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Overview
WOMEN WARRIORS takes the reader back through history and around the world to uncover a clear pattern of women as warriors. It is a fascinating comment on the nature of gender, on the power of the warrior image, and on the image’s source in history.
Synopsis
An anthropologist tells the history of women in battle from Cleopatra and Joan of Arc to Thusnelda, the Teutonic warrior, and the twentieth century's Ming Khai
Publishers Weekly
Openly dismissive of traditional Western arguments that women are ill-suited for combat, Jones, a cultural anthropologist, sets out to show that women "own" war and its glories just as much as men do. Reaching back to ancient times and continuing through to the Gulf War, Jones divides his work into geographically themed chapters. In them, he presents instance after instance of females who "have taken the field and have wielded the weapons of their day." While Jones offers the caveat that "no sane person would wish involvement in war on anyone-male or female," he presents his women warriors in heroic terms. Among the many she-warriors who make appearances are the medieval Japanese Lady Yatsushior, who charged into battle while pregnant, and the 19th-century Frenchwoman Jeanette Colin, who disguised herself as a man and fought against the British at the Battle of Trafalgar. Many of Jones's tales are fascinating, but the scope of this survey is so broad that he hits only the highlights of each story before moving on to the next. Readers are left hankering for more of such viragoes as the Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley, who reportedly terrorized even the powerful British Queen Elizabeth I. Serious students of military history may fault Jones for his heavy reliance on anecdotal material, and for his one-sided presentation of his subject, particularly regarding the role of women in modern American conflicts. Others will lose patience with his heavy-handed presentation of theme: "Men and women will never reach a common consciousness of their equality as humans until both accept that women have a claim on the title `Warrior.'" Still, this is an entertaining introduction to an intriguing and largely neglected subject. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Openly dismissive of traditional Western arguments that women are ill-suited for combat, Jones, a cultural anthropologist, sets out to show that women "own" war and its glories just as much as men do. Reaching back to ancient times and continuing through to the Gulf War, Jones divides his work into geographically themed chapters. In them, he presents instance after instance of females who "have taken the field and have wielded the weapons of their day." While Jones offers the caveat that "no sane person would wish involvement in war on anyone-male or female," he presents his women warriors in heroic terms. Among the many she-warriors who make appearances are the medieval Japanese Lady Yatsushior, who charged into battle while pregnant, and the 19th-century Frenchwoman Jeanette Colin, who disguised herself as a man and fought against the British at the Battle of Trafalgar. Many of Jones's tales are fascinating, but the scope of this survey is so broad that he hits only the highlights of each story before moving on to the next. Readers are left hankering for more of such viragoes as the Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley, who reportedly terrorized even the powerful British Queen Elizabeth I. Serious students of military history may fault Jones for his heavy reliance on anecdotal material, and for his one-sided presentation of his subject, particularly regarding the role of women in modern American conflicts. Others will lose patience with his heavy-handed presentation of theme: "Men and women will never reach a common consciousness of their equality as humans until both accept that women have a claim on the title `Warrior.'" Still, this is an entertaining introduction to an intriguing and largely neglected subject. Photos not seen by PW. Feb.Library Journal
The topic of women in the military continues to stir controversy today as it has throughout the ages. Jones (cultural anthropology, Univ. of Central Florida) provides an unusual, worldwide survey of women's participation in military events. Taking case studies based on historical evidence, not mythological stories, Jones suggests that women have played a varied and vital role in warfare despite the supposed limits of their gender. However, despite his plethora of examples, Jones's analysis is thin. He never really presents a clear summary of the universal characteristics of women warriors, although he hints at them. Still, this is as comprehensive a resource as is available and makes a nice companion to Encyclopedia of the Amazons (LJ 7/91) and Female Soldiers (1982). Recommended for general audiences as well as students of women's studies.-Jenny Presnell, Miami Univ. Lib., Oxford, OhioBooknews
Reprint of the 1997 work in which cultural anthropologist Jones looks at women in the military and in wars and battles throughout history and around the world, presenting stories of women soldiers, leaders, pirates, outlaws, and terrorists in ancient times and in modern conflicts such as the Indochinese wars, WWII, and warfare in the Middle East and Latin America. For students and general readers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Kirkus Reviews
A full yet readable historical survey of women at war that convincingly shows females have long been soldiers and military leaders.To counter the male conditioning that has led women to believe that "the warrior's power historically and biologically belongs only to men," Jones, a scholar of military societies (Cultural Anthropology/Univ. of Central Florida), spans past and present to gather a variety of true-life examples of women warriors from Arabia, India, the Middle East, and Western societies. Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, and Molly Pitcher are presented in detail; so are less well known women, including the Teutonic warrior Thusnelda, the ancient Ethiopian warrior queens called kentakes, and the 20th- century Vietnamese warrior Ming Khai, whose prison cell wall bore a poem written in blood that ended, "The sword is my child, the gun is my husband." The practices of women warriors are no less harsh—murder, scalping, removing a tongue to prohibit dissemination of secrets—and the will to conquer and subdue opponents, male and female, no less fierce than in male warriors. The numbers of women warriors, Jones demonstrates, sometimes ran high, comprising, for example, nearly half of "some European tribal armies" and 30 percent of the Sandinista forces in the 1970s. Some may feel empowered by these impressive accounts; others may find them repetitive in their narration of military action. (On a lighter note, this may be a useful sourcebook for actresses searching for good female roles: Before Braveheart, there was Queen Penthesilea.)
By sheer accumulation of examples, and by careful adherence to its cultural and historical perspectives, this book succeeds in its goal—to position women as accomplished, worthy soldiers, and to "reveal a particular truth of female historical experience."
From the Publisher
"Fascinating.""Meticulously research and exceptionally well-written, Women Warriors is both highly informative and unusually entertaining. The book certainly succeeds in demonstrating that the use of women in combat has not been as unusual as popularly believed, nor it is an aberration. . . ."
"A full yet readable historical survey of women at war that convincingly shows females have long been soldiers and military leaders."
"Should appeal to general readers as well as scholars and challenge ethnocentric and gender stereotypes. . . ."
"Fascinating."
"Meticulously research and exceptionally well-written, Women Warriors is both highly informative and unusually entertaining. The book certainly succeeds in demonstrating that the use of women in combat has not been as unusual as popularly believed, nor it is an aberration. . . ."
"A full yet readable historical survey of women at war that convincingly shows females have long been soldiers and military leaders."
"Should appeal to general readers as well as scholars and challenge ethnocentric and gender stereotypes. . . ."