Amazons Are Oddly Normal
'Amazon' is a word/name/term that often crops up in many stories as a name for a particular ethnic group/culture/species/organization, with the primary characteristic common to all these folks called Amazons being that they send their women to war, as opposed to their men. Typically, it runs even deeper than that, with a whole gender-flipped culture involving men as the housewives (Or househusbands I guess), a matriarchal society (Women in the dominant position, that is), sometimes a matrilineal society (Family is tracked through the women, not the men), etc etc. Nonetheless, the actual behavior that these Amazons will display is not that of women growing up in a matriarchal society wherein fighting females seek out glorious combat etc etc but rather of a feminist in a male-dominated world. In some ways this is understandable (It's easier to use patterns that you've seen yourself than to invent something wholesale), but in other ways it is very strange. Just flipping the behavior in its' entirety would be a lot closer to what one would probably see with an actual Amazonian society than using feminist-that-exists-in-a-patriarchal-society as the model.
For instance, in typical human societies soldiering behavior is described as 'manly', and a way to disparage someone's soldiering competency is to describe them as 'girly' or call them a 'little girl' etc. Why? Because in most societies soldiers are men, women aren't, and so comparing someone's behavior and/or competency to that of a woman is implying they're not a soldier at all. 'Little girl' is also throwing in the implication of a lack of maturity and/or experience, hence why one can also call someone a 'little boy' to achieve essentially the same effect. Little boy, little girl, either way they don't go to war so if you are one you must not be a soldier. Fiction utilizing Amazons often brings up this form of insult being used against the Amazon, with it eliciting a strong defensive reaction to the effect of 'I am TOO a soldier, and I can totally prove it!', which is plain nonsense. In such an Amazonian culture, where soldiers are women and men are not, the insults would run in the exact opposite direction: soldiering is WOMANLY, and the more manly you are the more of an incompetent useless non-fighter you are. You wouldn't see a dynamic like...
MALE: What are you doing here, girly?
AMAZON: I AM TOO A SOLDIER! LET'S FIGHT!
... but rather more like...
MALE: What are you doing here, girly?
AMAZON: I don't understand the question.
(Or)
AMAZON:... I'm a soldier, duh?
(Or)
AMAZON: What are you doing here, little boy?
(Etc)
... and similarly, Amazons wouldn't blather on about 'manliness' except in reference to things like housekeeping. (Or 'sexy trophy husband'!) The highest compliment, from one soldier to another, one could get from an Amazon if one was male would be an acknowledgment that you are TOTALLY like a woman. ("You have the soul of a woman." For instance) Acknowledging a male soldier's MANLINESS would be a (easily missed to a patriarchal culture's sensibilities) disparaging comment about one's lack of combat competency; it would be a statement containing the (obvious to the Amazon) message of 'what are you doing outside of the kitchen?' Not an acknowledgment of the male soldier's MANLINESS from his/our perspective, but actually the complete opposite.
Similarly we have...
MAN: Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich, woman!
AMAZON: Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean you can expect me to be the homemaker!
... which is completely and utterly wrong and would probably go more like...
MAN: Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich, woman!
AMAZON:... but that's your job.
(Or)
AMAZON: Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich, man!
MAN: That's women's work you crazy person.
(Or)
MAN: Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich, woman!
AMAZON: That's mens' work you crazy person.
(Etc)
.... since, after all, these stories consistently hypothesize a culture wherein everything is flipped and this is totally normal to the Amazons. They aren't coming from a perspective of women having to fight to get out of the kitchen and into the workforce. They're coming from a perspective of men having to fight to get out of the kitchen and into the workforce. To the Amazon, well duh, men cook, clean, take care of the babies, sew, knit, and just generally do the stay-at-home-parent thing, and equally well duh women go out and fight and kill and gain GLORY IN BATTLE. And do backbreaking physical labor. Women build buildings, drag catapults around, break walls, sow the crops and reap said crops, hunt wild animals, etc etc etc.
In other words, feminists in a patriarchal society often feel a constant need to defend their right to do things that are traditionally masculine activities. To the Amazon, these activities are as natural as breathing and they'll have difficulty getting people to leave them alone if they do want to be the stay-at-home-parent or otherwise defy their cultural norms. Not in getting to go to the battlefield.
After all, as Lords of Magic (a game with an actually decent Amazon representation) tells us, "To learn the ways of war is the true calling of all women."
Or, short version: Amazons are not, and should not be depicted as, feminists in a patriarchal world. Instead, write a man in a patriarchal world, but then replace 90% of the pronouns with their opposite counterpart. (Obviously men don't suddenly start giving birth just because Amazons shove the child-rearing on them) And of course Amazonian males should basically be written as women in a patriarchal society, and likewise with flipped pronouns. So it's not Jane gossiping with her girlfriends, it's John gossiping with his boyfriends. It's not John hacking off a barbarian's head shouting "FOLLOW ME TO GLORY, MY BROTHERS!" but rather Jane hacking off a barbarian's head shouting "FOLLOW ME TO GLORY, MY SISTERS!" Etc.
It's really not that hard. And yet almost everyone gets it wrong.
For instance, in typical human societies soldiering behavior is described as 'manly', and a way to disparage someone's soldiering competency is to describe them as 'girly' or call them a 'little girl' etc. Why? Because in most societies soldiers are men, women aren't, and so comparing someone's behavior and/or competency to that of a woman is implying they're not a soldier at all. 'Little girl' is also throwing in the implication of a lack of maturity and/or experience, hence why one can also call someone a 'little boy' to achieve essentially the same effect. Little boy, little girl, either way they don't go to war so if you are one you must not be a soldier. Fiction utilizing Amazons often brings up this form of insult being used against the Amazon, with it eliciting a strong defensive reaction to the effect of 'I am TOO a soldier, and I can totally prove it!', which is plain nonsense. In such an Amazonian culture, where soldiers are women and men are not, the insults would run in the exact opposite direction: soldiering is WOMANLY, and the more manly you are the more of an incompetent useless non-fighter you are. You wouldn't see a dynamic like...
MALE: What are you doing here, girly?
AMAZON: I AM TOO A SOLDIER! LET'S FIGHT!
... but rather more like...
MALE: What are you doing here, girly?
AMAZON: I don't understand the question.
(Or)
AMAZON:... I'm a soldier, duh?
(Or)
AMAZON: What are you doing here, little boy?
(Etc)
... and similarly, Amazons wouldn't blather on about 'manliness' except in reference to things like housekeeping. (Or 'sexy trophy husband'!) The highest compliment, from one soldier to another, one could get from an Amazon if one was male would be an acknowledgment that you are TOTALLY like a woman. ("You have the soul of a woman." For instance) Acknowledging a male soldier's MANLINESS would be a (easily missed to a patriarchal culture's sensibilities) disparaging comment about one's lack of combat competency; it would be a statement containing the (obvious to the Amazon) message of 'what are you doing outside of the kitchen?' Not an acknowledgment of the male soldier's MANLINESS from his/our perspective, but actually the complete opposite.
Similarly we have...
MAN: Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich, woman!
AMAZON: Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean you can expect me to be the homemaker!
... which is completely and utterly wrong and would probably go more like...
MAN: Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich, woman!
AMAZON:... but that's your job.
(Or)
AMAZON: Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich, man!
MAN: That's women's work you crazy person.
(Or)
MAN: Get in the kitchen and make me a sammich, woman!
AMAZON: That's mens' work you crazy person.
(Etc)
.... since, after all, these stories consistently hypothesize a culture wherein everything is flipped and this is totally normal to the Amazons. They aren't coming from a perspective of women having to fight to get out of the kitchen and into the workforce. They're coming from a perspective of men having to fight to get out of the kitchen and into the workforce. To the Amazon, well duh, men cook, clean, take care of the babies, sew, knit, and just generally do the stay-at-home-parent thing, and equally well duh women go out and fight and kill and gain GLORY IN BATTLE. And do backbreaking physical labor. Women build buildings, drag catapults around, break walls, sow the crops and reap said crops, hunt wild animals, etc etc etc.
In other words, feminists in a patriarchal society often feel a constant need to defend their right to do things that are traditionally masculine activities. To the Amazon, these activities are as natural as breathing and they'll have difficulty getting people to leave them alone if they do want to be the stay-at-home-parent or otherwise defy their cultural norms. Not in getting to go to the battlefield.
After all, as Lords of Magic (a game with an actually decent Amazon representation) tells us, "To learn the ways of war is the true calling of all women."
Or, short version: Amazons are not, and should not be depicted as, feminists in a patriarchal world. Instead, write a man in a patriarchal world, but then replace 90% of the pronouns with their opposite counterpart. (Obviously men don't suddenly start giving birth just because Amazons shove the child-rearing on them) And of course Amazonian males should basically be written as women in a patriarchal society, and likewise with flipped pronouns. So it's not Jane gossiping with her girlfriends, it's John gossiping with his boyfriends. It's not John hacking off a barbarian's head shouting "FOLLOW ME TO GLORY, MY BROTHERS!" but rather Jane hacking off a barbarian's head shouting "FOLLOW ME TO GLORY, MY SISTERS!" Etc.
It's really not that hard. And yet almost everyone gets it wrong.
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