Well… Yeah. Who’s saying they can’t?
“No woman can fight with a sword. Zero women can fight with a sword. And what I mean by that is: in a situation where you are fighting men who are used to fighting with swords you are going to get killed if you are a woman fighting with a sword, 100% of the time.”
– Andrew Klavan/Klaven
Oh.
Okay, so recently a fellow called Andrew Klavan or Klaven. I don’t know how you say his name. Host of the Andrew Klavan and/or Klaven show, and I guess a host of the podcast The Daily Wire, recently quoted that no women could fight with swords, zero women could fight with swords. Ever.
Now I thought that this was probably something that had been taken out of context and I watched the video during my lunch break and yeah. Now personally there is a part of me that loves it when people go spouting out this kind of bollocks just because it’s laughable, and it is something that we should laugh because he’s so clearly ill informed. I don’t know the first thing about golf you don’t hear me talking about golf.
I actually wish I knew a little bit about golf. Now and again people ask me what I’ve got in my kit bag in my sword bag. You know it’s pretty long it’s obvious that something heavy is in there. You know, they’re just being conversational and it might be nice but sometimes have been training or I’m in a hurry or I just can’t be bothered to have that conversation. You know the one. It’s like:
“Yeah it’s a sword. No, no, no, it’s not an epee or a saber it’s a long sword. No it’s not live action roleplay it’s something different.”
And then you’re in a conversation.
So I was in the shop, guy comes over to me, he was being friendly but I wasn’t in the mood for a conversation, I was very tired, it was quite cold, it has been raining… And yeah, he asks me:
“So what’s in the bag?”
“Oh, uh, golf clubs.”
“Oh really? Where do you play?”
I was not expecting a follow up question.
“Oh, uh… Over in the park just over there.
Yeah, I like to you know just hit the balls. Just hit them.”
“In the park?”
“Yep. Just like smacking those balls in the park.”
“What? Where all the families are having picnics? Just smack golf balls
all over the place in the park where people are having picnics?”
“Yep.”
Now I just say “swords”.
Okay. So a question to anybody who hasn’t been on Earth very long. Are there historical examples of women with swords?
Yes.
So historically we have…
The Trung Sisters who led an army of 80,000 Viatnamese troops to drive out the Chinese Empire.
Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd who raised an army in defence of Deheubarth against the Normans.
The Joshigun, a group of 30 trained female warriors who fought against the Meiji Empire.
The list goes on.
But “hold your horses” I hear you say. “Those are battles and battles are unpredictable. Nobody knows what’s going on. Limbs are flying all over the place. Could be propaganda. There aren’t any documented cases of women defeating men with a sword!”
Well, that’s where you’re wrong.
We’ve got Julie d’Aubigny, a female duelist famed for getting into tavern brawls and kidnapping nuns during the reign of King Louis XIV (yes, she kidnapped a nun who was also her lover and then burned down the convent), who had to flee to Brussels after killing three men one after the other at an illegal duel during a party. When she was done killing them she went back to the party.
In 1889 Mathilde Jagemann was a female fencing instructor who was challenged to a duel by expert fencer and decorated soldier of the Austro-Prussian war, Theodore Rosenberg. Who she defeated and, despite being injured, fought later that day on stage.
Now for my own personal experience I have been on the business end of many a starching from female fencers.
Watch the full video here: Sword & Buckler Sparring – Esther vs Jordan
Fencing with my wife is kind of the bedrock of our marriage.
Like I said, there is a part of me that does have a good chuckle when we get these guys coming up and talking nonsense about something they know nothing about. Bottom line is it doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, if you want to fence then fence! Go out there and fence, it’s great! I mean anybody can fence, alright, not anybody, if you’re paralysed from the nose down then you’re probably going to have a few difficulties but as long as you’ve got one of these (a hand) and one of those (a sword) have a crack at it.
Now before I head off I really, really want to thank Matt Easton for giving us a shout out about the reverse grip video, for drawing attention to our channel. I’ll put a link to the reverse video somewhere, I’m pointing, I don’t know where I am on the screen, about here-ish (Why Kylo Ren and Geralt of Rivia are crap swordsmen!).
And also a big thank you to everybody who came over to the channel – watched, liked, subscribed. It means a lot. We had seventy subscribers and now we’ve got like one and a half thousand. That was a shock.
If you left a comment with a sensible question I tried to answer as many as I could and for those of you who were leaping to Kylo Ren and Geralt’s defence, thank you also for leaving a comment, I do like a good laugh.
If you’re here watching this video and you to have enjoyed it please leave a like and subscribe, it does help.
Okay to cap this off I’m going to pose you a question.
Who do you think would win in a sword fight between Lucy Lawless of “Xena, Warrior Princess” fame versus Andrew Klaven of Andrew Klaven fame?