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The portrayal of women warriors in literature and popular culture is a subject of study in history, literary studies, film studies, folklore history, and mythology. The archetypal figure of the woman warrior is an example of a normal thing that happens in some cultures, while also being a counter stereotype, opposing the normal construction of war, violence and aggression as masculine. [1] : 269 This convention-defying position makes the female warrior a prominent site of investigation for discourses surrounding female power and gender roles in society.
The Amazons were an entire tribe of woman warriors in Greek legend. The earliest known recording of the Amazons can be found in Homer's epic poem the Iliad , in which Homer described them as Amazon antianeirai, a term with multiple translations including "the equal of men." [2] "Amazon" has become an eponym for woman warriors and athletes in both modern and ancient society.
In British mythology, Queen Cordelia fought off several contenders for her throne by personally leading the army in its battles as well as defending her home from her own warring family members, until she eventually commits suicide due to grief. Another example in ancient British history is the historical Queen Boudica, who led a rebellion against the Roman Empire.
In his On the Bravery of Women, the Greco-Roman historian Plutarch describes how the women of Argos fought against King Cleomenes and the Spartans under the command of Telesilla in the fifth century BCE. [3] [4]
Among Scythians, warrior women were not unknown. Archaeologists have uncovered more than 40 graves of female warrior leaders. The Roman general, Pompey defeated Scythians fighting for Mithridates VI of Pontus, and in his triumph displayed female warrior rulers among the leaders he defeated. Scythian lifestyle included equality among the sexes, and some women took the opportunities that a warrior lifestyle offered to both men and women. [5] Scythian culture touched on both Greece and India, both of whom have tales of warrior women in their histories and mythologies.
Accounts of martial women were included in the Ramayana (ca. 500 BCE) and Mahabharata (ca. 400 BCE) In Hindu mythology, Chitrāngadā, wife of Arjuna, was the commander of her father's armies. Satyabhama was a warrior wife of the god Krishna who led an army against Narakasura; she was an archer and expert in wartime tactics. Shikhandini was a princess who learned "archery, martial arts, war-techniques" and fought to avenge herself for past wrongs in another life; she eventually became a man (through supernatural intervention). Kaikeyi was the wife of a king who drove his chariot in battle and saved his life. [6]
Other examples of warrior women in India may be seen in sculpture.
Several women are described in the Hebrew Bible as participating in wars or battles, including the prophetess Deborah, Rahab, and the unnamed "woman of Thebez".
Hind bint ‘Utbah was an Arab woman in the late 6th and early 7th centuries who converted to Islam. She took part in the Battle of Yarmouk in 636, fighting the Romans and encouraging the male soldiers to join her. [7]
Khawlah bint al-Azwar was a prominent woman Muslim warrior in the 7th century, leading battles in what are today Syria, Jordan and Palestine. [8]
Ghazala the Kharijite was also a commander in battle, making famous generals like al-Hajjaj flee. Her courage was extolled in poems.
Joan of Arc was a warrior in the 15th century and considered a heroine in France for her role in the Hundred Years' War. Joan of Arc alleged that she had a connection to the saints of her church and that they communicated with her to tell her to join the war effort of the French in 1429. Her effort in the battle of Orléans in May 1429 contributed to the retreat of the English from the city. [9] She was later canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. In modern popular culture, Joan of Arc has been depicted many times, including in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928 film) , a silent historical film from Danish director Carl TH. Dreyer. [10] The film depicts the real trial of Joan of Arc leading up to her execution.
Mai Bhago was a Sikh warrior of 18th century. She encouraged and rallied the soldiers who abandoned Guru Gobind Singh during the siege of Anandpur Sahib to refight. She, alongside 40 soldiers confronted the Mughal Army and fought the Battle of Muktsar. She wore a masculine attire during her lifetime and by doing so, challenged patriarchy and started the debate around 'Role of Women' among Scholars and Philosophers. She was honored the title of being the bodyguard of Guru Gobind Singh during his exhile in Nanded, Maharashtra. Many ballads and folksongs glorify her bravery and she is revered as a Feminist Icon.
In one Chinese legend recorded by Gan Bao, a girl named Li Ji slays a serpent who devoured many maidens in her village ( Li Ji Slays the Giant Serpent or Li Chi Slays the Serpent). [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
The narrative of the woman warrior sometimes involves the motif of crossdressing or disguising herself as a man or a male soldier. These stories belong to the cycle of La Doncella Guerrera, or The Warrior Maiden. [16] One popular instance of this is the legendary heroine Hua Mulan of Chinese history. Mulan's earliest records date back to the time of China's Northern and Southern Dynasties era (4th to 6th century AD). [17] In the ballad, Mulan disguises herself as a man and takes her father's place in war to protect him. Since it was first written, the original story has been retold many times by different authors. [18] Hua Mulan was further popularized, especially in the United States, through Disney's 1998 feature film Mulan. [19]
In many cases, the disguised maiden enters the service of a king and discovers the queen's infidelity. The queen is punished and the king marries the warrior maiden. [20] One example is A afilhada de São Pedro ("St. Peter's Goddaughter"), a Portuguese folktale collected by Consiglieri Pedroso. [21] These stories are classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index index as ATU 513, "The Extraordinary Companions" and subtypes, and ATU 514, "The Shift of Sex". [22]
Other fairy tales include:
Literary women warriors include "Gordafarid" (Persian: گردآفريد) in the ancient Persian epic poem The Shāhnāmeh, Delhemma in Arabic epic literature, Mulan, Camilla in the Aeneid , Belphoebe and Britomart in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene , Bradamante and Marfisa in Orlando Furioso , Clorinda and (reluctantly) Erminia in La Gerusalemme liberata , and Grendel's mother.
The woman warrior is part of a long tradition in many different cultures including Chinese and Japanese martial arts films, but their reach and appeal to Western audiences is possibly much more recent, coinciding with the greatly increased number of female heroes in American media since 1990. [27] : 136 [28] : 25 Films have brought women warriors to the silver screen, such as in King Arthur (2004 film), in which Keira Knightley plays heroine Guinevere, originally the love interest of King Arthur. In this iteration, Guinevere is portrayed as a warrior of equal strength as her male counterparts. [29]
Women warriors have also grown in recent years in part due to the popularity of comics and franchises inspired by them, most notably films by Marvel Studios and films within the DC Extended Universe. Characters such as Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Wasp, Black Widow, and, more recently, Jane Foster, a female iteration of the hero Thor, originally were superheroines in popular DC and Marvel comics series, as well as others. [30]
Women warriors have been taken up as a symbol for feminist empowerment, emphasizing women's agency and capacity for power instead of the common pattern of female victim-hood. [1] : 269 Professor Sherrie Inness in Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture [31] and Frances Early and Kathleen Kennedy in Athena's Daughters: Television's New Women Warriors, [32] for example, focus on figures such as Xena, from the television series Xena: Warrior Princess or Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer . In the introduction to their text, Early and Kennedy discuss what they describe as a link between the image of women warriors and girl power. [33]
Although there is a distinction between positive aggression and violence, fictional representations of female violence like Kill Bill still have the power to function positively, equipping women for real-life situations that require outward aggression. [34] : 108, 237 Beyond the individual level, fictional depictions of violence by women can be a political tool to draw attention to real-world issues of violence, such as the ongoing violence against Indigenous women. [35] Others say that a violent heroine undermines the feminist ethics against male violence, even when she is posited as a defender of women, for example in films such as Hard Candy . [1] : 269 The 2020 film Promising Young Woman also explores the idea of a warrior woman railing against deadly sexual inequity, using either passive or active violence in order to restore some sense of justice to a world skewed towards sympathy for sexually violent men. Often the violence is only implicit, or threatened, and exists in juxtaposition to the film's pastel colour palette and stereotypically feminine aesthetic.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Hua Mulan is a legendary folk heroine from the Northern and Southern dynasties era of Chinese history. Scholars generally consider Mulan to be a fictional character. Hua Mulan is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu by Jin Guliang.
Fa Mulan is a fictional character, inspired by a legendary figure, who appears in Walt Disney Pictures' animated film Mulan (1998). Her speaking voice is provided by actress Ming-Na Wen, while singer Lea Salonga provides the character's singing voice. Created by author Robert D. San Souci, Mulan is based on the legendary Chinese warrior Hua Mulan from the poem the Ballad of Mulan, making her the first Disney Princess not to be based on a fairytale or folktale but rather a legend. The only child of an aging war veteran, Mulan disregards both tradition and the law by disguising herself as a man in order to enlist herself in the army in lieu of her feeble father.
"Bluebeard" is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors. "The White Dove", "The Robber Bridegroom", and "Fitcher's Bird" are tales similar to "Bluebeard". The notoriety of the tale is such that Merriam-Webster gives the word Bluebeard the definition of "a man who marries and kills one wife after another". The verb bluebearding has even appeared as a way to describe the crime of either killing a series of women, or seducing and abandoning a series of women.
The damsel in distress is a narrative device in which one or more men must rescue a woman who has been kidnapped or placed in other peril. Kinship, love, lust or a combination of those motivate the male protagonist to initiate the narrative.
"Snow-White and Rose-Red" is a German fairy tale. The best-known version is the one collected by the Brothers Grimm in 1837 in the third edition of their collection Grimm's Fairy Tales. An older, somewhat shorter version, "The Ungrateful Dwarf", was written by Caroline Stahl (1776–1837). Indeed, that appears to be the oldest variant; no previous oral version is known, although several have been collected since its publication in 1818. Oral versions are very limited regionally. The tale is of Aarne-Thompson type 426.
Princess and dragon is an archetypical premise common to many legends, fairy tales, and chivalric romances. Northrop Frye identified it as a central form of the quest romance.
The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU Index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: originally composed in German by Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne (1910), the index was translated into English, revised, and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson, and later further revised and expanded by German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther (2004). The ATU Index, along with Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (1932)—with which it is used in tandem—is an essential tool for folklorists.
"East of the Sun and West of the Moon" is a Norwegian fairy tale. It was included by Andrew Lang in The Blue Fairy Book (1889).
"The Master Maid" is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in their Norske Folkeeventyr. "Master" indicates "superior, skilled." Jørgen Moe wrote the tale down from the storyteller Anne Godlid in Seljord on a short visit in the autumn of 1842. Andrew Lang translated the tale to English and included it in his The Blue Fairy Book (1889). A later translation was made by George Dasent, in his Popular Tales from the North.
Vasilisa the Beautiful or Vasilisa the Fair is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.
Donkeyskin is a French literary fairytale written in verse by Charles Perrault. It was first published in 1695 in a small volume and republished in 1697 in Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé. Andrew Lang included it, somewhat euphemized, in The Grey Fairy Book. It is classed among folktales of Aarne-Thompson type 510B, unnatural love.
The Sprig of Rosemary is a Catalan fairy tale from Spain collected by Dr. D. Francisco de S. Maspons y Labros in Cuentos Populars Catalans. Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book.
The Magic Swan Geese is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki, numbered 113.
The Sleeping Prince is a Greek fairy tale collected by Georgios A. Megas in Folktales of Greece.
The Spinning-Woman by the Spring or The Kind and the Unkind Girls is a widespread, traditional folk tale, known throughout Europe and in certain regions of Asia, including Indonesia. The tale is cataloged as AT 480 in the international Folktale catalog.
The Calumniated Wife is a motif in traditional narratives, numbered K2110.1 in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk-Literature. It entails a wife being falsely accused of, and often punished for, some crime or sin. This motif is at the centre of a number of traditional plots, being associated with tale-types 705–712 in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index of tale-types.
"Li Ji Slays the Giant Serpent" is a Chinese tale first published in the 4th-century compilation Soushen Ji attributed to the Jin-dynasty official Gan Bao. The story concerns a young heroine named Li Ji who bravely rids her village of a terrible snake.
Hachikazuki or Hachi Katsugi is a Japanese folktale of the Otogi-zōshi genre. It refers to a maiden of noble birth who wears a bowl on her head and marries a prince.
In folkloristics, "The Animal as Bridegroom" refers to a group of folk and fairy tales about a human woman marrying or being betrothed to an animal. The animal is revealed to be a human prince in disguise or under a curse. Most of these tales are grouped in the international system of Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index under type ATU 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband". Some subtypes exist in the international classification as independent stories, but they sometimes don't adhere to a fixed typing.
Lady Featherflight is an American fairy tale first published in 1891, by W. W. Newell and collected from an oral source in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the tale, a traveler is offered hospitality by Lady Featherflight, a giant's daughter. He is forced to perform a number of tasks for her father, but Featherflight offers him assistance through her control over birds. They eventually elope and steal her father's treasure.