History Quotes / MenAreTheExpendableGender

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39210376/ aieeegrunt]]: ''"Women warriors are going to be rare for the same reasons why we have different sex classes for competitive sports. Aside from rare outliers they simply cannot compete physcially."''

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39211231 Terry]]: ''"Which matters not, at all. Women are not expendable. If some other method of reproduction existed in the medieval era women would have been sent to their deaths just like millions of men. It didn't matter that poorly trained, underequipped and occasionally malnourished consripted peasants dropped like flies. Their numbers mattered, if women could add to that number their performance would have been irrelevant. Your justification only works in a very narrow situation a modern first world army finds itself in."''

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39217273/ Gaius Marius]]: ''"Women are utterly expendable. Old ones die and new ones are born all the damn time. Plus medieval Europe stuck '''tens of thousands''' of young, usually gentle born, women in [[https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1298/the-daily-life-of-medieval-nuns/ nunneries]] every generation. Imagine if instead of praying and studying and healing, they were used to do something productive, like murdering foreigners! Medieval monarchs and warlords didn't sit around going, "we can't send women out to fight, as they'd on average have 5% less fighting and 9% less marching utility than men of the same training do, plus if we have half our army be women then extra casualties on our breeding pop of young women mean my descendant Prince Humperdinck will have 4% fewer men at arms for the 3rd crusade as I did on the first crusade..." They said, "Knights gather here to go fight the French, I'll pay you thirty florins per man at arms, twenty per archer for a year." Decades Long term planning was something quite beyond their grasp beyond banning golf. The social class that occasionally forgot things like "water is a thing humans need" didn't neglect to arm/train women for front line combat because of some steely eyed demographic analysis, but because they had a whole social/religious view that women shouldn't be fighting. Your example also ignores A. Excess of Dead men in a Christian society means an excess of useless widows and b. If you're on a defensive war, then a victorious battle where a lot of women get killed is still better than a loss where they all live but get carried off by Vikings."''

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39219016/ Valeris]]: ''"Plus, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_follower armies often took women with them as auxiliaries]], or [[https://www.historynet.com/women-in-war.htm even brought their wives with them when they marched]]. It's not exactly hard to find accounts of such, or indeed-accounts of them getting attacked either in battles or in the aftermath of battles when the enemy was able to reach the camp/siege lines/baggage train. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire Women got killed all the time in battles]], not to mention in [[https://aprilmunday.wordpress.com/2016/04/10/the-dangers-of-a-medieval-siege/ sieges]] or through stuff like the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevauchée chevauchée]]. So women ended up in the middle of the fighting a lot whether they wanted to or not."''

-->-- ''Website/SpaceBattlesDotCom'' thread [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/famous-viking-warrior-burial-revealed-to-be-that-of-a-woman.566380/ Famous Viking warrior burial revealed to be that of a woman]]

->''"No, you're not thinking of an actual medieval war there. If you lose the fight, then the percentage of female casualties will be a lot higher as the local villages get murder raped. And again, '''Nuns.''' Medieval Europe had what, tens of thousands of Nuns? Certainly more than they had knights spurred and belted. Even post plague they were hardly hurting for fertile women to the degree they couldn't risk them in harness less the nation go extinct. This brain bug of "If women are fighters, not enough reproduction" needs to die."''

-->-- user '''Gaius Marius''' in ''Website/SpaceBattlesDotCom'' thread [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/74029365 How do you feel about female fighters in medieval/fantasy settings?]]

-->-- User Gaius Marius in ''Website/SpaceBattlesDotCom'' thread [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/74029365 How do you feel about female fighters in medieval/fantasy settings?]]

->TheGrog: ''"The other problem with women fighting is that they're going to die, which results in lower population growth due to both additional deaths and lack of childbearing time. This would turn up compeition for wives some, and also mean that the worst outcome from a major military defeat might well be the loss of future population. There are a lot of countries that took horrifying male losses in battle but bounced back in population afterwards. If 20% of your fighting force is female, then 20% of the casualties will be too. "''

->Gaius Marius: ''"No, you're not thinking of an actual medieval war there. If you lose the fight, then the percentage of female casualties will be a lot higher as the local villages get murder raped. And again, '''Nuns.''' Medieval Europe had what, tens of thousands of Nuns? Certainly more than they had knights spurred and belted. Even post plague they were hardly hurting for fertile women to the degree they couldn't risk them in harness less the nation go extinct. This brain bug of "If women are fighters, not enough reproduction" needs to die."''

-->-- ''Website/SpaceBattlesDotCom'' thread [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/74029365 How do you feel about female fighters in medieval/fantasy settings?]]

->''You're forgetting something. Your entire worldview about women being weak and ought to be protected in place of a man is a byproduct of the idea that since one man can impregnate multiple women, we fare better with a dead man than a dead woman since any man can breed his wife.''\\
''So, given that, if I told you two of my five wives were about to be sacrificed by a island tribe wouldn't you take their place? Surely since I can replace you in the act of breeding you;re life doesn't matter, and you being killed off does not impact the world like one of them dying. Right?''\\
->''Or you an shut the fuck up and go back to white knighting for girls who don't care about you.''
-->-- A Website/{{Reddit}} user

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39210376/ aieeegrunt]]: ''"Women warriors are going to be rare for the same reasons why we have different sex classes for competitive sports. Aside from rare outliers they simply cannot compete physcially."''

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39211231 Terry]]: ''"Which matters not, at all. Women are not expendable. If some other method of reproduction existed in the medieval era women would have been sent to their deaths just like millions of men. It didn't matter that poorly trained, underequipped and occasionally malnourished consripted peasants dropped like flies. Their numbers mattered, if women could add to that number their performance would have been irrelevant. Your justification only works in a very narrow situation a modern first world army finds itself in."''

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39217273/ Gaius Marius]]: ''"Women are utterly expendable. Old ones die and new ones are born all the damn time. Plus medieval Europe stuck '''tens of thousands''' of young, usually gentle born, women in nunneries every generation. Imagine if instead of praying and studying and healing, they were used to do something productive, like murdering foreigners! Medieval monarchs and warlords didn't sit around going, "we can't send women out to fight, as they'd on average have 5% less fighting and 9% less marching utility than men of the same training do, plus if we have half our army be women then extra casualties on our breeding pop of young women mean my descendant Prince Humperdinck will have 4% fewer men at arms for the 3rd crusade as I did on the first crusade..." They said, "Knights gather here to go fight the French, I'll pay you thirty florins per man at arms, twenty per archer for a year." Decades Long term planning was something quite beyond their grasp beyond banning golf. The social class that occasionally forgot things like "water is a thing humans need" didn't neglect to arm/train women for front line combat because of some steely eyed demographic analysis, but because they had a whole social/religious view that women shouldn't be fighting. Your example also ignores A. Excess of Dead men in a Christian society means an excess of useless widows and b. If you're on a defensive war, then a victorious battle where a lot of women get killed is still better than a loss where they all live but get carried off by Vikings."''

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39219016/ Valeris]]: ''"Plus, armies often took women with them as auxiliaries, or even brought their wives with them when they marched. It's not exactly hard to find accounts of such, or indeed-accounts of them getting attacked either in battles or in the aftermath of battles when the enemy was able to reach the camp/siege lines/baggage train. Women got killed all the time in battles, not to mention in sieges or through stuff like the chevauchée. So women ended up in the middle of the fighting a lot whether they wanted to or not."''

-->-- ''Website/SpaceBattlesDotCom'' thread [[https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/famous-viking-warrior-burial-revealed-to-be-that-of-a-woman.566380/ Famous Viking warrior burial revealed to be that of a woman]]

->''You're forgetting something. Your entire worldview about women being weak and ought to be protected in place of a man is a byproduct of the idea that since one man can impregnate multiple women, we fare better with a dead man than a dead woman since any man can breed his wife.''
->''So, given that, if I told you two of my five wives were about to be sacrificed by a island tribe wouldn't you take their place? Surely since I can replace you in the act of breeding you;re life doesn't matter, and you being killed off does not impact the world like one of them dying. Right?''

->[[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/39217273/ Gaius Marius]]: ''"Women are utterly expendable. Old ones die and new ones are born all the damn time. Plus medieval Europe stuck '''tens of thousands''' of young, usually gentle born, women in nunneries every generation. Imagine if instead of praying and studying and healing, they were used to do something productive, like murdering foreigners! Medieval monarchs and warlords didn't sit around going, "we can't send women out to fight, as they'd on average have 5% less fighting and 9% less marching utility than men of the same training do, plus if we have half our army be women then extra casualties on our breeding pop of young women mean my descendent Prince Humperdinck will have 4% fewer men at arms for the 3rd crusade as I did on the first crusade..." They said, "Knights gather here to go fight the French, I'll pay you thirty florins per man at arms, twenty per archer for a year." Decades Long term planning was something quite beyond their grasp beyond banning golf. The social class that occasionally forgot things like "water is a thing humans need" didn't neglect to arm/train women for front line combat because of some steely eyed demographic analysis, but because they had a whole social/religious view that women shouldn't be fighting. Your example also ignores A. Excess of Dead men in a Christian society means an excess of useless widows and b. If you're on a defensive war, then a victorious battle where a lot of women get killed is still better than a loss where they all live but get carried off by Vikings."''

->''"To put it simply: men are neither supposed nor allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of the culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it."''