[tomboy999999]

Pretty heavy title for a site like this which is heavily powered by fantasy but here goes!

Common culture gives various reasons why women don't/shouldn't fight, " women are nurturers/nurses not hunter warriors" or " women are weaker than men" and " they can't take pain like men".

Now none of those is logically true. Lionesses bring up their cubs single handed but still fight and kill prey. If strength or size was all important no smaller men would fight which clearly isn't true and the argument doesn't apply to woman vs woman. As for pain men don't do childbirth so they cant pass judgement on the pain levels that some women have to endure.

However I recently read a rather diifferent explanation of why societies have not let women fight. Its an evolutionary defence mechanism, only women can bear children so, in prehistoric times ,  they were  too valuable to risk losing in combat ( or fighting  wild animals for food).

The risk of losing too many women in combat even if it helped you beat another group or tribe was too high, few women = few babies = your tribe fades away. In prehistoric times , the argument went , tribes were small so loss of births could be catosphophic.

Now I find that  very rational explanation with interesting implications now. Births were critical during most of evolution because, sadly, infant mortality was huge. If the women were not constantly pregnent then few new adults would be produced.

Today thats not true due to better medicine etc. So, if the expalantion of historical attitudes to women as fighters is true and humans are still evolving then maybe women fighting may cease to be culturally repressed. As women have become more economically equal they do seem to be fighing more , even if it is sadly when they are drunk in the UK.

Women have also been allowed into nearly all military combat roles . Whether that is ideal you can argue but its happened in western countries

This evolutionary explanation appeals to me , unfortunateley not being ever lasting I cant wait the several thouand years to see if it is true!

[JT Edson]

Thank God for modern medicine and science!

All kidding aside, interesting and logical explanation.

JT Edson

[lumberjack66]

I think that makes sense in terms of large battles or why women don't fight in wars, but generally speaking, female fighting is even more non-lethal than male fighting.  You may have a point though in the having children part.  Obviously, a pregnant woman fighting could easily result in the loss of the baby.  That penalty would be way to high for any petty disagreements.  And as in so much of our history, women would be pregnant a significant portion of the time, it makes sense that the practice in general might be strongly discouraged to the point that it is so rare today.

I would say that the taboo nature of female fighting has changed dramatically the last 50 years ago.  It was extrodinarily rare before that.  In the 70's I would say it became almost common for oil and mud wrestling and foxy boxing in adult clubs.  It is also extremely common in our media now in soap operas, comic books, movies, etc.  And police reports are showing a dramatic increase in the number and violence of female vs female fights.