Title text: No, we actually do have a woman who’s basically part of our fellowship. She lives in Rivendell, you wouldn’t know her.
“Why are there no women or children in this band of medieval warriors? Social and societal division of labour, what’s that?”
The idea that female medieval warriors only exist in fantasy is made up by misogynists to gate keep female representation.
Here is a list of named women that participated in battle. Keep in mind that this is just the tip of the iceberg given the erasure of women in history
Joan of Arc Eleanor of Aquitaine Æthelflæd Artemisia I of Caria Zenobia Matilda of Tuscany Margaret of Anjou Tomoe Gozen Grace O’Malley Isabella I of Castile Fu Hao Teuta Joanna of Flanders Lozen Jeanne Hachette Caterina Sforza Khawla bint al-Azwar Lagertha Sikelgaita Mavia Dihya Isabella of France
If you want women in your fantasy novels, why not - it’s fantasy.
Let’s be real though - sexual dimorphism is very pronounced in humans, and the women you listed were absolutely the exception. Militaristic societies overwhelmingly used men for fighting, if only because women were too valuable for their ability to bear children.
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of women throughout history, but they don’t have to have been physically fighting in wars for that to be the case.
People like you forget that the vast majority of men have never participated in war. Most men, like women, subsisted on manual labor.
Your ‘sexual dimorphism’ claims are a tale as old as time made by prejudiced anthropologists with the same pompous attitudes about gender. See this NPR article to get your facts straight.
None of this changes the fact that we are taking about fantasy, where female representation is deemed more far fetched by misogynists than the existence of elves and magic. Something that has literally never existed before somehow has more credibility and reason to exist than female combatants who have actually existed.
This is the state of gatekeeping in the fantasy genre. If you think that there isn’t a problem, you are part of the problem.
LOTR is not set in the medieval period. Its a made up era with made up cultures and made up magic. And if you’re going to get all Thermian argument about it, LOTR lore has many female warriors.
