Womens armour

[Pamela Jo]

Since I happen to know a lot of actual women swordfighters this is a rant that comes up regularly. Real armour is not that heavy and fitted to you. There are videos of people breakdancing and doing acrobatics in theirs. We know a Swiss professor who was called to the Met Museum in NYC to lecture but faced with the difficulty of packing his armour and having it arrive safely decided to wear it. (Would you check something that cost you about 40k US?) From Zurich Swissair desk to finding a NYC taxi driver at Kennedy he was in his armour. Not only was his blog hilarious but he proved himself a master of publicity.

But back to women and armour... No you dont need boob mounds. There is an extant early medieval textbook for women on sword handling, other weapons and battle tactics. It was written and illustrated by nuns who were acknowledged sword masters of the time. With all the men off to the crusades women had to defend the castle and themselves. Physically possessing a woman meant possessing her land and property. This textbook was probably as ubiquitous as Julia Child's cookbook was in the 70's.

The swords usually used by women weigh about as much as a full Clorox bottle. Rapiers even less. By the way this lovely lady is single and looking. From NZ but living in Colorado at the moment. I'm happy to arrange an introduction.




The

 

[Hannah Faoileán]

 

[Pamela Jo]

That's our guy. He was my son's mentor for his graduate thesis.

 

[Jake E]

I imagine, boob mounds are popular for the same reason abs mounds are popular in male armour.

Completely unnecessary. It even has a belly button.

 

[Hannah Faoileán]

Not sure young Henry VIII needed quite that size of protection for his ahem!

 

[Bloo]

Completely unnecessary. It even has a belly button.

And uncomfortable if the wearer has an outie.

 

[AliG]

Apart from rampant boasting, Henry also had webbed feet by the looks of it

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I say give me boob mounds any day, rather than put me in one of those ridiculous chain mail bikinis. LOL! Hey, let's make a piece of armour that covers exactly none of the important bits you want to protect from a sword...

 

[Peyton Stafford]

grumpy old me. How about armor a woman warrior would wear int combat, regardless of her figure.

 

[Pamela Jo]

grumpy old me. How about armor a woman warrior would wear int combat, regardless of her figure.

As pictured. Because women's joints are structured differently the elbows and arms have to accommodate for different movement. Boob mounds if you think about it channel the point of a sword right to the vital organs.