Women Warriors Are a Bad Idea
22nd September 2024
While it is popular to think that there are no real biological reasons for why women generally didn’t fight in history, that is not the case. In reality, differences between men and women are quite significant, and are a result of basic biological factors such as genes / chromosomes and sex hormones. Even the same genes may express themselves differently due to impact of sex hormones. Both men and women produce the sex hormones (testosterone, oestradiol and progesterone), but their quantity can vary by several orders of magnitude depending on sex and menopausal status. So can their effects: while testosterone in men may inhibit muscle degradation pathways, this effect was not observed in women. These differences have major implications for womens’ ability to perform in combat – and especially in the melee. So here I will look at the why female warriors were so rare, and finally at some historical evidence of warrior women that did exist.
And while argument could be made that fantasy does not need to keep with reality, fact is that most fantasy settings simply have normal humans living in them with some minor supernatural or simply fantasy elements surrounding them. In One Piece, where superpowers gained through Devil Fruits as well as sheer willpower (Haki) dominate combat, it is not unrealistic to have women fight as well (and it should be noted that One Piece is still realistic in that women are generally weaker than men in the setting). Same goes for other supernatural settings relying on magical combat, such as Fairy Tail, Codex Alera and similar. After all, physical limitations matter far less for people who can levitate objects with their minds. But in a historical or low-magic setting such as Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire, female warriors are – and should be – exceptionally rare.
Women were not crafted by evolution for war, as men are. Robert Heinlein was fond of saying, “Women are what we fight for, not what we fight with.” Putting women in combat is like shooting your enemies with golden bullets–sure, you can do that, but why would you want to?