Female boldness has in many societies been required simply
to defend personal liberty and self-determination, carving out space to act in
spite of patriarchal constraints, to become what the English called "a
woman at her own commandment." Agodice practiced medicine in
classical Athens disguised as a man, risking the death penalty then in force
against female physicians. About two thousand years later, Miranda Stuart
used the same strategy to get her M.D. As Dr. James Barry, she became Chief
Surgeon for the British Navy. Her subterfuge was not discovered until her
death, although she came close after being wounded in a duel.
This route of adopting a cloak of male privilege was
followed by countless female adventurers, including Carmen Robles who
became a colonel in the Mexican Revolutionary Army, and Elvira Cespedes,
who practiced medicine and married a woman in 16th-century Spain — until she
was denounced to the Inquisition and sentenced to a long term confinement and
forced labor.
Female mavericks were also active in the arts and sciences.
The renegade nun Okuni originated the Kabuki Theater, from which
women were soon banned. In Moorish Spain, the poet Walladah bint-al-Mustakfi
rejected the veil and marriage, preferring to host intellectual salons and took
female, as well as male lovers. Around 975, her counterpart Aisa bint Ahmad
declined a proposal by a poet she disliked with a defiant stance: "I am
a lioness/ And will never consent to let/ My body be the stopping place for
anyone/ But should I choose that/ I would not hearken to a dog/ And how many
lions have I turned down."
The most courageous women challenged oppression. The famous
Swahili singer Siti Binti Saad rose from the oppressed classes to make Taarabu
music her vehicle calling for social justice in what is now Tanzania. She
protested class oppression and men's abuse of women. Her song "The Police Have
Stopped" sharply criticized a judge who let a rich wife-murderer go
free. She seemed unafraid even of the sultan.
The battle leadership of a Pawnee elder saved a village from
attackers, and so she was named "Old Lady Grieves the Enemy."
Afterward, she taunted wife-beaters, telling them to go after the Poncas who
came to burn up the village, and leave the women, who do no harm, alone.
There are many historical accounts of women warriors, and
women often fought to defend their homes, their people and their country.
However, although it is hard for many people today to conceive of such broad
female authority, in some societies women had the formal power to veto the
decision to go to war. The Cherokee Beloved Woman, in her capacity of
representing the women at the men's council possessed this authority, and so
did the Gantowisas (Matrons) of the Six Nations (Iroquois).
It was the women who supplied warriors with dried food and other necessities,
and they suffered the consequences of war as well. There was a saying, "Before
the men can go to war, the women must make their moccasins." (See
Moccasin Makers and War Breakers, below.)
The Lisu people of Yunnan (southwest China) once had a
tradition that fighting had to stop if a woman of either side waved her
skirt to call for an armistice. Often this would be a highly-regarded
elder. The skirt, imbued with the woman's mana, symbolized the
life-giver's power. A woman taking off her outer skirt was also the signal
for war or peace in the Pacific island Vanatinai, where women were also the traditional
protectors of prisoners of war.
© Max Dashu 2000
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Stacy Keibler, pro wrestler & mother
WWE champion
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