Friday Friyay: 'Women Warriors: An Unexpected History' by Pamela D. Toler

Hi all, happy Friday! I cannot wait for the weekend... Last weekend I was at a conference, so I feel like I worked two weeks straight. The semester is also about to start, so there has been a lot of last minute admin stuff and preparing course materials. I'm looking forward to the semester though and I've got a nice number of students for my module as well. My reading this week is also related to my research. I have been reading The Patriarchs by Angela Saini, a new deep-dive into the origins of patriarchy. One of the sources Saini uses is Women Warriors by Pamela Toler, which I immediately ordered for myself. I'm hoping it'll be both interesting and a little useful to my research.

Who says women don't go to war? From Vikings and African queens to cross-dressing military doctors and World War II Russian fighter pilots, these are the stories of women for whom battle was not a metaphor.

The woman warrior is always cast as an anomaly - Joan of Arc, not GI Jane. But women, it turns out, have long gone to war. In this fascinating and lively world history, Pamela Toler not only introduces us to women who took up arms but also shows why they did it and what happened when they stepped out of their traditional female roles to take on other identities. By considering the ways in which their presence has been erased from history, Toler reveals that women have always fought - not in spite of being women, but because they were women.

Book Beginnings is at home on Rose City Reader, hosted by Gilion Dumas, and Friday 56 at Freda's Voice, hosted by Freda. Freda is taking a break at the moment, but Anne over at My Head is Full of Books is thankfully keeping the spirit going! I'll also be joining the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Billy over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. 

BB:

Introduction: "Women do not fight"

'When Antonia Fraser's Warrior Queens came out in 1988, I greeted it with delight. 
The idea that some women in the past had taken up arms and fought beside their brothers, fathers, cousins, and neighbors was not a new one to me.' p.1

Chapter One: Don't Mess with Mama

'In 1488, Italian noblewoman Caterina Sforza (1462 - 1509), known as the Tigress of Forli, was besieged in the city's main fortress, the Rocca di Ravaldino.' p.18

I am intrigued by the start! I like that Toler was also a young girl aware of her own instinct to fight. And I'm also down for diving into historical women's biographies and tracking how they faced the challenged of their own times and the gendered roles then prevalent.

F56:

'To quote my own father: "The quickest way to believe in equal rights for women is to have smart daughters."' p.56

I've always had kind of an issue with thinking like this. You know, when you see politicians talking about, for example, abortion rights etc. with the lines "As the father of daughters/As the son of a mother/As the husband of a wife, I think...". However, I haven't read this chapter yet, so who knows where this statement leads to/comes from. 

BBH:

This week's question comes from Billy himself:

If you could live in any book, which one would you pick and why?

Oh God, what a question! My immediate thought was, perhaps not unsurprisingly, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I'd specifically love to live amongst the Rohirrim! I think the reason for this is probably that the world just feels very expansive and deep to me. Tolkien put so much work into his world-building, some of which is invisible, that it just comes alive. And of course the films are an excellent visual representation of that world, supported by the work of countless of artists. So that would probably be the one for me.

Update on the previous FF read: I reread Howl's Moving Castle and it was indeed delightful once again!

And that's it for me this week! What are you reading? And what world do you want to dive into?