So I realize I’m ruminating because I’ve been harmed by similar ideas of what my skeleton is doing to Women, but the extent to which Sarkeesian’s contention is “this woman and this other woman’s irl bodies existing in genre fiction is Harmful To -Real- Women” is… horrible to mehttps://twitter.com/anitasarkeesian/status/1327844637122301958 …
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Replying to @chrysopoetics @BootlegGirl
i am full to bursting with armor-related takes and i feel like "armor, but for ladies" is sort of a minefield, not least because fantasy armor is very often entirely detached from the practicalities of actual armor
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i feel like sarkeesian here is displacing her anger at boobplate armors (or chainmail bikinis, for that matter) on to much egregious examples of the genre but then you talk to actual boob-having HEMA practitioners and the answer depends a lot on "how much boob do you have"
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or alternatively "are you wearing underclothes and a gabardine and a chainmail hauberk beneath the plate, or is it just a shirt and nothing else"
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and now we're getting in to the real practicalities of armor "how does this fit into the ecology of warfare" "how does this fit into the productive and technical capacities of society" "how does this accord with the ergonomics of the user"
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all of which are nearly impossible to gauge in the star wars universe! we don't fucking know! butthenalsothesearmordesignssuckactually, the spaulders are fixed to the sleeves and knee pads without faulds don't even make sense
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anyways the most correct thing one can say about the girl armor is that the visor design is absolutely less practical (impedes peripheral vision), and exists solely to reinscribe gender norms in a context (heavy armor, warfare) where binary gender norms are under threat
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ALSO, perhaps more importantly: ARMOR HISTORICALLY IS BUILT FOR FASHION AND PRESENTATION AS MUCH AS IT IS RIGID PRACTICALITY muscle cuirasses were a thing! elaborate fanciful decorated breastplates styled like doublets were a thing!
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It's true. I saw a museum exhibition of medieval warfare at the Art Institute of Chicago about 15 years ago, and you know how people say "bastard swords weren't real and JRPG buster swords definitely weren't"? I have seen dated evidence that they were
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from what i understand the really long swords (zweihanders e.g.) had a practical use: you might also call them "horse-choppers"
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Yeah that's what they're literally called in Japan, zanbato (which is a transliteration of the Chinese zhanmadao, "horse-chopping blade")
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