Women in Bannerlord

[Gurkhal]

The debate aside, the newest blogthread shed some light on the topic of women in Bannerlord:

One player asked if there will be more female troops than in Warband. We aren't adding new regular troop types. There were a few pre-modern societies in which women were part of the regularly fielded armies, but these aren't the ones on which the Bannerlord factions are modeled. Rather, we treat women warriors as exceptional individuals. So. in Bannerlord you will find more female rulers, nobles, merchants, gang leaders, preachers, outlaws and adventurers. There are ample historical examples of women playing all of these roles, in many different cultures and times. We're writing the dialogs under the assumption that basically anyone in a leadership or NPC role in the game can be either male or female.

This sounds really cool! Cant wait to see what they are doing with it...

Pretty much agrees with this. Will be very interesting to see what comes out.

 

[White Lion]

By studying different development patterns of cultures throughout history, I found it interesting that smaller and more primitive communities tend to be inherently more gender inclusive, meaning that men and women shared quite similar roles, stretching as far as taking female warriors in battles.

The more numerous and developed the community gets, the more it seems like males and females are the subject of division of labor, consequently creating a ridge between their rights and roles.

From what I recall of my anthropology education, women were important in hunter gatherer societies , not because of their equal prowess, but because of the 20% greater processing power in olfactory function (smell and taste) which helps to read the wind to determine the direction of game and in scavenging in determining level of rot when finding a random carcase.

It's important to note that these are all just theories with varying levels of evidence to support them.

The problem is that there are tons of exceptions to both these theories. A lot of hunter-gatherer-herder societies are intensely patriarchal, possibly because women are expected to spend a lot of time pregnant or looking after children. Also, agricultural societies can range from the full-on matriarchies in western china, to Saudi Arabia.

Women aren't actually naturally "weaker" than men in a noticeable way, they just have lower strength ceilings at the Olympic level, and don't build muscle as quickly, although there is tons of overlap, and the strongest woman in the world is stronger than most male strongmen. The main reason that we assume women are weaker is because a weak woman is considered attractive in much of the world (for a number of reasons), so women who want to fit in don't do press-ups.
Therefore the kind of "strength determinism" arguments some people make don't really hold much water. More likely there's a number of unrelated reasons why a society might become patriarchal or matriarchal or something in between, and they remain the root causes even when they've become arbitrary or obsolete, since it's extremely hard for a society to change without some massive upheaval, or near total population replacement (Europe is still mostly patriarchal after 4000+ years of war, migration, socioeconomic revolution and so on, while my parents come from Jamaica which is Matriarchal seemingly with no precedent whatsoever).

There is always a starting point for every element of a society, but since (m/p)atriarchy is just a way of organising labour, the reasons might have been as simple as "men have deeper voices and are better at coordinating a hunt", and then all their descendants for 100,000 years did the same.

"the strongest woman in the world is stronger than most male strongmen" Lol what? You're delusional if you really think that.
Eddie Hall, the worlds strongest man in 2017 deadlifts 500 kg.
Becca Swanson, she's considered the strongest woman on the planet, deadlifts 310 kg.

All men that compete in Worlds Strongest Men are , more or less equal in strenght.
So tell me, how is a woman that deadlifts 310 kg stronger than a man that deadlifts 500 kg?
Even the "weaker" men from WSM competitions is much more stronger than the strongest woman.

Men were always stronger, men will always be stronger. Take a look at other animals, and you will see that the male is bigger and stronger as well in the majority of cases.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Men were always stronger, men will always be stronger. Take a look at other animals, and you will see that the male is bigger and stronger as well in the majority of cases.

lmao

Spoiler

Eddie Hall, the worlds strongest man in 2017 deadlifts 500 kg.
Becca Swanson, she's considered the strongest woman on the planet, deadlifts 310 kg.

I don't deny this, but the idea that there's a massive gulf between the strengths of men and women is absurd. The vast majority of men can't deadlift 310kg and probably don't have the metabolism or physique for it. Muscle is muscle, and if a woman has bigger muscles than me she's probably going to be stronger. The gender imbalance comes from the fact that women have less testosterone which is a factor in converting energy into muscle growth rather than fat.

Also if there were as many female bodybuilders as there are male ones that gap would be a fair bit closer.

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

Women can be soldier as good as man. Like ras al ghul said, "Training [muscle] is nothing, will is everything".

Ofcourse, there is a mental pressure made by society, espcially mediaval society, but I suppose most important factor of women not being soldier or in active social life is being mother. I can't talk about biological side of it but what I can see is when a woman becomes mother, they dedicate their life for coming generation.

 

[Lord Brutus]

Jacob, it's probably best if you stop debating the point now before you make a complete fool of yourself.  Women can perform in modern combat situations as well as a man.  Whether that was true in the Middle Ages, with its completely different mode of combat, is, in game terms, a moot point.  There will be female characters in the game who will not be constrained by the limitations of their anatomy.

 

[Crowcorrector]

I feel like this thread needs this

 

[Looter]

What is the purpose of continuing this thread? TW isn't putting in many special female troop lines besides perhaps continuing the swordsister troop tree, and the female characters that do appear arn't going to be crippled physically compared with male characters in game. Im not going to get into the other argument since it's pointless to fight over and doesn't apply to the game.

 

[Innocent Flower]

Despite really being motivated by only objective truth (and maybe the fear that, if it's not done realistically, it'll be badly politicized)  I'm disappointed that sword sisters will still be "culture neutral".

Units without a culture suck.

 

[charger]

Despite really being motivated by only objective truth (and maybe the fear that, if it's not done realistically, it'll be badly politicized)  I'm disappointed that sword sisters will still be "culture neutral".

Units without a culture suck.

Yeah I'd like a different female troop tree for each culture even if they don't naturally spawn in armies and are as rare as warband sword sisters.

Fortunately new troop types will likely be one of the easiest things to mod in.

 

[Do not look here]

Units without a culture suck.

I beg to differ. Warband was lacking a proper faction-less roster, which made mercenary captain job a pain in the ass, if you wanted to keep a consistent army while also being able to choose between possible employers (i.e. avoiding morale penalties). Only way to gather more neutral troops was to prey on bandits to get manhunters and peasant women, too. Even ability to recruit more limited pool of ordinary peasants with carbon copy of mercenary tree (but no additional costs) would be great.

Hopefully, though, the new recruitment system will bring some interesting options here. Recruiting bandits from a gang leader you spared, bribing prison guard to buy out some local scum, maybe even starting your own, proper mercenary company (cause they mentioned those too), which would attract recruits, stuff like that.

 

[KarlXII]

so your saying because it didnt happen often it shouldnt be represented in video games?

funny how historical accuracy is one of the main reasons people say they dont want more women in warband but they have no problem with a peasant being able to upgrade to a knight in a month 

anyways like youv just admitted they did exist so....

1. No, that is not what I'm saying. I was merely providing context for when female fighters were more likely to show up. Such as Battania having more than the Empire.

2. I have nothing against more female representation. And, no, I don't like being able to turn peasants into knights.

3. Which makes me wonder why you though I was arguing otherwise.

In fact, when the US was deciding to give women the right to vote, most women refused it because it meant being open to be drafted. It was only when the draft was removed as part of that "package" that women supported suffrage.

I realize we are moving into off-topic land, but do you have sources for that?

So, I made that claim based on something I heard/read a while ago. I couldn't find any sources to support it at this time. It's very possible it's bunk. Just ignore it I guess. Sorry about that.

It seems to me that the more settled a society becomes, the less it relies on female fighters. Greater prosperity and security would ensure that there are plenty of men to fight without risking the women.

...

It is interesting to note that women today are less inclined to join the army than men. Which leads me to conclude that only a minority of women would have wanted to join a warband/army in the past anyway. In fact, when the US was deciding to give women the right to vote, most women refused it because it meant being open to be drafted. It was only when the draft was removed as part of that "package" that women supported suffrage.

I think your first point is probably valid, in so far as larger civilisations all seem to have gone this route when they go beyond tribal structures. On the other hand, your later point is basically a false equivalency as women today have a whole range of factors (societal pressure, toxic environment and lack of opportunity for promotion) discouraging enlistment. Many western countries are seeing a steady growth in female soldiers and are actively recruiting for more.

I really don't know why you think it's false. You admitted that there are plenty of factors discouraging women from joining the armed forces today. Since we know society was considerably more sexist then than today, it is only logical to conclude that there were even more discouraging factors. I don't recall ever hearing about a Medieval recruitment program designed to get more female soldiers.

Anyway, back to the topic, I think Taleworlds has handled it well. They are representing the few women who managed to get into positions of power despite societal pressure, without breaking the Medieval immersion.

 

[Oxtocoatl]

I always thought it was fascinating how, as a man, by playing WB as a female character one could get a small taste of the cruel reality of being on the losing end of a patriarchal system. I`m glad to hear that BL is expanding on this idea with more nuance. It could also be fun to participate in activities which the social order deems "fit for women". Imagine going to a feast and being approached by all these young lords looking to marry. Would be fun to have some hotheaded lordling duel another for my favor.

As to the off-topic discussion, I`d like to add that while female fighters have generally been rare in history, female presence in armies was very substantial until the 1700s or so. For example, in the 30 years war, soldiers (who were often professional mercs) would campaign with their wives, or, if they were unmarried, they might sign a contract with what was called (pardon my language) a Soldatendirne. This was a woman who would travel with the soldier, cook his meals, wash his clothes, stitch his wounds and help him collect plunder. I once read an estimate that the gender ratio in some armies from that period was close to 50/50, with the men serving as soldiers and the women running pretty much everything else. Armies are massive organisations and there are tons of (sometimes very dangerous) tasks that women could perform even in societies where they generally weren`t allowed to fight.

That being said, I was somewhat sad to read that the more egalitarian factions probably won`t have female or mixed units. I think it would enrich those factions as in M&B fighting styles and army compositions are a big part of the lore and it would be an effective way to show the player that these societies are more egalitarian than say, the Vlandians. (what difference is there between Swadia and Rhodoks, really, other than the way they fight).

As my last point, when people speculated earlier about which factions would be more sexist, most seemed to immediately lump the Azerai into the sexist camp. This got me to thinking that while that assumption is historically justified, the Sarranids in WB have a female claimant which would hint at moe complex gender relations.

 

[KarlXII]

That's actually a really good point about camp followers that I had completely forgotten about. I just got hung up on the actual fighting portion of armies. Unfortunately, I don't think Taleworlds will be implementing a baggage train mechanic alongside the troops, so we likely won't be able to see them that much, if ever.

 

[surge]

It is actually about the agricultural developement.

Let me explain this, in agricultural lifestyle women are less useful than men.
Because of this, the culture developes in a way that women become less valuable.

In nomadic lifestyle however, because both men and women are useful, culture developes in a way that both genders be equal.

In middle east for example, because that area probably has the oldest agricultural history, women value is on grounds and they are seen as useless sex objects.

Edit:Not to mention the reason we can understand how developed a society from the value it gives to women is because in modern lifestyle women are useful again and the equality shows how long of an experience has the society been through under modern city lifestyle.Longer it is more equal women are.

Are you sure those speculations of your are't just a little bit made up. If you wanna take a logical approach to it then face the facts. Women become pregnant, they bleed out of their..., they are physically smaller and weaker, then there is the hormones. That's just a few of them, today they may seem irrelevant and are easier to ignore, but imagine hundreds of years ago. Particularly think of battle and skirmishes. There has always been a few feisty ones but fact still remains that most men can overpower most women.

 

[surge]

Jacob, it's probably best if you stop debating the point now before you make a complete fool of yourself.  Women can perform in modern combat situations as well as a man.  Whether that was true in the Middle Ages, with its completely different mode of combat, is, in game terms, a moot point.  There will be female characters in the game who will not be constrained by the limitations of their anatomy.

When people say stop debating it is because they know they are about to lose. It is certainly not a "moot" point in a game that which its developers has got the balls not to suck up to every feminist out there. The world is a very different place compared to hundreds of years ago. And if the game developers intend to make a game based on reality then women will have to be "constrained by the limitations of their anatomy".

 

[surge]

Men were always stronger, men will always be stronger. Take a look at other animals, and you will see that the male is bigger and stronger as well in the majority of cases.

lmao

Spoiler

Eddie Hall, the worlds strongest man in 2017 deadlifts 500 kg.
Becca Swanson, she's considered the strongest woman on the planet, deadlifts 310 kg.

I don't deny this, but the idea that there's a massive gulf between the strengths of men and women is absurd. The vast majority of men can't deadlift 310kg and probably don't have the metabolism or physique for it. Muscle is muscle, and if a woman has bigger muscles than me she's probably going to be stronger. The gender imbalance comes from the fact that women have less testosterone which is a factor in converting energy into muscle growth rather than fat.

Also if there were as many female bodybuilders as there are male ones that gap would be a fair bit closer.

What world do people like you come from. Ok so lets make Bannerlords Praying Mantises where the females are physically superior, you satisfied? Why do you think the Olympics are gender segregated?

 

[Apocal]

When people say stop debating it is because they know they are about to lose. It is certainly not a "moot" point in a game that which its developers has got the balls not to suck up to every feminist out there. The world is a very different place compared to hundreds of years ago. And if the game developers intend to make a game based on reality then women will have to be "constrained by the limitations of their anatomy".

There isn't anything the characters have been shown to do in Bannerlord that is anywhere near peak human fitness levels. The heaviest realistic weapon would be something like seven or eight pounds in the case of (hypothetical; I haven't seen game footage showing it) a realistic maul or for polearms twelve to fourteen pounds for the sarissa (pike) and kontos (two-handed lance). These do not require top 1% athletic performance when it comes to effective wielding, even in armor. If you look at top HEMA practitioners today, almost none of them look like they bench-press 300kg. They are tall, yes. Stocky in a lot of cases, definitely. But you don't need to have He-Man physique to be effective with the weapons involved.

The biggest hindrance would be in grappling, where strength suddenly becomes a lot more relevant than metal-against-meat techniques. But there isn't grappling in Bannerlord.

What world do people like you come from. Ok so lets make Bannerlords Praying Mantises where the females are physically superior, you satisfied? Why do you think the Olympics are gender segregated?

Did you actually read the post he quoted? White Lion claimed the majority of animals with sexual dimorphism have bigger and stronger males. That's straight up false, but it didn't have anything to do with Bannerlord.

 

[Mount_and_Ride ^_^]

By studying different development patterns of cultures throughout history, I found it interesting that smaller and more primitive communities tend to be inherently more gender inclusive, meaning that men and women shared quite similar roles, stretching as far as taking female warriors in battles.

(Among a few other quotes not needed to post)
It also depends on religion and what version.  The Abrahamic faiths typically are pretty down trodden on the whole aspect of women.  You can point the finger at "just" Islam all you want, but it was not until rather recently, perhaps a hundred years or so ago, that Christian dominated societies where women began to have their own rights and really only about fifty or sixty so years ago that they can basically do what they want.

Women aren't actually naturally "weaker" than men in a noticeable way, they just have lower strength ceilings at the Olympic level, and don't build muscle as quickly, although there is tons of overlap, and the strongest woman in the world is stronger than most male strongmen. The main reason that we assume women are weaker is because a weak woman is considered attractive in much of the world (for a number of reasons), so women who want to fit in don't do press-ups.

(same on so many posts to quote, but I wont)
And most people believe that all the men in the military are the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Predator.  If that was the case, than pound for pound a man will always have the upper hand on a woman.  But the truth is there are very few “strong” men in the military.  The rest are above average for sure, but certainly not what you would call “ripped”.  And a lot just barely get by passing their Physical Training tests so to speak.  And in today's wars, you do not need “strong” men.  You need physically fit, mentally hardened (That is actually the best thing to have.) and be decent with a rifle.  Very rarely do we do hand to hand or bayonet to bayonet anymore.  We are not swinging swords or massive hammers and wearing tons of armor.  (Although we still carry 40-80 pounds at least in our rucksacks and body armor that does weigh quite a bit.) The fighting is much different than before.  So in that respect females can keep the pace, if not outright excel if they so choose.

 

[Lord Brutus]

And how, exactly does that relate to Bannerlord?

 

[Gibbylimmer]

This thread turned to complete ****.


We already know you'll be able to play as a woman, and that certain factions are more gender neutral.

Why the constant *****ing?