Female Knights!

Hmm. As a member of the female audience, I would not pick up a book just because there were female knights in it. In fact, I find the idea of female knights unlikely (of course, it depends on how you integrate it into your world, but gender roles in medieval or medieval-based societies tend to be kinda fixed). I just want characters who seem real and worthy of empathy, no matter what their gender or social role is.

I think it's a mistake in general for people to assume women will only read about women and men will only read about men. It certainly doesn't apply to me. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong about the rest of you.

Good thing it's a fantasy! The weight of the armour alone would probably crush a woman. It was awful heavy. The men were big muscular guys and the horses were heavy draft animals. Not to mention that the weapons were also pretty darned heavy. Of course in a fantasy you can make things whatever you want!
Linnea

Maybe the women use spells to lighten the armor, and if the spells are broken they get crushed to death by the weight?

Not all knights wore plate mail - the original historical requirement for being a knight was the ability to wield a melee weapon while riding a horse. Armor got heavier and heavier over the centuries mainly because crossbows developed the ability to pierce light armor at a significant distance (although of course there were other factors involved, as with pretty much any historical change). There were still lots of reasons it was unlikely for women to be knights - religious reasons, the problem that any woman who did things without a chaperone would be unlikely to make a good marriage for fear that she would be carrying an illegitimate child, the risk that a female warrior would be raped by the enemy and burden her employer with a bastard child, the problem that if she did get married being pregnant or a nursing mother would sideline her for not just months but probably years, the question of who would be cooking and otherwise managing domestic matters since she would be busy fighting, and the problem with warriors in general that military training rarely gives them any skills which would earn their keep after they retire...

Personally I like the idea of female knights, when I was 8-14 I would have loved to read a book with one as the main character (provided she had a real female personality and wasn't just an excuse for combining kicking ass with bouncing boobs as some male authors and audiences like to drool over). But it is difficult to make it seem reasonable, and also has limited value in a non-main character.

I don't see how female knights are so unrealistic (not that realism is an issue in fantasy, hence the name of the genre). Women aren't invalids, and there are plenty who are way stronger and able to lift heavy things than I am. Hell, there are some who can pull a Buick up a hill with their teeth, probably.

Then, you know, there could be some ultra light metal in the fantasy world and the swords would be weigh about as much as styrofoam and everyone just whipped them around for the hell of it. Or some environmental condition that causes hormone imbalances and makes everyone really strong. Or a pituitary tumor that caused freakish size and strength. Or maybe she's actually a man but prefers to dress as a woman. Damn, that's an awesome idea. A cross-dressing medieval hero.

Or no, even better. She's a vampire. Problem solved!

Ah. Seriously though, aren't there historical instances of female warriors? I swear I remember plenty, but obviously not well enough because I can't think of their names. Anyway, it doesn't seem so far fetched, really.

Just make sure she wears nothing but a leather thong. Like them Tarakians.

For example, Joan of Arc...

As a female warrior, not as a woman who wore leather thongs.

Though that is just a guess. I admit to not knowing enough about her to claim she did not wear leather thongs.

I'd say the biggest reason women weren't knights was because women weren't trained to wear armor and use weapons from the time they could walk. Women in general of course have less upper body strength than men, but the difference isn't really bigger than the differences between stronger and weaker men. So, the strongest knight in the kingdom will probably never be a woman but there's no real problem female knights in general. Though there should probably be less female than male knights, after all, in terms of reproduction, men are the expendable gender.

As an aside, armor and weapons weren't all that heavy actually. Too darn heavy to worn by a modern-day cubicle warrior, but not in any way crushingly heavy. And absolutely not if you were trained in their use. The good part about plate mail compared to a backpack of the same weight is that the mail has the weight distributed all over the body, not in one place.
The really heavy armor of "can't get up alone" fame as only worn by cavalry and only during a relatively short period in history anyway. Though if you're facing a couple 'hundred britons with longbows you'll be thankful for wearing armor that won't be pierced.

Alanna by Tamora Pierce...

The biggest reason women weren't knights is because women were second class citizens at best, property at worst. Being a knight was a manly man thing and usually a respected position earned through favors with the king or through combat, probably through land ownership, too.

When I think of female knights, I think of Red Sonya. Or that awful King Arthur where Guenevere was a warrior.

If your emphasis is on medieval, I'm not sure it works. If the emphasis is on fantasy, then anything goes. The problem I see is when authors try to take a character and stick him/her into a groove that just doesn't fit. For example, if you were writing a historical set in medieval England, there's no way I would buy the idea of a little girl being raised up as a knight. There's that whole suspension of disbelief thingie.

On the other hand, if you're building a fantasy world where things are clearly out of the ordinary anyway, it might be more believable, as long as you can convince me that the character isn't just a knight with boobs.

There's also the physical aspect of it, as mentioned above. Is she big enough to hoist a large weapon? Can she get up on a horse while wearing combat armor? Speaking of armor, is she just wearing a chain-mail bikini, or full plate? The first is annoying for many female readers, the second hard to believe unless she's got strength of Amazonian proportions.

A book won't appeal to female readers just because you have a female knight. You have to make the whole book appealing -- and if your female knight is stereotyped or cliched or cartoony, that's gonna sink it.

Knight

DwayneA said:

An upcoming medieval fantasy I have planned will actually have female knights, one of whom is the best soldier on the kingdom's military!

This is done to make the book appeal to a female audience as much as the guys.

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I think it's always a serious, serious mistake when a writers tries to write anything in order to appeal to men and women, or men or women, when the writers does anything because, "This will make it appeal to women/men."

one of whom is the best soldier on the kingdom's military! You think this will make the book appeal to women, but it probably won't, and it's likely to drive away the male readers.

Just tell a good story, and forget about trying to appeal to guys or gals.

Lhun said:

As an aside, armor and weapons weren't all that heavy actually. Too darn heavy to worn by a modern-day cubicle warrior, but not in any way crushingly heavy. And absolutely not if you were trained in their use. The good part about plate mail compared to a backpack of the same weight is that the mail has the weight distributed all over the body, not in one place.
The really heavy armor of "can't get up alone" fame as only worn by cavalry and only during a relatively short period in history anyway. Though if you're facing a couple 'hundred britons with longbows you'll be thankful for wearing armor that won't be pierced.

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It's true that swords and most armor weren't all that heavy, but force is equivalent to mass, but the strength of a man's hand, wrist and arm, plus the weight of his arm and his body, gives him a pretty much unbeatable advantage over a woman in any kind of sword fight. Strength even plays a big part in fencing, let alone fighting with heavier swords.

The biggest problem with Xena's is that if you have a woman like that, you'd want her to be breeding. (So maybe this one in question is sterile?) In medieval societies and in today's third world countries the infant mortality was so high that they needed good breeders. If she was a knight, she'd have servants and probably even wetnurses, so she might only be sidelined for 5 months of the year. Also in many medieval and ancient societies battles were effectively scheduled. Historians often overlook this aspect of ancient warfare. There was such a thin line between survival and starvation that wars were usually waged around the planting and harvesting. In this society it would be possible for a female knight to have a "breeding season".

Women were not second class citizens in all societies, just most of them. There are historical references to the Amazons and most myths have some basis in fact. In most Viking societies it was the woman who owned property and had the right to divorce, by simply leaving the guy's stuff at the front gate. Very little was written about them because for a very long time the vikings had no written form of the language in the modern sense.

Full heavy plate armor weighed typically as much as the person wearing it. Just a short sleeved chainmail shirt made for a 150 pound man weighs about 30 pounds. Knights who wore that kind of armor usually didn't take it off except for situations that required nudity. If they left it off for too long, their muscles would weaken from lack of use.

sunandshadow said:

Not all knights wore plate mail -

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In fact, no knights wore "plate mail," because there is no such thing.

(Before about 1250, nobody wore plate armor because it had not been invented yet. William's knights at Hastings all wore mail.)

Does she have any flaws? This sounds pretty much like a Mary Sue wish-fulfillment character and they tend to be boring to read about. Give her some flaws and us some reason to like her.

I have a female warrior (not a knight, different culture entirely) in a novel I've written, and while she's a demon with a blade, she's by no means perfect.

It's already been written; see Elizabeth Moon's Paksnarrion books, or Jo Walton's Sulien novels, the King's Name and The King's Peace.

And a host of others --

I like kick ass female characters. But I don't think adding kick ass female characters just to make things less sexist is less sexist in a weird way. I am getting so tired of movies these days that HAVE to have a kick ass girl in it, it's almost as stereotyped as the maiden who needs to be rescued. What makes something non-sexist is trying to break out of stereotyped characters, to allow female characters to be just as complicated and interesting as male characters (in most movies these days the female kick ass character is incapable of losing for some weird reason). To have more than just one stock female character in the gang (not just, the leader, the smart guy, the thug, the funny one and the girl - if you know what I mean).

Jamesaritchie said:

the strength of a man's hand, wrist and arm, plus the weight of his arm and his body, gives him a pretty much unbeatable advantage over a woman in any kind of sword fight.

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Well, what if the woman is a 240 pound bull-hemoth, then would she stand a better chance against your average male?

PattiTheWicked said:

unless she's got strength of Amazonian proportions.

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Just the way I like 'em.

Shadow_Ferret said:

The biggest reason women weren't knights is because women were second class citizens at best, property at worst.

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DwayneA said:

I'm just trying to avoid the sexism of those ages and give women an equal opportunity.

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My problem with statements like these is that they impose modern morality on an ancient culture. There were reasons for the traditional roles that both men and women played in society. Granted, the book is for a modern audience with modern sensibilities. I see nothing wrong with a woman chafing at the woman's role and wanting to be a knight. But the author has to take the very valid reasons why society would not want woment to be knights into account and not just dismiss it as sexism.

It will also make the woman's struggle to be what she wants to be more interesting than making your culture a very PC, equal-opportunity society.

Moonfish said:

Alanna by Tamora Pierce...

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That's exactly what I was thinking.

Now, it's not quite the same thing, but I have fought against men and women warriors in the SCA, all wearing significant amounts of armor and wielding roughly the same weight weapons. It's been a few years, but I doubt things have changed too much.

In field melee, the women tended to be just behind the shield wall, wielding pole arms or dispatched as skirmishers, since they (again) tended to use lighter, quicker weapons and could fall on isolated groups of warriors, especially those tied up fighting the shield wall. (VERY difficult to react to a flanking attack if you're pressing against the wall. Basically, you get your choice of dying from the wall or dying from the flankers.)

In one on one combat, the women I fought against could be overpowered by brute strength, but most relied on their quickness, slightly lighter armor and fighting styles to try and keep some distance between them and the larger men. Move in, strike quick and get the hell away was a very standard style. Trust me, It's bad enough when your opponent stands to fight. Chasing someone around the tournament field when you're wearing about 100 lbs of armor is not a lot of fun.

Also, women tended to make up a large majority of the light fighters (javeliners and archers).

Again, if you're doing a "historical fantasy", then no, you wouldn't expect to see women in combat (except for the occasional one pretending to be a man). However, if you're doing a straight fantasy (and are being consistent to the world you're building), then you're only inhibited by your imagination.

Remember, even the Greeks had their Amazons and they were fearsome warriors in a male-dominated world, so precedent has been set long before any of us thought of writing about them.