Crossbow is the real pre-modern ranged weapon for women
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Replying to @Media__Pundit @arthur_affect and
At least the more sophisticated designs which came with a device or mechanism that made it easier to stretch the string. But keep in mind that the idea "weapon for woman" woul have been rejected as a whole by most medieval people
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Replying to @DerSchwede_nrm @Media__Pundit and
"Women shouldn't fight" is related to issues of physical strength and capability but it's not solely grounded in them, arguably maybe not even primarily -- the angle of control over women's "reproductive value" is, I would argue, much more important
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BootlegGirl and
i mean, isn't this the point of We Have Always Fought there have been women fighting in wars for as long as there have been wars it's just that the patriarchy is generally pretty opposed.
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Replying to @perdricof @arthur_affect and
and like, for a lot of weapons, size matters, strength matters, which is why every army is always composed of the tallest dudes with the biggest deadlifts, right?
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Replying to @perdricof @arthur_affect and
there's this janky martial arts video with an older, smaller cop and ex-marine doing knife work with a young, jacked escrimador cop: size matters, strength matters escrimador: yeah! cop: ...but also will to win escrimador: wait wait **gets run the fuck over repeatedly**
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Replying to @perdricof @arthur_affect and
and this is basically the thesis of On Killing: most people are actually extremely reluctant to kill another human being in warfare. so most of the killing in battles gets done by the few people who aren't.
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Replying to @perdricof @arthur_affect and
I remember this 18th century military trial where it was discovered that musket volleys should in theory be a lot more lethal than they were in practice. The reason for this was that soldiers would intentionally aim to miss in battle against people, as opposed to wooden targets.
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Replying to @mfictionist @arthur_affect and
this study is referenced extensively in On Killing, along with several others which together led to a wholesale reform of military training, with an emphasis on overcoming our natural resistance to killing random strangers
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Replying to @perdricof @mfictionist and
this is why you train to shoot human-looking targets, especially ones that fall over when you shoot them you have to get acclimated to *that,* not just the technical details of hitting a bullseye
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I keep falling back on Orwell references because he's one of the writers I imprinted on but he talked about one of those things you don't know until you do it, that shooting an animal feels fundamentally different from shooting a target
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof and
Shooting at targets isn't that different from firing into the empty air, or shooting blanks, it still feels like operating a machine When you shoot and kill something it feels different, like a part of you reached out and punched the animal, like a connection was made
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Replying to @arthur_affect @perdricof and
(Because the eye being drawn to movement and being attuned to the difference between life and death, and to the *causation* of life and death - "You killed it" - is extremely ancient hardwired predator circuitry)
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