Amazons and Military Maids

"Amazons and Military Maids: Women who dressed as men in pursuit of life, liberty and happiness" by Julie Wheelwright

Here are some excerpts I've taken from a really interesting book I read about women who masqueraded as men during wartimes.

“The duality of being a female soldier… The social value of militarism, changing concepts of sex roles, women’s material circumstances, the importance of nationalism and patriotic sentiments are all crucial variables in these stories. The nature of warfare, military organisation and its relations to the general society have undergone significant changes over the period of this study. These factors also play a part in the story. War allows men to assume their role as patriarchs; to become the defenders of the nation, the protectors of ‘their’ metaphorical and actual women and children. It confers a homogeneity upon their aims, pursuits, identities and rewards them with a short-lived glory. During times of war, sexual difference becomes heightened even as the sexual divisions of labour become blurred. But it is only relatively recently that gender has assumed such a prominent role during times of war.”

“… anthropologists and historians have argued that these stories [e.g. legendary Amazons] of gender reversal also perform an important function within their given social context. Sexual inversion as a widespread form of cultural play in literature, in art, and in festivity has served to disrupt and ultimately to clarify often fluid or evolving concepts of sexual difference.”

“The thread that pulls these stories together is women’s desire for male privilege and a longing for escape from domestic confines and powerlessness. Many vividly describe a lifelong yearing for liberation from the constraints they chafed against as women. They were unconventional women who spent their lives rebelling against their assigned roll before they pursued a male career. Most could only conceive of themselves as active and powerful in male disguise… Today dress has lost its potency as an indicator of gender and social status but the rewards of ‘male’ imitation remain. The business woman’s suit which mimics its masculine counterpart is one contemporary example.”

“What we share with the warrior heroine is a recognition that the social construction of our sexual difference is still an enormously important determining factor in our lives. The barriers to equality between the sexes have yet to be eliminated and our struggle for what is still deemed male power is far from over. The Amazons, while uneasy heroines, can lay claim to be our feminist predecessors, by virtue of their battle against those powerful ideas that still maintain territories marked outside women’s reach. They also dramatically illustrate how, with courage and imagination, women have always found ways of overcoming even the most seemingly impossible restrictions.”

Wheelwright, J. (1989). Amazons and Military Maids: Women who dressed as men in pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. London: Pandora Press.

Women Who Run With The Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

Here are a couple of my favourite helpful excerpts from this book:

"The history of wolves is like the history of women, regarding both their spiritedness and their travails."  

"Healthy wolves and healthy women share certain psychic characteristics: keen sensing, playful spirit, and a heightened capacity for devotion.  Wolves and women are relational be nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength.  They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mate and their pack.  They are experienced in adapting to constantly changing circumstances, they are fiercely stalwart and very brave.  Yet both have been hounded, harassed, and falsely imputed to be devouring and devious, overly aggressive, of less value than those who are their detractors.  They have been targets of those who would clean up the wilds as well as the wildish environs of the psyche, extincting the instinctual, and leaving no trace of it behind.  The predation of wolves and women by those who misunderstand them is strikingly similar."  

"This wilderwoman is the prototypical woman...no matter what culture, no matter what era, no matter what politic, she does not change.  Her cycles change, her symbolic representations change, but in essence, she does not change.  She is what she is and she is whole."  

Pinkola Estes C (1992) Women Who Run With The Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wold Woman Archetype. Ballantine Books. New York

Feminism as popular culture

Full Frontal Feminism
A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters.
Jessica Valenti

This is a thorough examination of third wave feminism defined for the young woman today. It is a lively non-academic treatment of the matters that affect everyone today from fashion to reproductive issues. The context is clearly the USA but the reader is given a powerful sense of popular culture today and where the action is.
“ When I think third wave, I think of academic stuff like different feminist theories (queer,post colonial). She discusses the place of feminist pop culture in terms of magazines and the reclamation of previously 'sexist' words such as 'slut' and 'bitch' but adds.........”Third wave feminists are as 'serious' as those who came before us,really. What I love about the third wave is that we've learned how to find feminism in everything-and make it our own.”
Her position on academic feminism is that it , might exclude the ordinary person-”I think feminism should be accessible to everybody, no matter what your education level. And while high theory is pretty fucking cool, it's not something everyone is going to relate to.

CAB
Valenti J (2007)Full Frontal Feminism. Seal Press. California