I only dislike when they are not properly portrayed.
They weren't pretty and they removed one breast to fire bows better.
Athletic activity increases testosterone, Amazons would have looked like those female body builders with a bit of five o'clock shadow, and they'd be missing a boob.
When portrayed properly, I think they're really cool. It's refreshing to have strong female characters who don't have ANY good looks at all.
Some, but not all, stories talk about them removing a breast for archery. Given that there are female archers today who seem to have no problem with their breasts getting in the way, I'd say this is myth.
In fact, look at the Olympics. Plenty of female athletes who do not look manly (though granted, some do), despite a lifestyle full of exercise.
In reference to the Greek tribe, there isn't much evidence that they actually did the breast removal. The only evidence at the time is a picking apart of the word by non-amazons. There's no depiction in any art of women missing their left breast.
It's extremely improbable that amazons would have looked anything like female bodybuilders. Bodybuilders are people who intentionally do specific exercises and consume a specific diet to build as much muscle mass as possible. It doesn't have a great deal to do with general fitness, which is what they would have actually been worried about. An amazon warrior probably would have just looked like any other athletically capable woman with a high level of fitness - like a female soldier or athlete. They also certainly would not have generally had more facial hair any other woman unless they were genetically predisposed to it or something; the hormonal imbalance required for a woman's facial hair to start growing in on her face isn't something that any amount of excercise is going to achieve. Would they have been all uniformly beautiful? Of course not. No culture is like that. Regardless of whose standards you're using, there'd probably be people across a band of levels of attractiveness, just like in any other culture. The notion that amazons would all be terrifying masculine she-brutes is every bit as much a weird male fantasy as the notion that they'd all be sultry babes.
where does it say they removed one breast???
Um. here. Specifically the second paragraph of "etymology" and the second paragraph under "historiography". That "fact" is iffy, but it was reported as true by ancient Greek historians.
and are she-males?( term for female body builder, really as guy I think it looks disgusting even when its on a man, but then I hate beauty pagents tooo so go figure)???
Um. "She-males"? Really? No. Ugh, just... no. That is not what is being discussed.
If you mean "body-builder"/very strong: it's pretty much the very core premise of Amazon, in general, that they are strong, that they don't need men (except to reproduce) and that they march into battle and kill men.
and what base culture are you using for them?
Um... the mythical Grecian one.
I have no problems with them so long as they are the dominant figure in their villages/cities/towns/ tribe. They don't have to be good looking, nor do they ahve to be strong, they would ha ve to be able to endure so a dandy con would do best.
I... really don't know where you're getting your view of them. At all.
Amazons, as historically described, would probably focus on strength, dexterity, constitution, and marginally (based solely on the Athena-connection) wisdom, to varying degrees depending on what part of the culture they were part of. That makes intelligence and charisma their dump-stats (though I'd suspect that a tactician would want the intelligence, and a leader the charisma, I'm painting in very broad strokes). They were not lone persons, but an entire, distinct (if reclusive) people-group who had their entire society structured around matriarchal elements.
In current popular culture Amazons have tended to become far more glamorous, due to us having a particular (and odd) view of what is "acceptable" in the portrayal thereof (see: Wonder Woman, as an example of this). This has led to a confusing array of portrayals that are at odd with one another. But then again, this is nothing new: the ancient Grecian historians gave moderately conflicting accounts, too. The only thing they did agree on was that the Amazons were a reclusive bunch of very strong warrior-women who really had little use for or interest in men.
EDIT: ninja'd by three people I agree with!
dnt say they had to look like wonderwoman.....
only said they had to endure with large con number
I didn't say that you did say that they had to look like Wonder Woman. I simply used her as an example of the way many completely alter and twist the Amazon myth for their own purposes, diluting and hiding the original myths. That was the sum total of my point with that example.
If it's confusing, ignore that line and focus on the rest.
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Seriously? Somebody started a whole thread just to bag on Amazons?
The inaccuracy of the "historical" references to Amazons removing their breast is well established. Mostly because Amazons themselves are generally considered to be myth, not historical fact.
A culture of warrior women would not be any more or less attractive than any other culture. Just as the men who filled ancient armies were no more or less attractive than the men who stayed home.
This whole thing is bizarre. What in the world could have led to the question of who hates Amazons? I can't even wrap my mind about what would instigate the formulation of such a question.
But to actually POST it?
Wow.
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Seriously? Somebody started a whole thread just to bag on Amazons?
The inaccuracy of the "historical" references to Amazons removing their breast is well established. Mostly because Amazons themselves are generally considered to be myth, not historical fact.
A culture of warrior women would not be any more or less attractive than any other culture. Just as the men who filled ancient armies were no more or less attractive than the men who stayed home.
This whole thing is bizarre. What in the world could have led to the question of who hates Amazons? I can't even wrap my mind about what would instigate the formulation of such a question.
But to actually POST it?
Wow.
Well, you have to look at the original poster. Go back through his recent posts - he seems to have a history of these sorts of odd, off the wall and often mildly negative posts in a strange attempt to get people bickering or, I don't know, something.
When I first saw the title of this thread, I thought 'what kind of odd thread is this?"
Then I clicked on tge thread, saw who posted it and though ... "Oh, OK, makes sense now"
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Seriously? Somebody started a whole thread just to bag on Amazons?
The inaccuracy of the "historical" references to Amazons removing their breast is well established. Mostly because Amazons themselves are generally considered to be myth, not historical fact.
A culture of warrior women would not be any more or less attractive than any other culture. Just as the men who filled ancient armies were no more or less attractive than the men who stayed home.
This whole thing is bizarre. What in the world could have led to the question of who hates Amazons? I can't even wrap my mind about what would instigate the formulation of such a question.
But to actually POST it?
Wow.
Actually, no. It was warped that way. I said doesn't, and I thought I might get something accurate on Marketing Research. I'm not going to do Marketing Research on an Internet Forum again if I'm getting results like this.
the rest is speculative as well.....
Ahem.
They were not lone persons, but an entire, distinct (if reclusive) people-group who had their entire society structured around matriarchal elements.
No. It wasn't. At least no more so than any sort of presumption that they existed at all, which is dubious (which I noted).
Specifically a focus on physical ability scores in general would be needed to maintain a powerful warrior-based society. Using a bow and riding horses (something oft attributed to Amazons) requires dexterity to function well. Using melee weapons requires strength. These are core elements of Amazons. Wisdom was an admitted shot-in-the-dark, but that's just because Amazons are associated with Aphrodite (goddess of wisdom) in the article I linked. Constitution was your own addition, and it makes sense for a warrior people. Amazons were not known for: their beauty, their leadership, their tactics, their performance, their knowledge, or their crafts: the things you would associate with intelligence and charisma.
but wonder woman wasnt human to begin with in any of her creation myths.
use of her was bad.
Ahem. Again.
Species Amazon
Team affiliations Justice League
Amazons of Themyscira
Department of Metahuman Affairs
Wonder Woman is a warrior princess of the Amazons (based on the Amazons of Greek mythology) and was created by Marston, an American, as a "distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men."
Marston's representative of femininity is a 6-foot-tall Amazon wielding a golden lasso that forces obedience on those it encircles.
Initially, Wonder Woman was an Amazon champion who wins the right to return Steve Trevor — a United States intelligence officer whose plane had crashed on the Amazons' isolated island homeland — to "Man's World" and to fight crime and the evil of the Nazis.
At the end of the 1960s, under the guidance of Mike Sekowsky, Wonder Woman surrendered her powers in order to remain in Man's World rather than accompany her fellow Amazons to another dimension.
Originally, Wonder Woman owed her abilities to the goddess Aphrodite creating Amazons superior to men, with Diana being the best of their kind.
The Golden Age Wonder Woman was later updated by Marston to be able to will a tremendous amount of brain energy into her muscles and limbs because of her Amazon training, endowing her with extraordinary strength and speed.
It was implied, and ultimately confirmed, that any woman who underwent Amazon training would gain superhuman strength
In early Wonder Woman stories,[17] Amazon training involves strengthening this ability using pure mental energy.
All bold is by me. It goes on that way for thirteen more "hits" of the word "Amazon", in case you're curious. No, Wonder Woman as an excellent example of modern, falsely "glamorous" Amazons.
all I aslo said is that they had to be dominant which would be that the men would either be docile slaves or not existant
Now this is a valid point, but the basis of my disagreement probably stems from the fact that I misunderstood - from your wording, it looked like you meant simply a single amazon in charge of a given village. Which could be really interesting in a campaign, but isn't what the dubiously "historical" tales paint a picture of. If I misunderstood, I'm sorry. That's my mistake, and I'll admit it.
I was not disagreeing with anybody on that, just their looks and the severed breast deal.
I can understand that. The severed breast - historically accurate or not (which, I'd like to point out, I noted as being dubious in my initial post) - is still a thing that was a part of (some of) the ancient myths, as was their "masculine" image (probably stemming from their battle-dress; also "masculine" is not the same thing as "she-male", at least on the internet usage that I've been unfortunately exposed to, which was the source of my... strong reaction to that term. Oof. I'll leave off any other explanation as being Not Safe for Work.).
And yes, Amazons are fine. I've refrained from commenting on that side simply due to the fact that he asked for a negative, not a positive, strange as that seems.
Amazons, as historically described, would probably focus on strength, dexterity, constitution, and marginally (based solely on the Athena-connection) wisdom, to varying degrees depending on what part of the culture they were part of. That makes intelligence and charisma their dump-stats (though I'd suspect that a tactician would want the intelligence, and a leader the charisma, I'm painting in very broad strokes).
Two minor quibbles there... first, I don't think anyone associated with Athena would treat intelligence as a dump stat. While the game differentiates between wisdom and intelligence, the Greek concept blurred the two a bit. Athena was known for favoring cunning and clever heroes (Odysseus for example), and was the goddess of tactical warfare.
The second issue is that none of that is really a big deal, because Amazons were linked much more closely to Artemis, goddess of the hunt, than Athena. ;)
The whole missing breast thing is a crock of crap dreamed up by the Greeks who were a notably misogynistic society. There's no need for a woman to lose a breast in order to be a capable archer. One can draw inspiration from myth without carrying along all the ridiculous cultural baggage attached to it.
Also, saying they'd look like one-boobed men is...well, just sexist. There are plenty of female athletes out there that train hard and are physically fit without looking androgynous.
Two minor quibbles there... first, I don't think anyone associated with Athena would treat intelligence as a dump stat. While the game differentiates between wisdom and intelligence, the Greek concept blurred the two a bit. Athena was known for favoring cunning and clever heroes (Odysseus for example), and was the goddess of tactical warfare.
The second issue is that none of that is really a big deal, because Amazons were linked much more closely to Artemis, goddess of the hunt, than Athena. ;)
That is... actually a worthwhile note. I'd forgotten that the ancients didn't differentiate as much (Hebrews too, actually).
For the second, I'd simply forgotten, and I'll most definitely admit that!
Their occupation was hunting and war; their arms the bow, spear, axe, a half shield, nearly in the shape of a crescent, called pelta, and in early art a helmet, the model before the Greek mind having apparently been the goddess Athena.
Part I remembered.
In later art they approach the model of Artemis, wearing a thin dress, girt high for speed; while on the later painted vases their dress is often peculiarly Persian – that is, close-fitting trousers and a high cap called the kidaris. They were usually on horseback but sometimes on foot.
Part I forgot. As always, the bold is mine.
Point in fact, I think Athena might have been cited more often in the Wonder Woman stuff (which is where I first learned Grecian myth, sadly), even though Artemis was pretty important, and so that might have been why that one stuck out more to me than the other. Whoops. :)
Don't kill the straw man (straw woman?)
I want GM Elton's life, not only does he encounter Amazons, he encounters them enough that he is able to hate them.
I just hate traffic. Stupid cars.
Was this thread designed to get as many posts flagged for sexism as possible?
I'd call that more than borderline.
I didn't say they'd look like transsexuals, I said they would look more manly than most women.
Both sexes have both sex hormones. Males have some estrogen, females have some testosterone. When males or females begin doing acts that are outside of what their old animalistic behaviour pattern would be, it throws these out of wack.
Women who exercise for muscle mass, hunt, fight, or do other traditionally animalistic male activities increase their testosterone production. This is why female body builders end up with a squaring of their jaw, sometimes even minor facial hair (though sometimes this is also steroids).
Similarly, men who do not engage in these activities see a general rise in estrogen. Those man boobs aren't just because we're overweight, it's also because our lazy asses are losing testosterone production by not nurturing it.
This doesn't mean anyone is superior to anyone else, it's just that testosterone is the human "violence and physicality" hormone, for both genders, so warrior women would be kind of mannish just due to their hormones.
And I didn't bash Amazons. I like Amazons, I just don't like it when they're portrayed as super models with swords.
For some good examples, look up pictures of female boxers and MMA fighters.
Some of them are fairly pretty girls, but they're fairly pretty girls with pretty damn square jaw lines, and pretty broad shoulders.
Their life-time of training to fight has modified their body structure and hormone output. They're more aggressive, their body is built better for fighting all because their training increased their testosterone output.
And these effects would be even more noticeable in a culture that is training their children for fighting before and during puberty.
Those girls would go through puberty with highly elevated testosterone levels, which is going to severely effect how they mature.
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Am I the only person rather irked by the continual misuse of "phobia" for "hatred" rather than "fear"? No the two are not directly linked.
[/pedantic] [/offtopic]
I was a fan of the Star Trek TNG episode where they found a world where it wasn't man hating Amazons, it was just a species where the females were the naturally larger and more aggressive sex and so the gender roles got reversed.
Am I the only person rather irked by the continual misuse of "phobia" for "hatred" rather than "fear"? No the two are not directly linked.
[/pedantic] [/offtopic]
Doesn't bother me. In a way, hatred and anger are products of fear.
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I only dislike when they are not properly portrayed.
They weren't pretty and they removed one breast to fire bows better.
Athletic activity increases testosterone, Amazons would have looked like those female body builders with a bit of five o'clock shadow, and they'd be missing a boob.
When portrayed properly, I think they're really cool. It's refreshing to have strong female characters who don't have ANY good looks at all.
Give me a freaking break. I'm an Amazon by definition at 6 feet tall and broad shoulders. I am stronger than most males I know. I do not have 5 o'clock shadow. Granted, there are women with facial hair, those women have an imbalance of estrogen and testosterone. Both genders produce both. Women that have had ovaries removed tend to grow some facial hair, where as men that get old produce less Testosterone grow breasts
And NO they did NOT look like female body builders.
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Am I the only person rather irked by the continual misuse of "phobia" for "hatred" rather than "fear"? No the two are not directly linked.
[/pedantic] [/offtopic]
When hatred has its roots in fear, they are directly linked. Whether that is fear of the thing itself, or fear of the consequences of that thing becoming more prominent, the label remains appropriate.
I'll just say I disagree with that being the case in the broad sense that the term is used, and leave the thread at that.
I only dislike when they are not properly portrayed.
They weren't pretty and they removed one breast to fire bows better.
Athletic activity increases testosterone, Amazons would have looked like those female body builders with a bit of five o'clock shadow, and they'd be missing a boob.
When portrayed properly, I think they're really cool. It's refreshing to have strong female characters who don't have ANY good looks at all.
Give me a freaking break. I'm an Amazon by definition at 6 feet tall and broad shoulders. I am stronger than most males I know. I do not have 5 o'clock shadow. Granted, there are women with facial hair, those women have an imbalance of estrogen and testosterone. Both genders produce both. Women that have had ovaries removed tend to grow some facial hair, where as men that get old produce less Testosterone grow breasts
And NO they did NOT look like female body builders.
Do you engage in hunting, the building of muscle for power, and intensive combat training before, during, and after puberty?
My wife is 6'2, I know full well aware that a woman can be quite strong when equally sized with a male, but the Amazons weren't just large women, they were woman with a very different culture than us.
The five o'clock shadow thing was more tongue in cheek, but the reality is that these women would not have fit the average sociological ideal of attractiveness.
I like Amazons, just don't portray them as super models with swords.
They would have been hard women with hard lives, calloused hands, weathered skin, higher testosterone levels etc etc.
They wouldn't look like the Amazons from Xena.
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I only dislike when they are not properly portrayed.
They weren't pretty and they removed one breast to fire bows better.
Athletic activity increases testosterone, Amazons would have looked like those female body builders with a bit of five o'clock shadow, and they'd be missing a boob.
When portrayed properly, I think they're really cool. It's refreshing to have strong female characters who don't have ANY good looks at all.
Give me a freaking break. I'm an Amazon by definition at 6 feet tall and broad shoulders. I am stronger than most males I know. I do not have 5 o'clock shadow. Granted, there are women with facial hair, those women have an imbalance of estrogen and testosterone. Both genders produce both. Women that have had ovaries removed tend to grow some facial hair, where as men that get old produce less Testosterone grow breasts
And NO they did NOT look like female body builders.
Do you engage in hunting, the building of muscle for power, and intensive combat training before, during, and after puberty?
I used to hunt in my youth up to my teens. Then I decided I did not like it anymore, nor did I have the time.
I actually played football just to prove I cold and did weight lifting and training along side every male player on the team. I did farm work busting bales and farming (DAMN Hard work) up to my Sr year. I joined the army out of High School hated every minute of it. So maybe not as intense as say Ranger or Seal training, I could match every male I trained with and even out do most.
Once out of the army I got involved with fencing and even some steel on steel combat not SCA. I currenty still shoot bow and shoot a 60# recurve where by BF shoots a 45#. He can shoot mine, but it tires him out faster.
Many romans refereed to the German woman as Amazon's. They did fight. Many Celtic woman also fought the romans, a great example of this was Boudicca and the people she drew to her to try and defeat Rome.
Not ALL of them will be model types, but most female athletes of today do not fit that mold yet some are very beautiful.
Just because a woman is physical does not mean ugly. Nor does doing hard labor. Just like being soft and weak or thin does not mean drop dead gorgeous. Many actresses and models are NOT what you think they look like wit out make-up and all the photoshop done to them
And MOST body builders are using steroids, it has nothing to do with working out. Trust me... I know hormones and steroids better than most. Even many physicians as I have had to educate some on it and how they work and what levels each gender should have.
I never said ugly, I said mannish and more masculine.
There are plenty of women with these features that are attractive.
Gina Carano is quite pretty, she's a female MMA fighter, but she has a very square jaw, walks very masculine, and could probably kick most of our asses.
I mean, hell, obviously I have no issue with large women, I'm married to an Irish chick with an inch of height on me, and she's not thin.
Doesn't quite a bit of this conversation come down to the fact that male and female are physical facts of our bodies, whereas masculine and feminine a cultural classification? I guess my point is that if you asked a D&D amazon* if she thought she was pretty she'd say, "Don't be an idiot, I'm ruggedly handsome, my boyfriend though, he's pretty."
*It's all well and good to talk about the mythic and historic sources for D&D, but Bards, Druids and whatnot are so far afield from their sources at this point that the battle for historical accuracy was lost a long time ago.
Though, to be fair, some gender roles are reinforced by biological drives and hormonal differences.
That's not to say that we have to listen, and not every member of a sex will have those same drives and hormone combinations, but a lot of what is "male" or "female" is very influenced by the sex hormone.
It's why I personally attempt to define people by their chromosome combination.
Then it's just a biological distinction.
I wish we'd define more things in life along strictly scientific lines.
I never said ugly, I said mannish and more masculine.
There are plenty of women with these features that are attractive.
Gina Carano is quite pretty, she's a female MMA fighter, but she has a very square jaw, walks very masculine, and could probably kick most of our asses.
Gina Carano was MY MAIN REASON for watching the American Gladiator reboot.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Feh, I don't mind Amazons, matriarchal societies or Heather Kessler for that matter. Now for writing... How do they interact with the rest of the world becomes a subject of interest.
Just from DC we have.
- The Idylic paradise of Pre-Boot Wonder Woman.
- The (current) grab men, use them and then kill them Amazons.
- Jeanette (From Secret Six) points out that for all of their empowerment, the Amazons never did anything throughout history.
- Amazons as masters of psychometabolic abilities (per Wiki)
That's not counting the classical version, or countless other verisons.
So to turn the question into something positive. What stories can be told about Amazons that are unique to your world?
- Amazons as a lost/displaced civilization, trying to find/carve their place in "Man's world"
- Amazons as an all female group of Elans (building on the Moulton psychometabolic above) looking to add to their ranks
- Amazons sent to Man's World to locate artifacts*
- An adventuring party that ends up on Paradise Island.
*
Edit: And she was my main reason for watching Haywire, and to me seems ideal for Wonder Woman.
The census taken every decade may take umbrage with that.
I think that we'd be beter off just defining people as people as who they are on an individual basis instead of enforcing labels due to chromosone combination or zipcode.Though, to be fair, some gender roles are reinforced by biological drives and hormonal differences.
That's not to say that we have to listen, and not every member of a sex will have those same drives and hormone combinations, but a lot of what is "male" or "female" is very influenced by the sex hormone.
It's why I personally attempt to define people by their chromosome combination.
Then it's just a biological distinction.
I wish we'd define more things in life along strictly scientific lines.
That's why we should make the label "xx" or "xy".
Then it's not a loaded label. It has nothing connected to it. It's simply an accurate account of your chromosome combination.
Then we can get rid of man, woman, female, male, and all the tags and associations that have been hoisted upon such terms.
Hell, I'm personally of the mind that we should separate breeding from sex all together. Sexual reproduction can be replaced with a more controlled artificial method and then sexual intercourse becomes entirely pleasure based.
A hundred or so years of that will pretty much melt the concept of gender, since we could possibly even combine the DNA from two males or two females into offspring.