Talk:Women in ancient warfare

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Women in ancient warfare article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Women in ancient warfare was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 15, 2008	Good article nominee	Not listed

Feminism Low‑importance

	Feminism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Feminism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Feminism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FeminismWikipedia:WikiProject FeminismTemplate:WikiProject FeminismFeminism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Military history: Classical B‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

B

This article has been rated as B-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Classical warfare task force (c. 700 BC – c. 500 AD)

Gender studies Low‑importance

This article is part of WikiProject Gender studies. This WikiProject aims to improve the quality of articles dealing with gender studies and to remove systematic gender bias from Wikipedia. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.Gender studiesWikipedia:WikiProject Gender studiesTemplate:WikiProject Gender studiesGender studies articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

To-do list:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Assess : see Unassessed Gender studies articles and Unknown-importance Gender studies articles
Cleanup : edit to see
Collaborate : see /Collaboration
Copyedit : edit to see
Deletion sorting : see /Sexuality and gender
Expand : edit to see
Infobox : see Gender studies articles needing infoboxes
Merge : edit to see
Notability : edit to see
NPOV : edit to see
Orphans : Brannon Masculinity Scale · Holy Virility · Media and gender · Michael Kaufman (author) · Women's education in Saudi Arabia
Photo : see Wikipedia requested photographs of gender studies
Split : History of feminism
Stubs : see Gender studies stubs
Translate : see /translation
Update : edit to see
Verify : Riot grrrl
Needs attention : see Gender studies articles needing attention

Women's History High‑importance

	History portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women's History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's history and related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Women's HistoryWomen's History articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Classical Greece and Rome Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, a group of contributors interested in Wikipedia's articles on classics. If you would like to join the WikiProject or learn how to contribute, please see our project page. If you need assistance from a classicist, please see our talk page.Classical Greece and RomeWikipedia:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeTemplate:WikiProject Classical Greece and RomeClassical Greece and Rome articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wusrl655.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:Agrippina minor.jpg

Image:Agrippina minor.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:28, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

I have failed this article because it does not fit the criteria for a Good Article. Because it takes the form of a list, I recommend nominating it for Featured List status instead. If you look at Wikipedia:Featured lists, you can see that several timelines are currently listed as Featured Lists. A Good Article should be in a prose format, but this article contains no prose. Before nominating it for FA status, though, I recommend adding a lead to provide context and an introduction. Best wishes, GaryColemanFan (talk) 02:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

semi-legendary or legendary entries

These should be moved to Woman warriors in mythology. There is an "Old Testament" section there. We should restrict ourselves to historical individuals here. --dab (𒁳) 08:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are sourced dates for when the events that the legends are based on believed by scholars have occurred, so I think that they should be left in. These are semi-historical events, not purely legendary. Asarelah (talk) 18:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This basically the old "the bible is not a historical document" argument. Look wise guy, if it was any other contemporary document that was not the bible, with the same quality of information, you would accept it without blinking. Your argument is without merit. 96.241.228.73 (talk) 13:52, 7 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No personal attacks please. Asarelah (talk) 16:07, 7 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Refimprove: Intro section includes no references, appears to be WP:SYNTH

The introductory section of this article contains no citations at all and includes mention of the mythological Amazons while asserting that women had a "pervasive presence" in warfare until the adoption of agriculture. No references are provided, and this is in stark contrast to what we know of pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies today; all extant hunter-gatherer societies, including previously uncontacted people, maintain sexual division of labor, and I'm aware of no serious evidence that women play any considerable fighting role in warfare. Either appropriate references should be added or the section should be substantially reworked. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 13:20, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Crappy entry, off by five centuries

"271 BC – A group of Gothic women who were captured by Romans while fighting in the same garb as their male peers, were paraded through Rome wearing signs that said, "Amazons"". This happened in 274 AD during Aurelian's triumph celebrating his victory over Zenobia. See [1]. The primary source is the Historia Augusta: "There were led along also ten women, who, fighting in male attire, had been captured among the Goths after many others had fallen; these a placard declared to be of the race of the Amazons" ([2]).37.117.120.215 (talk) 19:10, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A better source than some extreme right wing site?

Theres a great paragraph to Tacitus with an awful reference to the site http://library.flawlesslogic.com/tacitus.htm This is obviously some extreme right wing site, and it would be great to get a better, preferably more direct reference. TheEsb (talk) 13:49, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done, thanks for catching that. Kravk (talk) 17:39, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Np. Thank you! TheEsb (talk) 21:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Question about criteria for inclusion in the list

I think this is a really interesting and informative list—in the historical period I'm most familiar with, it brings together some facts in a revealing way. However, some items on the list seem to be acts of physical violence by women that aren't carried out in battle nor in the context of warfare as such. For example, female gladiators absolutely did exist, and it's possible or even likely that their existence speaks to skills acquired for the purpose of battle, but gladiatorial combat was staged in the arena as part of entertainment spectacles (ludi), so not an example of women in warfare unless a source is used to propose that explicitly.

And if a war captive kills her captor, is that evidence of women participating in battle or warfare as such? You might further your side's war effort if you slip the brute who's made you his concubine some poison, or grab a sword and behead him in his sleep, but have you participated in warfare as a warrior or commander through this act? Such nebulous inclusions may come across as special pleading or padding and end up diluting the topic. So what's notable to me about this list is women as warriors and commanders in periods when we've been taught to assume they didn't exist. Spies (mentioned in the lede) would not belong here any more than nurses, because while both roles are part of the culture of war and carry their own challenges and risks, neither espionage nor nursing is what we mean by "battle" or "warfare" as such, and Mata Hari and Clara Barton are rightly not listed. Just queries/wonderings about the criteria. Main point is to thank contributors for their care and attention. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:54, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]