Perhaps we even were wrong about the Spartans ... or perhaps that just is a futile wish.

There is no functional difference between them. As I said, I've run a historical game (no magic, monsters or dungeons), and it wasn't all that difficult to have female combatant PCs and NPCs. They just couldn't be Greek (or Roman/Latin), because that strained credulity too far.

Sure you could probably come up with an explanation for a single character who was a Greek woman trained in the gymnasium somehow (or more likely trained at home, in secret), but we're talking about an extremely rare exception to the general rule. You wouldn't have an entire unit of female hoplites.

As to the Spartans, along with the Athenians they are the Greek society we know most about. I'd suggest you do some additional reading into how abhorrent their society and mores were before you get any ideas about how liberal they might be with regards to women under arms. There's only one reason they were keen on women exercising: because it made them healthier receptacles for bearing children.

Quote from: Haffrung;790096Do you understand how social institutions work? How powerfully conformist most ancient societies were?

Women were not even allowed into a gymnasium in ancient Greece. Period. They could not vote. Period. So for all practical purposes, they were not genuine citizens. How would a female warrior even train? Where would she get her armour and weapons from?

And another angle: Why in god's name would a woman want to join the citizen army? In ancient Greece, an unmarried woman out in public at the market was half-way to being a whore. A married woman was the property of her husband. Do you have any notion of what it would mean to defy those norms in a society where family and clan meant everything? Where a husband or father could beat his wife or daughter with the righteous sanction of all civil and religious authorities?

As has been pointed out, Sparta had by far the more liberal attitude towards women among Greek polities. And yet even in Sparta, which was forever desperately short of soldiers to carry out its wars and guard against helot uprising, women were not armed to fight.

Furthermore, almost all pre-modern armies were roving rape gangs. 'Camp-followers' is a euphemism for women who prostituted themselves to soldiers in return for food. After battle, these armies raped anything that moved. Old women, girls, boys. Why would a woman voluntarily put herself in such an environment? How could she protect herself?

The whole notion of pre-industrial women becoming soldiers in any kind of numbers is rattle-brained, and only betrays the lack of understanding of human history and nature on the part of the fools making the claim. The sad thing is most people today are so profoundly ignorant of history that these claims find traction among the naive and ideologically-blinkered.

Precisely. I can only assume anyone who starts making claims about what "might have been possible" in Greek and Roman society is pretty ignorant about what they were like. To the best of our knowledge - bearing in mind the alternative to our "best knowledge" is knowing nothing at all about them.

Quote from: Kiero;790107There is no functional difference between them. As I said, I've run a historical game (no magic, monsters or dungeons), and it wasn't all that difficult to have female combatant PCs and NPCs. They just couldn't be Greek (or Roman/Latin), because that strained credulity too far.

Yes, there is a notable difference.

One allows up to 1%, and another do not even allow up to 0.1 %
Roughly.

Yes, this number is "pulled out of my ass" in a manner of speaking, but yet again, you go on assumptions you think was 100% correct, and even as it is pointed out that they weren't, you still refer to them as if they were.

Quote from: Nexus;790106I think you may be arguing against an extreme no one is putting fourth. That at some point(s) in the hundreds of years of Greek and Roman history that some women did fight is pretty certain. Weren't their female gladiators at some point?

But these women were probably not a regular part of the army or a standard of military forces. That seems to be very rare.

I don't know who you were referring to with this, but i'll respond anyway.

I'm arguing against things you call extremes now, but even 20 years ago people "knew" there were no female gladiators.
They were wrong, and were proven wrong.
Then, they admitted they were wrong, but instead said that female gladiators were like one in a thousand or less.
Then it was pointed out that female gladiators may have been at least a bit more common, and there were a conversation like this again.

Well, perhaps it is wrong to fight a fight that one has already won, but to some not even the original fight was fought.
...And some may even take the whole fight again just out of habit.
(See Ravenwing's strawman-examples.)

Quote from: Catelf;790113Yes, there is a notable difference.

One allows up to 1%, and another do not even allow up to 0.1 %
Roughly.

Yes, this number is "pulled out of my ass" in a manner of speaking, but yet again, you go on assumptions you think was 100% correct, and even as it is pointed out that they weren't, you still refer to them as if they were.

So what? As a GM I am under no obligation to allow absolutely any character concept a player might come up with. If we're playing a game set in and around the Mediterranean in 300BC, you can play a female combatant or a Greek, not both.

Congratulations, this thread made me into an American teenage girl, because after the Red Army drop in this thread, I don't even.

Quote from: Kiero;790081Do you have any idea how chauvinistic and conservative Greek and to an even greater degree Roman mores of the time were? "Proper" Greek and Roman women were expected to be sequestered away from the world, engaged in worthy crafts and outside of the sight of men not of their immediate family.

Ah yes, classical Athens, the "birthplace" of democracy, unless you were a woman, in which case more Taliban than the Taliban.

Quote from: Kiero;790121So what? As a GM I am under no obligation to allow absolutely any character concept a player might come up with. If we're playing a game set in and around the Mediterranean in 300BC, you can play a female combatant or a Greek, not both.

Exactly!
It do not affect how you GM at all, this is about how OP, Nexus, may or may not design his historical setting later if he will do any.

Quote from: Rincewind1;790127Congratulations, this thread made me into an American teenage girl, because after the Red Army drop in this thread, I don't even.

Congratulations indeed, you'll soon notice that wearing a dress do not turn you into a girl, Rincewind.
:D

Quote from: Nexus;789956The topic of gender in ancient armies and fighting classes seems to come up a great deal. The idea that the majority of fighters in a low tech, pre firearms societies are probably male has been labeled everything from a mistake to a practical conspiracy to promote a sexist view of women's role in history. This site for example:

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/ (http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/)

What is the deal on this? Have I been mislead/mistaken? I'm not a major history buff.

Selection pressures have favored mostly-male armies because number of females sets the limit on tribal growth: One male can contribute sperm to many offspring, but a female can bear only so many at a time. That doesn't really matter much to a nation-state in which the army makes up a  tiny fraction of the population, but tradition resists change.

EDIT: Pre-cultural human nature also resists change. Taken in the aggregate,  there are typical differences in  the predispositions of girls  and boys.

Some people have said that  women are too fierce. I can see reasons in principle and some anecdotal evidence that women might tend to be more uncompromising and relentless, but presumably armies are somewhat selective and also indoctrinate; any average sex difference  is probably negligible.  Certainly men  have made a record of atrocities not easily surpassed.

Quote from: Nexus;789956The topic of gender in ancient armies and fighting classes seems to come up a great deal. The idea that the majority of fighters in a low tech, pre firearms societies are probably male has been labeled everything from a mistake to a practical conspiracy to promote a sexist view of women's role in history. This site for example:

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/ (http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/)

What is the deal on this? Have I been mislead/mistaken? I'm not a major history buff.

People have different opinions.

Classical authors wrote about women fighting - the Celts and Scythians had them, for example. Legends and folk tales have examples of women fighting in many different cultures. Sometimes they are unusual but accepted, sometimes they dress up as men to fight. Greek Myth has a number of female deities who were incredibly martial, for example. Turkic legends have examples of female batyrs, or heroes, who were excellent horse bowwomen. Medieval women fought alongside men in sieges, throwing things from the battlements and operating crossbows and siege machinery. When the knights were away, the women often commanded defence of castles.

Actual evidence is probably rarer, but there are a number of women warriors from various nomadic graves on the Eurasian Steppe. Joan of Arc was a good example of a woman who fought.

In more recent times, the Zulus had women soldiers - remember Shaka Zulu or the film The Naked Prey. The Soviets had women fighting alongside men in WWII.

A Google search should throw up even more.

Sure, they were not common, but women have fought in many battles in the past.

Did Joan of Arc literally fight, or was she strictly a leader?

The Dahomey mino regiment was raised in the musket era, which was more gruelling than carrying an assault carbine.

Quote from: Phillip;790184Did Joan of Arc literally fight, or was she strictly a leader?

I think she fought but I'm not sure.

Quote from: Nexus;790187I think she fought but I'm not sure.

Leaders in that time period generally fought.

Quote from: dragoner;790203Leaders in that time period generally fought.

I took the question to mean "Did she engage in battle or was she a figurehead/morale object"

Quote from: Nexus;790205I took the question to mean "Did she engage in battle or was she a figurehead/morale object"

The question means, did she try to do bodily harm to some other soldier who was trying to do unto her? Did she take a whack at anyone with sword or lance? By literal, I am distinguishing the bloody work from command-level activity. I would not say, for instance, that recent American presidents "fought" simply because they were commanders in chief.

Quote from: Phillip;790209The question means, did she try to do bodily harm to some other soldier who was trying to do unto her? Did she take a whack at anyone with sword or lance? By literal, I am distinguishing the bloody work from command-level activity. I would not say, for instance, that recent American presidents "fought" simply because they were commanders in chief.

Yes, that's what I thought.

Quote from: Nexus;790205I took the question to mean "Did she engage in battle or was she a figurehead/morale object"

From my impression, she both engaged in battle and was a figurehead, but I may be wrong.

Quote from: Nexus;790205I took the question to mean "Did she engage in battle or was she a figurehead/morale object"

Yes. Engaged in battle, afaik.

Quote from: soltakss;790182People have different opinions.

Classical authors wrote about women fighting - the Celts and Scythians had them, for example. Legends and folk tales have examples of women fighting in many different cultures. Sometimes they are unusual but accepted, sometimes they dress up as men to fight. Greek Myth has a number of female deities who were incredibly martial, for example. Turkic legends have examples of female batyrs, or heroes, who were excellent horse bowwomen. Medieval women fought alongside men in sieges, throwing things from the battlements and operating crossbows and siege machinery. When the knights were away, the women often commanded defence of castles.

Actual evidence is probably rarer, but there are a number of women warriors from various nomadic graves on the Eurasian Steppe. Joan of Arc was a good example of a woman who fought.

In more recent times, the Zulus had women soldiers - remember Shaka Zulu or the film The Naked Prey. The Soviets had women fighting alongside men in WWII.

A Google search should throw up even more.

Sure, they were not common, but women have fought in many battles in the past.

Greeks certainly had female deities who were warriors, but there was no corresponding tradition of women emulating Athena or Artemis.

Non-Greeks and those on the very periphery of the Greek world did, though. Some very close; I mentioned the Illyrians who were quite Hellenised, but had martial traditions amongst aristocratic women. Alexander the Great's half-sister Kynane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynane) was a warrior and general, daughter of a literal warrior-princess who trained her own daughter to fight and lead armies.

Quote from: jhkim;789993Men have almost always been the strong majority of the fighters overall. I don't think this has to do with sexual dimorphism of size so much as reproduction.  A community can lose 50% of its men, and still recover within a generation as long as the women survive and can bear children.  So even if women were bigger and stronger, I think there would be cultural pressure for them to stay out of the front lines.

In a monogamous society men are just as necessary as women. The 1914-1918 war in Europe left millions of women who would never marry. The men who would have married them were dead.

Conversely, women can (and historically often did) typically bear around 8 children each per generation, so if there is a shortage of people the population can recover very rapidly. World War 1 didn't threaten to depopulate Europe. The Black Death killed up to 50% or so indiscriminately, some marginal areas depopulated but populations generally recovered fairly quickly.

The proposition stated in the OP, that the the majority of fighters in ancient armies were male, is beyond reasonable doubt. Even the Dahomey regiment I mentioned  made up at most a third of the army.

That's no reason to deny the historical exceptions. It's bogglingly irrelevant to a world of witches, unicorns and dragons, or one in which as a rule sovereigns are  barbarians from the common or slave class who have come into a pile of gold and a magic mashie with a higher IQ and more charisma than the bearer.

Quote from: JeremyR;790029A lot of the supposed "evidence" showing female fighters in history is misleading.

http://www.missedinhistory.com/blog/raining-on-your-parade-about-those-women-viking-warriors/

Generally speaking, it can't be a common occurrence. Not if you want your civilization/culture/country to survive in the long run.

You need women to have babies. You can't afford to use them as soldiers. Men's role in the reproductive process isn't nearly as important or as involved.

Beyond that, what happens when your army needs to go on maternity leave? Thanks to birth control we can have mixed armies today, but what would it be like before that?

That said, some of these things go away in fantasy. I would imagine there would be an easy magical form of birth control.

I would imagine there would be a lot of half-orc women in armies, since they probably don't have a lot of marriage prospects and they would be big/strong enough to fight well.

From what we've seen in the 20th century, mixed-sex combat units don't work well - arguably* more for the effect the women have on the men than vice versa. Segregated female units can work, but most women aren't terribly keen on fighting even where they (as a sex) are rather good at certain speciailties, sniper for instance. Thinking about half-orcs, lone female warriors certainly seem plausible for many settings. If half-orcs are common then units composed entirely of female half-orcs might show up in organised armies. Cultural norms may be able to overcome the problems of integrated units - treating women as honorary men, say, so that the male soldiers no longer 'see' them as female. And of course in hierarchic states, top-down political commandments can force integration regardless of effectiveness... :D

*Van Creveld,  The Transformation of War, 1991.

Quote from: Catelf;790074You really mean there were no females at all in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian armies back then?

There certainly were no (openly female) women in Greek or Roman armies, no. I can't speak to Egypt or Persia but I've not seen any claims of female warriors in Egypt, it seems unlikely. The early Persians may have had some female fighters; like the Scythians they were originally Aryan nomads and their culture was probably more egalitarian than the Greeks & Romans. We certainly know that Queen Artemisia commanded her own ship in battle at Salamis.

I can imagine the notably-egalitarian Etruscans allowing female fighters, but there is no evidence that I know of of this; the Roman tales of Horatio & co fighting the Etruscans (which predate actual written Roman history) don't mention any. Generally you have to go to northern and eastern Europe to find any women who fight, and then only rarely.

Quote from: S'mon;790218In a monogamous society men are just as necessary as women. The 1914-1918 war in Europe left millions of women who would never marry. The men who would have married them were dead.

Conversely, women can (and historically often did) typically bear around 8 children each per generation, so if there is a shortage of people the population can recover very rapidly. World War 1 didn't threaten to depopulate Europe. The Black Death killed up to 50% or so indiscriminately, some marginal areas depopulated but populations generally recovered fairly quickly.

You miss the point more than once.

Monogamous societies don't flourish where there are too few men; the minds must be born before culture can inhabit them! Women in agricultural societies bore 8 children to get 3 who lived. "Depopulation of Europe"  means squat to people, less to genes. It's reduction of your kin that counts, when that's likely to be followed by the remainder getting killed (perhaps eaten) by a more numerous neighboring tribe.

It's not, "hey, some of these are alive, too." It's which ones are more often alive to reproduce. And not just in the blink of an eye that is history (never mind recent history), but generations spanning millions of years.

Quote from: Nexus;790205I took the question to mean "Did she engage in battle or was she a figurehead/morale object"

There's no evidence that she personally hit anyone with a weapon. She did lead soldiers in battle.

Quote from: Phillip;790228You miss the point more than once.

Monogamous societies don't flourish where there are too few men; the minds must be born before culture can inhabit them! Women in agricultural societies bore 8 children to get 3 who lived.

I could talk about disease burden, fertility limitation, and famine. Greg Clark has some good stuff in A Farewell to Alms if you're interested. But you don't seem very bright so I'll leave it.

Quote from: S'mon;790233I could talk about disease burden, fertility limitation, and famine. Greg Clark has some good stuff in A Farewell to Alms if you're interested. But you don't seem very bright so I'll leave it.

I'm not very bright, eh? Put up or shut up, genius who has no actual argument and so must resort to poo-flinging. Are you smart enough actually to learn and think, or just enough to drop titles of books?

Quote from: S'mon;790221From what we've seen in the 20th century, mixed-sex combat units don't work well - arguably* more for the effect the women have on the men than vice versa.

Could you elaborate on this?

Quote from: S'mon;790225There certainly were no (openly female) women in Greek or Roman armies, no. I can't speak to Egypt or Persia but I've not seen any claims of female warriors in Egypt, it seems unlikely. The early Persians may have had some female fighters; like the Scythians they were originally Aryan nomads and their culture was probably more egalitarian than the Greeks & Romans. We certainly know that Queen Artemisia commanded her own ship in battle at Salamis.

I can imagine the notably-egalitarian Etruscans allowing female fighters, but there is no evidence that I know of of this; the Roman tales of Horatio & co fighting the Etruscans (which predate actual written Roman history) don't mention any. Generally you have to go to northern and eastern Europe to find any women who fight, and then only rarely.

I've heard of harem guards who were women in the Persian empire, with every indication they weren't just an affectation but real warriors.

Wasn't Artemisia a Carian (native of southern Anatolia), rather than Persian?

I was thinking about the Etruscans too, I wouldn't have been surprised if there were female sea captains amongst them.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;790247Could you elaborate on this?

There's a good discussion of the Israeli experience in The Transformation of War by Van Creveld (one of the leading modern military thinkers). Basically the problem is that male warriors typically want to form male-only Bruderbonds/Brotherhoods, and have sex with women. Putting women in the combat unit disrupts the Bruderbond and damages cohesion. The men also try to protect the women (connected to wanting to have sex with them, at least abstractly), which damages combat effectiveness directly and was the main reason given for the Israelis taking women out of integrated combat units.
However, it seems there is a notable exception re guerilla armies, from the French Resistance to FARC. It seems that when fighting much more powerful enemies, male psychology operates differently. Normally, having female combat soldiers threatens the male warrior's self-conception of heroic manliness. But when the threat is sufficiently overwhelming this self-conception becomes unshakable. Likewise in existential war, it may work to put women in combat (eg the Soviets using women in WW2, or again the early Israeli experience), but when the war is over the demand is to kick the women out again. The implication is that if the FARC were ever to defeat the Columbian government and become the new Columbian State, its female fighters would be disarmed/relegated.

Quote from: Kiero;790294Wasn't Artemisia a Carian (native of southern Anatolia), rather than Persian?

Yeah, she was a vassal monarch of the Persian empire.

We should also face the uncomfortable truth that until the predominance of firearms women are less effective warriors than men.
Exceptional women are just that, exceptional.

I'm not sure I trust the argument that the main reason women weren't soldiers because they mostly weren't good at it, history is full of armies of absolutely crap soldiers but very few made up of many women.

And in any case there are plenty of roles in which women would at least in theory be superior cavalry scouts for example (lower body weight = less burden on the horse, no real need for much upper body strength) but you still don't find women in those positions or other positions in which eating less due to being smaller should be an advantage (with how supply-constrained pre-modern armies generally were).

In my mind (as I've said in previous threads) it's what a massive time sink child bearing is. With modern birth rates we don't think about it much but if you have, say, six kids that takes an ENORMOUS bite out of your productive life and leaves you with little time for everything else when you're of military age. Then that allows men to dominate a lot of things since they simple have more time for everything else and that feeds into itself and gets self-reinforcing as male dominance establishes itself in so many fields. Sure upper body strength is important to, but I really don't think it's the whole story.

The hilarious thing about this thread is the people who know something about history are pointing out how oppressively patriarchal most pre-modern societies were, and the Womyn Warriors crowd are trying to deny it.

Quote from: Daztur;790413I'm not sure I trust the argument that the main reason women weren't soldiers because they mostly weren't good at it, history is full of armies of absolutely crap soldiers but very few made up of many women.

And in any case there are plenty of roles in which women would at least in theory be superior cavalry scouts for example (lower body weight = less burden on the horse, no real need for much upper body strength) but you still don't find women in those positions or other positions in which eating less due to being smaller should be an advantage (with how supply-constrained pre-modern armies generally were).

In my mind (as I've said in previous threads) it's what a massive time sink child bearing is. With modern birth rates we don't think about it much but if you have, say, six kids that takes an ENORMOUS bite out of your productive life and leaves you with little time for everything else when you're of military age. Then that allows men to dominate a lot of things since they simple have more time for everything else and that feeds into itself and gets self-reinforcing as male dominance establishes itself in so many fields. Sure upper body strength is important to, but I really don't think it's the whole story.

Agreed. The physically more powerful thing, while true, is a red herring. Women weren't warriors for the simple reason that their role in society didn't afford them the freedom to be warriors. They pretty much became baby machines as soon as their bodies were capable of bearing children. And the amount of toil involved in raising children, preparing food, etc. was staggering. After their child-bearing years, they were too worn out to do much besides more drudgery. And it's not as though they had any choice in whether they would marry or have children in the first place.

I assume that the handful of women were were warriors in those primitive or unsettled peoples where they have been cited were infertile.

Quote from: Daztur;790413I'm not sure I trust the argument that the main reason women weren't soldiers because they mostly weren't good at it, history is full of armies of absolutely crap soldiers but very few made up of many women.

Well, the physical differences between physically fit men and women are greater than nerds tend to realise, and greater than Liberal nerds want to realise. The upper body strength of men who've gone through physical training is apparently around twice that of women who've done the same, a very big difference. Were it not for females having higher body fat, humans would be the most sexually dimorphous of all the great apes. Firearms make little difference as long as soldiers are expected to carry heavy packs and engage in activity that is physically gruelling and requires a lot of strength - and modern American combat troops are expected to have more, not less, strength and stamina than in the past.

With all that, I think the main difference is psychological, not physical. Most women aren't interested in fighting and don't want to fight. Again this is something that people raised on Hollywood movies of recent decades may have trouble with. It's perhaps particularly hard for nerds to grasp, since nerdish men and women tend to share similar interests in butt-kicking female protagonists* and such. But there is a reason why lots of women like something like Twilight, with its essentially passive heroine - and it's not 'false consciousness' or suchlike.

*I've met a few 'butt-kicking babe' types IRL, in the army & police - I'd have to confess to sharing this interest. :D

Quote from: Daztur;790413I'm not sure I trust the argument that the main reason women weren't soldiers because they mostly weren't good at it, history is full of armies of absolutely crap soldiers but very few made up of many women.

And in any case there are plenty of roles in which women would at least in theory be superior cavalry scouts for example (lower body weight = less burden on the horse, no real need for much upper body strength) but you still don't find women in those positions or other positions in which eating less due to being smaller should be an advantage (with how supply-constrained pre-modern armies generally were).

In my mind (as I've said in previous threads) it's what a massive time sink child bearing is. With modern birth rates we don't think about it much but if you have, say, six kids that takes an ENORMOUS bite out of your productive life and leaves you with little time for everything else when you're of military age. Then that allows men to dominate a lot of things since they simple have more time for everything else and that feeds into itself and gets self-reinforcing as male dominance establishes itself in so many fields. Sure upper body strength is important to, but I really don't think it's the whole story.

But... you are looking at some quite narrow specific examples.
people talking about 6 or 7 children. That wasn't the state in all societies. Take Japan. So in medieval japan female samurai were taught to fight combine that with the fact that if your husband died you were not allowed to remarry and you would have thought in a warlike kingdom like Japan at this time there would be plenty of well trained non-sexual women who could be used in battle but they never ever were. Women could protect their homes as a last resort but that was it. So you have that sexual imbalance largely due to patriarchy blah blah, but the patriarchy is there because men can physically dominate women.

If you look across the world from societies with low birthrate, to societies with high birth rates. If you look from The American plains to the Deserts of the Sahara, to the Arctic tundra to the land of Nippon women never constituted regular troops. If we accept that in all political systems that homo sapiens have ever devised up to and so far including those that exist after the adoption of firearms as the main way to execute war women have never made up substantial percentages of regular armies perhaps we need to conclude that it's for reasons other than politics. Maybe there is after all some truth in the idea that men solve problems through violence and women solve problems through discussion, maybe men are after all from Mars and women from Venus ?

Quote from: Daztur;790413In my mind (as I've said in previous threads) it's what a massive time sink child bearing is. With modern birth rates we don't think about it much but if you have, say, six kids that takes an ENORMOUS bite out of your productive life and leaves you with little time for everything else when you're of military age.

This isn't exactly right, as I've said. Looking at Europe, for most of European history large numbers of women never married, never had sex (almost everyone having sex is a 20th century thing), never had children. The same for men. Overpopulation was a much bigger threat than lack of children - this is generally true of all agricultural societies. Looking at medieval Europe, most women married, if at all, in their mid twenties, then had their six-eight children. From what we can tell, the majority of children in the medieval European rural environment typically survived to adulthood - urban centres were different and certainly by the sixteenth century the growing towns & cities were massive population sinks. But several of those children would never marry and have children themselves.

So, women could have fought - for ten years of adulthood before marriage, or for longer if they never married at all. Women are physically weaker, and this makes a big difference in effectiveness with certain kinds of weapons. Lack of upper body strength has a disproportionate impact on what equipment and supplies can be carried.

But the main reason for the lack of female fighters in history is psychology:

1. Most women don't want to fight - and this is related to the fact that women bear children and are less evolutionarily expendable than men - basically your genes don't want you to fight if on balance it harms their chances of propagating.
2. Most men who are warriors don't want women to fight. Again, there seem to be evo-psych reasons for this. Men in combat form tightly-knit single-sex 'Bruderbond' groups, rather like some other great apes do, and the presence of women as fellow combatants seems to disrupt this.

Quote from: Haffrung;790420The hilarious thing about this thread is the people who know something about history are pointing out how oppressively patriarchal most pre-modern societies were, and the Womyn Warriors crowd are trying to deny it.

Agreed. The physically more powerful thing, while true, is a red herring. Women weren't warriors for the simple reason that their role in society didn't afford them the freedom to be warriors. They pretty much became baby machines as soon as their bodies were capable of bearing children. And the amount of toil involved in raising children, preparing food, etc. was staggering. After their child-bearing years, they were too worn out to do much besides more drudgery. And it's not as though they had any choice in whether they would marry or have children in the first place.

I assume that the handful of women were were warriors in those primitive or unsettled peoples where they have been cited were infertile.

It is not the case that women always and everywhere were forced into marriage and childbearing as soon as they were capable of it. That is perhaps more or less true of some societies such as the Classical Mediterranean world, the Arab Middle East, China and Japan, and possibly India (but India is too diverse to allow for much generalisation). It does not seem generally true of northern Europe and we have no reason to think it was true among the Scythians and other Indo-European/Aryan horse nomads (from whom the Northern European milk-drinking cultures of the Germans & many Celts are primarily* descended). A woman warrior - say a Scythian archer - doesn't need to be infertile, if she's not having sex.

*Lots of fascinating genetics data coming out recently, showing a threefold origin of modern Europeans - the original post-Ice Age hunter gatherers were largely replaced by Levantine/Anatolian farmers, who in turn were largely replaced in most of Europe by horse & cart nomads from north of the Caucasus. This final group seem to correspond to the northern branch of the Indo-European language speakers, the southern branch being the 'Aryans' after whom modern Iran is named - who invaded India and were the ancestors of the Persians.

Quote from: jibbajibba;790441Maybe there is after all some truth in the idea that men solve problems through violence and women solve problems through discussion, maybe men are after all from Mars and women from Venus ?

The evo-psych argument is that violent men on average improve their mating opportunities and thus their genes' chance to reproduce, while violent women on average lower their genes' chance to reproduce, so evolution selects for violent men and non-violent women.

Quote from: jibbajibba;790408We should also face the uncomfortable truth that until the predominance of firearms women are less effective warriors than men.
Exceptional women are just that, exceptional.

Except that crowd hates the concept of exceptionalism, because it means not everybody (them) is fucking special.

Quote from: S'mon;790440Well, the physical differences between physically fit men and women are greater than nerds tend to realise, and greater than Liberal nerds want to realise. The upper body strength of men who've gone through physical training is apparently around twice that of women who've done the same, a very big difference.

*I've met a few 'butt-kicking babe' types IRL, in the army & police - I'd have to confess to sharing this interest. :D

I'd agree with this. I've been a PT, I work as a Phys Ed teacher and I see the difference between sex abilities daily.

You make allowance for it and program differently in both cases. There are definitely outliers in both cases (girls who will beat 80% of the boys but the female outliers are still nowwhere near the male outliers limits). And most boys would crush most girls in most physical contests. It's really not even close in practice across any wide range of strength, agility or stamina based contests. But I suppose large scale combat is less about individual contests and more about numbers, equipment, circumstance and tactics perhaps.

It still baffles me that people get so offended over 1e's gender maxes (not that I play such rules because of aforesaid outliers and.. GAME).

Having said that I still buy the "1 sex has to carry and produce the babies; the other doesn't" argument strongest. Your society can survive losing % of it's men, the rest can take up the male side of the reproductive side just fine. But if you regularly lose a significant % of women then your society and pool of potential warriors will shrink. That's a losing long term scenario.

Quote from: S'mon;790367However, it seems there is a notable exception re guerilla armies, from the French Resistance to FARC. It seems that when fighting much more powerful enemies, male psychology operates differently. Normally, having female combat soldiers threatens the male warrior's self-conception of heroic manliness. But when the threat is sufficiently overwhelming this self-conception becomes unshakable. Likewise in existential war, it may work to put women in combat (eg the Soviets using women in WW2, or again the early Israeli experience), but when the war is over the demand is to kick the women out again. The implication is that if the FARC were ever to defeat the Columbian government and become the new Columbian State, its female fighters would be disarmed/relegated.

That makes sense to me, and it also fits with the example of ANC from the link in the OP. However, a few thoughts on this:  
(1) Male psychology isn't the same for all cultures. Different historical cultures have given different roles and rights to women and men.
(2) This is roughly the same argument used against having gays in the military - that it threatens manliness. However, there have been historical societies where homosexuality in the military is accepted and successful.
(3) Facing an overwhelming enemy with a guerilla resistance isn't a uniquely modern circumstance. There are many conflicts in pre-modern eras that have been similar.

Quote from: Nexus;790060That's a modern organization. You took something different from the article than I did. I read it as claiming the woman fighters were so historically common that, without the manipulation of the facts and their "erasure" from history it would be considered a common place and not noteworthy. . What do you consider a significant minority?

That sounds like how I interpreted the article, but that doesn't imply that the author thinks women were in equal numbers in combat - just that they existed and took part - and in particular that 20% of ANC fighters being female wasn't unprecedented. I don't have any particular percentage in mind, but from the article, I pictured numbers ranging from 0.5% to 5% being significant. Often this would be less (especially formal armies on the march), but there would be many cases resistance forces, informal fighters, and defending of homes.

Quote from: Haffrung;790420Women weren't warriors for the simple reason that their role in society didn't afford them the freedom to be warriors. They pretty much became baby machines as soon as their bodies were capable of bearing children. And the amount of toil involved in raising children, preparing food, etc. was staggering. After their child-bearing years, they were too worn out to do much besides more drudgery. And it's not as though they had any choice in whether they would marry or have children in the first place.

I assume that the handful of women were were warriors in those primitive or unsettled peoples where they have been cited were infertile.

While I agree that this is the overall logic that favors male fighters, this seems ridiculously absolute. Many societies have sanctioned women not bearing children - nuns being one example, or forbidding widows from re-marrying.  Societies have tendencies, but there are always lots of exceptions as well as people who find ways around the trends.

People are ignoring the effect of social class in the equation. An aristocratic woman has childcare options that a poor one doesn't - ie she can pass off any children she has to someone else (slaves, servants, older women in the tribe/group, etc) to raise. So while there's the disruption of pregnancy and birth, she might otherwise be free to train and fight. But once again, this is a minority of women.

As mentioned, there's also the assumption people are having sex, or at least sex that can result in conception. One of the concerns of the ancients was overpopulation and starvation. The Doric Greek practise of pederasty (inherited by the Spartans and Kretans, amongst others) was designed, insofar as it was designed, to allow sexual outlet without the possibility of children. There were male warrior societies which encouraged sex between soldiers as a way to bond, I don't see any reason to assume this would be different in any female warrior societies.

Quote from: zarathustra;790456Having said that I still buy the "1 sex has to carry and produce the babies; the other doesn't" argument strongest. Your society can survive losing % of it's men, the rest can take up the male side of the reproductive side just fine. But if you regularly lose a significant % of women then your society and pool of potential warriors will shrink. That's a losing long term scenario.

Like I keep saying, it does seem to be about childbearing/non-childbearing and the differential natural selection this creates. But it's operative at the individual level - 'whose individual genes get passed down, ie not female fighters' - not at the group level - 'this group does better by not letting women fight'. Somewhat counter-intuitively, a shortage of reproducing women just isn't normally a significant factor in group survival. Human fertility rates can easily compensate for losing 75% of women in each generation, which is higher than any male loss rates to violence that I've seen. Male loss rates to violence tend to top out at around 60%* in the most violent hunter-gatherer societies, if a particular group takes a higher loss rate than that it's because it's being successfully genocided by rivals. Male loss rates to violence in agricultural societies are normally far, far lower than that.

*That's a lifetime rate - % of men who met a violent end - not the pre-reproduction rate. Many men killed by violence will perish after having reproduced.

Quote from: jhkim;790459That makes sense to me, and it also fits with the example of ANC from the link in the OP. However, a few thoughts on this:  
(1) Male psychology isn't the same for all cultures. Different historical cultures have given different roles and rights to women and men.
(2) This is roughly the same argument used against having gays in the military - that it threatens manliness. However, there have been historical societies where homosexuality in the military is accepted and successful.
(3) Facing an overwhelming enemy with a guerilla resistance isn't a uniquely modern circumstance. There are many conflicts in pre-modern eras that have been similar.

I'd agree with your point #3, and there seems plenty of evidence that historically women have fought to defend hearth, home and children, at least where such defence had reasonable prospect of success - as a rule women aren't particularly inclined to 'doomed last stand' behaviour (again for evo-psych reasons).
On #1, there seem to be some universal constants, that we may share with other related species, but yes there is a lot of variation, and IME it's not that uncommon for women to be classed as 'honorary men' and their sex ignored. That sort of thing varies by culture; some can quite easily accept women as 'one of the boys', others can't (FWIW, my impression is that Australian & British cultures are traditionally much more likely to accept women as 'one of the boys' than American culture is, but that this may be changing under American influence. US culture seems to have far stronger sex distinctions than other Anglo nations).
On #2, well, 'it depends' - Theban or Spartan or Papua New Guinea Highlander 'homosexuality' seems quite different from the modern northern-European-culture conceptualisation. The general view (putting it delicately) seems to be that taking the subordinate or 'womanly' role in homosexual relations is always seen as 'unmanly*', but taking the 'top' role is socially acceptable or approved-of in some cultures. In the Anglosphere you see the latter in American prison culture, but not generally. But the Anglo/NW-European conception of male homosexuality does not distinguish between the two roles the way that Mediterranean or most other cultures do.

*It may be a socially mandated role for boys/male youths though, as in ancient Greece and some PNG Highlander tribes. But this is a role the youth is expected to leave behind as he gets older and becomes a man.

Quote from: Kiero;790467People are ignoring the effect of social class in the equation. An aristocratic woman has childcare options that a poor one doesn't - ie she can pass off any children she has to someone else (slaves, servants, older women in the tribe/group, etc) to raise. So while there's the disruption of pregnancy and birth, she might otherwise be free to train and fight. But once again, this is a minority of women.

As mentioned, there's also the assumption people are having sex, or at least sex that can result in conception. One of the concerns of the ancients was overpopulation and starvation. The Doric Greek practise of pederasty (inherited by the Spartans and Kretans, amongst others) was designed, insofar as it was designed, to allow sexual outlet without the possibility of children. There were male warrior societies which encouraged sex between soldiers as a way to bond, I don't see any reason to assume this would be different in any female warrior societies.

I'd agree with all that. My suspicion re the Scythians, Kurgans etc - the Indo-European horse archer nomads with the warrior-women graves - is that high status women could elect to be warriors, but that that would generally mean not marrying & having children. It's possible they might have had children (with a lower ranking husband?) and passed them off to nursemaids, but the effect of maternity on most psyches is such that I doubt that was common.

Your latter point is very very important for modern people to get their head around. In most of Africa the disease load was such that natural selection and cultural selection encouraged having lots of children. But for most  agricultural cultures, overpopulation and famine have always been the main threat, and cultures developed lots of ways around this. For instance, historically female infanticide has been very common across most of the planet. It's just not the case that females were 'too precious to risk'.

Quote from: zarathustra;790456Having said that I still buy the "1 sex has to carry and produce the babies; the other doesn't" argument strongest. Your society can survive losing % of it's men, the rest can take up the male side of the reproductive side just fine. But if you regularly lose a significant % of women then your society and pool of potential warriors will shrink. That's a losing long term scenario.

but does that actually happen?
After a war does society suddenly become polygamous?

In reality the number of male casualties in an actual war as a % of the male population is actually pretty small.
Even in WW1 the most devastating war in human history, France lost about 4% of it's population predominantly young males and yet the remaining men didn't end up marrying 3 or 4 women to make up for it.

This seems to be a case of us applying "game logic" about how we would make use of our resources in some game of super diplomacy but the real world just doesn't work that way.

Quote from: jibbajibba;790474but does that actually happen?
After a war does society suddenly become polygamous?

In reality the number of male casualties in an actual war as a % of the male population is actually pretty small.
Even in WW1 the most devastating war in human history, France lost about 4% of it's population predominantly young males and yet the remaining men didn't end up marrying 3 or 4 women to make up for it.

This seems to be a case of us applying "game logic" about how we would make use of our resources in some game of super diplomacy but the real world just doesn't work that way.

You are correct. France lost (AFAICR) 1.2 million men in WW1, and few women. The result was (almost) 1.2 million spinsters, not polygamy. Germany lost 2 million, Britain 800,000. In all cases the result was lots of unmarried women.

As I've said, for most of human history lots of women (and men) didn't marry, but they were normally mostly the ones from the poorest social classes; upper class women nearly always married. However WW1 devastated the higher social classes too - and the warrior aristocracies disproportionately so - so the social effects were different, for instance lots of unmarried upper middle class women gave a huge boost to female emancipation.

Quote from: S'mon;790473I'd agree with all that. My suspicion re the Scythians, Kurgans etc - the Indo-European horse archer nomads with the warrior-women graves - is that high status women could elect to be warriors, but that that would generally mean not marrying & having children. It's possible they might have had children (with a lower ranking husband?) and passed them off to nursemaids, but the effect of maternity on most psyches is such that I doubt that was common.

Just on this point, I'm not so sure the choice would have been to not marry and not have children if they wanted to fight. Don't forget, high status people are usually the sorts needed for cementing alliances and such; your "princess" could be a warrior and still need to be marriage-able. Especially if her value as a prospective bride is enhanced by any warrior reputation she might have (for scalps taken/horses stolen/whatever).

Quote from: Kiero;790477Just on this point, I'm not so sure the choice would have been to not marry and not have children if they wanted to fight. Don't forget, high status people are usually the sorts needed for cementing alliances and such; your "princess" could be a warrior and still need to be marriage-able. Especially if her value as a prospective bride is enhanced by any warrior reputation she might have (for scalps taken/horses stolen/whatever).

Maybe; we know almost nothing about these cultures other than their graves, and that the Scythians were the source of the Greek myths of the Amazon warriors, women who supposedly removed a breast to better shoot their bows (not necessary IRL!). :)

I think we can say that if you want to build a plausible-seeming fantasy society with a recognised role for warrior women, then egalitarian horse nomad archers look like a pretty good prospect. They could also presumably form part of a knightly class in a more settled medievalesque society.  Later compound bows of the Mongols started getting too heavy for most women to use to full effectiveness, but a missile weapon not very dependent on strength looks like a good prospect for a female-friendly armament. With a horse for mobility and reach, it should be an effective combat package.

Quote from: S'mon;790478Maybe; we know almost nothing about these cultures other than their graves, and that the Scythians were the source of the Greek myths of the Amazon warriors, women who supposedly removed a breast to better shoot their bows (not necessary IRL!). :)

True. I wasn't saying you were wrong, mind, if someone was a second or even third daughter of an august line, their marriage prospects might not be all that important anyway. Or if they were from a distaff or otherwise minor branch of an important family, they might have the freedom to choose not to have a family and focus on being a warrior.

Quote from: S'mon;790478I think we can say that if you want to build a plausible-seeming fantasy society with a recognised role for warrior women, then egalitarian horse nomad archers look like a pretty good prospect. They could also presumably form part of a knightly class in a more settled medievalesque society.  Later compound bows of the Mongols started getting too heavy for most women to use to full effectiveness, but a missile weapon not very dependent on strength looks like a good prospect for a female-friendly armament. With a horse for mobility and reach, it should be an effective combat package.

Agreed, this is a historically tried-and-tested model that would fit easily into most settings. Without having to bring in fantastical justifications. The fact that women are generally smaller and lighter makes them perfect light cavalry soldiers.

Quote from: jibbajibba;790474but does that actually happen?
After a war does society suddenly become polygamous?

In reality the number of male casualties in an actual war as a % of the male population is actually pretty small.
Even in WW1 the most devastating war in human history, France lost about 4% of it's population predominantly young males and yet the remaining men didn't end up marrying 3 or 4 women to make up for it.

This seems to be a case of us applying "game logic" about how we would make use of our resources in some game of super diplomacy but the real world just doesn't work that way.

Marrying has nothing to do with it. Fulfilling your reproductive potential might.

Quote from: zarathustra;790480Marrying has nothing to do with it. Fulfilling your reproductive potential might.

Hmmm... So do we see a spike in illigitimate births say three years after ww1.
Do we think society decides not to use women soldiers becuase it knows that after the war is over the men that survive can service the newly widowed population?

Quote from: S'mon;790478Maybe; we know almost nothing about these cultures other than their graves, and that the Scythians were the source of the Greek myths of the Amazon warriors, women who supposedly removed a breast to better shoot their bows (not necessary IRL!). :)

I think we can say that if you want to build a plausible-seeming fantasy society with a recognised role for warrior women, then egalitarian horse nomad archers look like a pretty good prospect. They could also presumably form part of a knightly class in a more settled medievalesque society.  Later compound bows of the Mongols started getting too heavy for most women to use to full effectiveness, but a missile weapon not very dependent on strength looks like a good prospect for a female-friendly armament. With a horse for mobility and reach, it should be an effective combat package.

Windlass wound crossbows?
Animal handlers?
Or magical artilery of course

I think that your average fantasy setting means that Dick and Jane can both be competent knights without it being an issue. That's the beauty of gaming, you get to be what you want. There are exceptions, Space Marines and Sisters of Battle standing out as a hill for idiots to die on, but in general, ttrpgs are pretty equal. Even games drawing from, but not entirely based on historical time periods can be equal when it comes to gender roles, and there needs to be no reason behind it.

Quote from: jibbajibba;790483Hmmm... So do we see a spike in illigitimate births say three years after ww1.
Do we think society decides not to use women soldiers becuase it knows that after the war is over the men that survive can service the newly widowed population?

I don't see any statistics for that, however, I did find this:

QuoteThe first-ever dedicated support network for unmarried mothers had been set up as early as 1918, when The National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child (now Gingerbread) was formed in response to a concern about higher death rates among illegitimate children than legitimate ones, particularly during the First World War.

However, this is about an overall trend throughout history - and WWI is not very representative of all of history. First of all, modern medicine meant that far more babies and women survived childbirth than was the norm in the past. When death in childbirth was common, this meant that women were more necessary for the reproduction rate. In addition, widowers were freed up to take another wife, even under strict monogamy - and strict monogamy was more the exception than the rule in most ancient societies.

Males have a tendency to be indigent and useless, look at Wellington's "scum of the earth" remarks about the British army. Except in physical labor, women usually are better workers than men, esp in a craft industry type society; plus in and of themselves, women represent value. How many times are cities sacked, by the Romans particularly, and the women and children taken as booty, fairly common in antiquity. Ancient to medieval and really up until almost ww2, more soldiers died of disease than anything else.

Quote from: S'mon;790473Your latter point is very very important for modern people to get their head around. In most of Africa the disease load was such that natural selection and cultural selection encouraged having lots of children. But for most  agricultural cultures, overpopulation and famine have always been the main threat, and cultures developed lots of ways around this. For instance, historically female infanticide has been very common across most of the planet. It's just not the case that females were 'too precious to risk'.

True, but whether more population was desirable really varied. You can bet the Pharoahs wanted as many farmers and labourers as possible supporting their kingdoms. Female infanticide was widely practiced, but typically carried out only when a famine was looming. So it might be widespread for a couple years, and then not practiced at all for a decade or more. Given healthy instincts, I find it hard to believe voluntary lifelong celibacy was ever all that common. We know that when nunneries were widespread, for example, the vows of nuns were frequently broken. The charges of nunneries serving as something close to brothels may have been overstated by the protestants of the reformation, but there was probably something to the allegations.

Quote from: jibbajibba;790474In reality the number of male casualties in an actual war as a % of the male population is actually pretty small.
Even in WW1 the most devastating war in human history, France lost about 4% of it's population predominantly young males and yet the remaining men didn't end up marrying 3 or 4 women to make up for it.

True. But as an aside, WW1 was the most devastating war for real numbers of soldiers killed, but primitive warfare was much more deadly in terms of the ratio of soldiers killed. A rate of 2-3 deaths or more per year in a tribe with 300 warrior-aged males wasn't all that uncommon. That's 1.5-2 per cent per year, every year. France's losses of 4% we spread out over 4.5 years.

Quote from: S'mon;790476As I've said, for most of human history lots of women (and men) didn't marry, but they were normally mostly the ones from the poorest social classes; upper class women nearly always married.

The lower classes didn't marry because marriage was traditionally about property. And if you have no property, there's little point in a legal contract establishing property and lineage. But just because they didn't marry doesn't mean they didn't bear children. And lots of them.

Quote from: zarathustra;790480Marrying has nothing to do with it. Fulfilling your reproductive potential might.

Absolutely.

Quote from: Haffrung;790537But as an aside, WW1 was the most devastating war for real numbers of soldiers killed, but primitive warfare was much more deadly in terms of the ratio of soldiers killed. A rate of 2-3 deaths or more per year in a tribe with 300 warrior-aged males wasn't all that uncommon. That's 1.5-2 per cent per year, every year. France's losses of 4% we spread out over 4.5 years.

Frances death ratio from WWI was approximately 4% of the total population, not 4% of soldiers. The military death ratio was about 16%, spread out over 4.5 years as you said. Also, WWI is not the sole standard of modern war. For example, the Korean war killed off about 10% of the total population of Korea (not including the Chinese and U.S. military deaths). Civil wars in general tend to be more devastating.

That said, I agree that there are primitive conflicts with even this higher level of lethality, but it isn't a universal even if it isn't uncommon.  There are many primitive groups where the violent death rate is comparable to peacetime murder rate in modern first-world countries. It is difficult to generalize from these differing rates to what primitive people overall are like.

Quote from: jhkim;790557That said, I agree that there are primitive conflicts with even this higher level of lethality, but it isn't a universal even if it isn't uncommon.  There are many primitive groups where the violent death rate is comparable to peacetime murder rate in modern first-world countries. It is difficult to generalize from these differing rates to what primitive people overall are like.

There are also "primitive" conflicts with significantly lower levels of lethality. For those battles which note casualties, the Peloponnesian War was remarkably forgiving to the combatants. There are battles involving thousands of men, where tens are killed on the victorious side.

Quote from: Haffrung;790537True, but whether more population was desirable really varied. You can bet the Pharoahs wanted as many farmers and labourers as possible supporting their kingdoms.

No, land was the limiting factor for the pharaohs, not population. The only time they'd want more people was right after a plague, perhaps. Even going to war, the limiting factor is usually the land and its produce. Once all the fertile land is tilled more peasants just means more hungry mouths and less surplus to support armies, palaces etc.

Quote from: Haffrung;790537The lower classes didn't marry because marriage was traditionally about property. And if you have no property, there's little point in a legal contract establishing property and lineage. But just because they didn't marry doesn't mean they didn't bear children. And lots of them.

If they didn't have any means to support their children, their children would not survive.
But in fact there is no evidence for your claim, the numbers I've seen (eg in A Farewell To Alms) indicate very low illegitimacy rates, around 4%. In pagan societies illegitimate children would suffer infanticide, though male foundlings might sometimes be adopted. Christian societies had orphanages, but according to the 19th century sources I've seen, few 'orphans' ever actually survived to adulthood until the Dickensian reforms.

Quote from: jhkim;790557There are many primitive groups where the violent death rate is comparable to peacetime murder rate in modern first-world countries.

From what I can recall of the stats in Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature that would be extremely unusual for hunter-gatherer societies. Though I do recall that the Detroit male death rate from violence (4%?) was higher than the death rate in some hunter-gatherer societies. But that was an extreme outlier in terms of Developed-world societies.

Quote from: S'mon;790581From what I can recall of the stats in Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature that would be extremely unusual for hunter-gatherer societies. Though I do recall that the Detroit male death rate from violence (4%?) was higher than the death rate in some hunter-gatherer societies. But that was an extreme outlier in terms of Developed-world societies.

There is enormous unknowns in trying to extrapolate from modern-day hunter-gatherer societies like the !Kung into generalizations about all of "primitive society" throughout history. There is no reason to think that the few modern-day hunter-gatherers are typical and representative of all primitive people throughout history, since they are rare and isolated cases.

That said, I agree that from what I read, the !Kung (for example) do have an overall murder rate the same as American inner cities like Detroit in peacetime. That's a few percent lifetime chance of death, or less than 0.1% per year. I call that comparable. There are plenty of places in the modern world with higher violent death rates, and plenty with lower death rates.

I don't think this fits either the "peaceful nature-lover" nor the "barbaric savage" stereotypes. I haven't read Pinker's book, but I watched his TED talk and read various critiques by some anthropologists and others. I don't consider his word as a psycholinguist to be definitive about primitive peoples.

Quote from: jhkim;790602That said, I agree that from what I read, the !Kung (for example) do have an overall murder rate the same as American inner cities like Detroit in peacetime. That's a few percent lifetime chance of death, or less than 0.1% per year. I call that comparable.

Sure - and the implication is that the San hunter-gatherers, still more or less in the state of nature, are much less inherently violent than the denizens of Detroit, with all the peace-enforcement panoply of the modern State. But other hunter-gatherers such as the Yanomani have much higher death rates to violence, up around lifetime-60% at the high end, compared to ca lifetime-4% for the San (low-violence hunters) and Detroit (high-violence Civilised).

The evidence that violence has declined over time seems indisputable. The reasons are disputable (eg Pinker blames Christianity for violence, whereas comparing to pre-Christian societies it seems to me more to have had the opposite effect on average) as is his confidence that the trend will continue more or less uninterrupted. My own view is that human self-domestication is a real thing on the largest scale, but I'm a lot less sanguine about the shorter term. I'm not at all confident that 3000 AD will be less violent than 2000 AD. But I do think it's highly likely that 3000 AD will be less violent than 3000 BC.

Quote from: jhkim;790602I haven't read Pinker's book...

He's definitely worth reading. He's a very smart guy, and he's very good at anticipating and addressing criticisms of his thesis. I saw a lot of lazy/not-so-smart reviewers criticise his thesis in ways he'd already anticipated and rebutted.

Quote from: S'mon;790677He's definitely worth reading. He's a very smart guy, and he's very good at anticipating and addressing criticisms of his thesis. I saw a lot of lazy/not-so-smart reviewers criticise his thesis in ways he'd already anticipated and rebutted.

It's curious that most of the criticism of the book came from the left. It seems there's nobody so reluctant to recognize progress as a modern progressive.

Comparing the San to inner city Detroit ...

If we're talking about a purely fantasy setting, I don't have the slightest problem with gender roles being radically different from history, including having entire battalions of female warriors.

But in history or historical fantasy, that's a different story.  In the latter, I will want to have reasons why gender roles might be different from the standard historical model.  In Albion, for example, female Clerics, having been chosen by the Unconquered Sun, are treated the same as male Clerics, and thus train and serve as warriors.