Considering I'm one of the few people to consistently defend her, that shouldn't be too much of a surprise.
What I thought was interesting about WoT was the way it addressed or worked around the real problem of female soldiers, which is their interactions with male soldiers. Which is also one of the more practical arguments against homosexual soldiers, as well. RJ sort of acknowledges that stuff by one of those first female soldiers being reprimanded for flirting with a male guard while on duty. The Aiel Maidens of the Spear are pretty much excised from issues of command (and note that male battle leaders cannot assign duties or objectives to individual Maidens, removing sexual and romantic issues from the chain of command), and the Aiel are acculturated against seeing Maidens differently than male warriors. The one time they let a wetlander into the army, it screwed things up royally with fraternization problems, and led to the Shaido schism. For the most part, the more militaristic the WoT culture, the more chauvinistic in its protection and exemption of women from military activity. Even the Aiel treat civilian women very differently and for all intents and purposes, completely marginalize military women, all but rendering them into men.
The Seanchan don't seem to do this that I recall. Tylee and Egeanin don't seem to be looked at as men. The Seanchan just seem to rigidly stick to their caste system with no regard to male/female beyond the normal interplay. Aside from being Empress, damane or Sul'dam there doesn't seem to be any difference for males and females within their society. Everything else seems (at least at surface level) to be based on a meritocracy of sorts. Rank clearly means more than gender, but even that doesn't appear to be typically hereditary. Egeanin still had to work her way up the military ranks and earn her Low Blood Rank even though her mother was the highest ranking Naval officer and IIRC of the Blood. I suspect there is some difference with the High Blood and heredity, but that still doesn't seem to have any kind of gender lines beyond the fact that only a woman can be the ruler.
In the Westlands I think there are many men who have experience with the sword in non-military capacity. I think it's Pevara who notes that a boy of 13 would be receiving training if he was from a noble family. I would imagine that most non-noble boys around them who were of similar age would also learn the basics so the young lord would have some sparring partners in his own age group, so I can see how there would be plenty of men who learned enough to have issues unlearning.
- 19/10/2016 09:19:01 PM
694 Views
- 19/10/2016 09:48:17 PM
511 Views
- 20/10/2016 06:13:27 PM
607 Views
- 20/10/2016 07:14:51 PM
479 Views