This is a man's world..... but it wouldn't be nothing without a woman or a girl

[antisocialmunky]

'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way.

Yeah, I said something to the same effect above that EB should only include some women in the Noble units. They would be the ones that could afford to goto war. The regular women would be watching things back home. I don't know though... the campaigns of Genghis Khan, he's said to have had the wives and other women of his troops ride into battle to padd his numbers and break the enemy morale. However Mongols and Western Steppe peoples are quite different and the Scythians never went on campaign quite THAT long.

[WinsingtonIII]

'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way.

Yeah, I said something to the same effect above that EB should only include some women in the Noble units. They would be the ones that could afford to goto war. The regular women would be watching things back home. I don't know though... the campaigns of Genghis Khan, he's said to have had the wives and other women of his troops ride into battle to padd his numbers and break the enemy morale. However Mongols and Western Steppe peoples are quite different and the Scythians never went on campaign quite THAT long.

I'd agree with both points, I was implying the same thing you said of the term progress myself when I put it in quotation marks. I'm just not sure if the evidence is convincing enough that the average woman would go to war. The women should be included in noble units.

[Cyclops]

'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way...

Yes indeed, or in multiple directions at once. The more things change, the more they stay the same...except for the bits that change.

The representation of Skythian women warriors is worth this debate. We do have some steppe people burying women with weapons which are certainly status markers, but quite possibly also occupation markers. We have more and less dodgy references to warrior women, especially among steppe peoples.

Were the Skythians a confederation of tribes with varying rank, paying tribute in cattle and service up the chain? It may be whole tribes ranked as warrior class, women and men included, so there might be a case for women among less-than-elite HA's. In a warrior culture weapons are the status marker, but military service (for the proportion of women fit for this service) might be a corollary or even a requirement of that.

(Cf women like St. Joan, Elizabeth 1 wearing armour, not because they entered the fray but because it was pretty much a required leadership token.)

Of the course the question of physical capacity is a fair one. I'd note that men unable to bear arms might well be excluded from high status groups (cf Talleyrand was excluded from inheriting his fathers title because he was lame, a sort of barbaric holdover from a similar Frankish tradition I guess). Fewer women would be able to carry the heavy armour we see Noble HA's wearing.

If bearing arms gave greater status, and some women were eligible for that status, then they might paricipate at the level of their physical capacity: a greater number with less armour, weilding a bow and rather less bow/lance armed semi-catas. In this rather hypothetical situation we might see more female heads in the lesser-status HA's.

Its all interesting speculation and I feel anti-social's position is a fair one: a few female heads in the better class HA's is probably to best bet.

[antisocialmunky]

@ Cyclops

That's quite true. That's why female warriors are most often associated with ranged weapons if you discount the things like the female gladiators of Rome.

I'm not going to get into the issue of armor. I think they would have been able to use it quite fine with the proper training.

@ ziegenpeter

Wut?

[The General]

While this is all very fascinating, I'm wondering how all this is directly related to the question whether female warriors will be depicted in nomadic units in EBII?

[Ludens]

While this is all very fascinating, I'm wondering how all this is directly related to the question whether female warriors will be depicted in nomadic units in EBII?

It isn't. I've created a new thread for this discussion: is progress real?