On Martial Maidens II

Yesterday, I put up a blog post where I showed videos discussing Andrew Klavan’s comments regarding women and swordfighting (namely, that women are utterly useless at it.) As one would expect, this has been discussed all around the internet, but much of it involves virtue signalling.

To cut through a lot of that fog, I will show you a video by medieval swordsmanship YouTuber Skallagrim, in which he discusses the comments with two female HEMA practitioners — one old, one young.

Also, John C. Wright has discussed the comments on his blog, letting the reader know that the critiques of Klavan leave out a lot of relevant information.

What caught my attention, however, was a post by a commenter.

I used to hold the position, as our host put it: “Let us say that the wise leader, thinking of future generations, wants to preserve the womenfolk so that they can bear the next generation for the tribe. That may be very important. But is it more important than victory in war?” as that was my gut instinct on the matter.

But upon reflection, while the male impulse to protect the women/children may be a strong one – and thus lead them to keep them as far away from battles as possible – I think if anything that is only a lesser part of it.

The crux of it to me is this:

“If so, the wise leader has to consider the reason to keep women out of combat is more important than that small but real one percent chance addition to the chance at victory.

And, since nowhere in the history of the world, at any time, anywhere before the invention of gunpowder, is there report of wise leaders sending women into combat, save perhaps as the last resort, this reason for keeping women out of combat, whatever it was, would have to be something each and every leader in each and every case in history, in every land, for every race and tribe, universally regarded as preferable to defeat in war.”

I’m a wargamer so I take a slightly different perspective on this very reason of which our host speaks. Put yourself into the shoes of a commander leading his people off to war for a moment. Winning battles is extremely important (though as Pyrrhus would remind us you may very well win every single battle and still lose the war) and gaining every advantage towards increasing your chances of victory in battle should be considered. As our host points out, the contribution of women in a conflict not involving modern armaments is slim to none – and even in such a situation, as others have pointed out, as the Israelis have learned the hard way, may not only be an insignificant positive contribution, but even potentially an outright negative one as the presence of women on a battlefield lowers the combat effectiveness of the males on the field.

However, I would take it one step further than this when considering the commander’s point of view – let us assume for a moment that women do indeed at least make a positive contribution to a fight and not a negative one – even were this the case, would the benefit outweigh the actual cost of such a decision? If an individual is sent off to fight, where are they then and where are they no longer? As it has been said since time immemorial, and army marches on its stomach – the single most important facet of War is not fighting capable, it is not tactics, it is not even strategy itself – it is logistics. An army cannot sustain itself without a solid supply line, and in order to have a supply line one must first have supplies to move in the first place.

What we are truly weighing here is not merely how much a woman can contribute to the fighting as compared to how much a man contributes – but rather what either individual is not contributing should they do so. We all know right off the bat that men are superior combatants compared to the women, it is what they are built for – the role of the woman however is primarily domestic, we also know this, it is exactly what they too are built for. A woman’s innate role is in the household while the man’s is in the field – the man cannot properly fulfill his role in the field if the woman is not fulfilling hers in the household and the same is true in the opposite direction.

Simply put, from a commander’s point of view women’s combat effectiveness should not be questioned against that of men, but rather against her value off the field of battle. If she is placed upon the field then she is removed from the village/town/city she was in – she is an inferior fighter and contributes little to the battlefield that a man will not make up for, and she is extremely effective at her place in the very homeland the army is fighting on behalf of. A leader’s greatest responsibility is to place those beneath his command in the role they are most suited to in attaining victory, were he to place a woman in a combat roll then he is losing the greater contribution she makes in her non-combat roll.

This all leads me back to simple logistics and an army marching on its stomach. Were an army to press the women of fighting age into its nation’ combat service as it does its men, even if it completely annihilated its enemies in the opening engagements, it would soon find that in its wake its cities crumbling and decrepit, its fields untended and fallow, the next generations of its warriors unfit and unprepared to take up their fathers’ arms, and the very army itself starving to death months or even years of travel away from home.

Were a commander to simply take every able bodied fighter with him in his pursuit of victory in battle, this would leave only the extremely old and extremely young to bear the very foundation of their nation upon their shoulders, the army itself weighing most heavily upon their shoulders. When already so many of the men have gone off to battle, it is not only the natural duty of the women to pick up the slack and make up for their absence, it is a complete necessity.

Indeed, even if they were not to fight at all and merely traveled along with the men, unless your society is structured nomadically like the monghols, and your entire populace is traveling as a mobile tent city along with the fighting forces – any civilized people with static population centers would find such a prospect crippling to their entire nation.

The women in the cities and the men on the battlefield is ultimately just the national expression of the individual woman in the home and the man tending his fields.

That is my perspective from wargaming at least – if my resources aren’t properly in order, then it doesn’t matter how strong my fighting force is or clever my battlefield strategies are – I will win the battle and lose the war, even if that is merely the war spanning multiple generations and not a singular war in and of itself. Its important to remember that people in this situation are in and of themselves resources at the commander’s disposal, how he will utilize them to their greatest efficiency is the real question at the end of the day.

TL;DR – A woman making sandwiches in the kitchen is more vital to a nation’s war efforts than her wielding a magical sword that can slay a man with every swing on the battlefield.

Finally, John C. Wright says he never saw any of the critique videos because he feels that no one will give an honest answer. Saying that women would generally be at a disadvantage against a man in sword combat is politically incorrect, and no one would dare make the point too strongly.

Time for me to confess. I did not watch a single video of the videos to which I linked. Not one, not one second, not one frame. I merely guessed at the general tone and scope of the argument, because, when one is arguing dogma, there is only a small range of acceptable opinion.

If I was able to voice the correct counter arguments to argument I had not heard, it is not because I am some sort of lawyerly genius. It is only because I just so happened, perhaps by dumb luck or dumb persistence, to hit upon the key to understanding Leftwing psychology.

It is a mob mentality that is in rebellion against reality. It always seeks the easiest and laziest way to aggrandize itself with empty vainglory, while demeaning and belittling anyone who critiques or questions.

The reason why I wrote three columns on this silly little offhand comment of Klavan’s is that I was shocked, shocked to my bones, to see no other videos or comments leaping to his defense. Are all the rightwingers suddenly struck dumb?

It is in the culture, in crappy little telly shows, that we have to win the culture back.

This whole subject leaves lots of food for thought. In many ways, it’s the topic that won’t die.