I've been looking for sources on gender roles in medieval Ireland, part of my motivation is to find any evidence for women fighting in battle during that place and era.

I've found some posts and articles online which state that contrary to popular belief of ancient celts being egalitarian, early Ireland was in fact a very patriarchal society where women didn't have any particularly high status.

For example, in the article "The myths of Avalon" written by author Keri Sperring state that women were "by and large, property" and couldn't rule, be warriors or participate in public society.

I'm aware that the idea of ancient Ireland being an egalitarian society is a myth, but I also feel that these are blanket statements that probably leave out a lot of nuance.

I want to ask if you've read or studied anything about medieval Ireland, and can recommend any sources concerning gender roles, social attitudes and legal rights of women during that place and period.

Hello again. I'm going to leave the weird tendency to believe weird things about The Celts™ (which you identify, with dubious accuracy, as "popular belief") to one side. Once again, the Victorians have a lot to answer for.

Kari Sperring, alias Kari Maund, received an excellent degree, but appears to have abandoned sober academic argument for books with titles like Princess Nest of Wales: Seductress of the English about 20 years ago.

Yes, most medieval societies are strongly patriarchal. The same can be said of many modern societies. Again I refer you to Judith Bennett's concept of patriarchal equilibrium. It's also true that women in medieval societies were subject to various forms of legal disability. But their legal disability does not mean that they were "by and large, property," in economic, social, or cultural fact. Were their options limited in law? yes. Does this mean that they did not participate in farming, in crafts, in arts, in ruling, in the religious life? No, no, no, no, and very definitely no.

I'm also going to gently suggest that the desire to find women doing the most archetypically masculine activity as evidence of their opportunities is... limited and limiting. Since you use the terms "early," "ancient," and "medieval" Ireland interchangeably, I'm not sure if The Ulster Cycle will be useful to you.

Four Courts Press, Dublin is generally a good place to look for works on medieval Ireland:

This work focuses on ideas of gender and power in medieval Ireland:

Cool History Facts tip jar here.

I've been looking for sources on gender roles in medieval Ireland, part of my motivation is to find any evidence for women fighting in battle during that place and era.

I've found some posts and articles online which state that contrary to popular belief of ancient celts being egalitarian, early Ireland was in fact a very patriarchal society where women didn't have any particularly high status.

For example, in the article "The myths of Avalon" written by author Keri Sperring state that women were "by and large, property" and couldn't rule, be warriors or participate in public society.

I'm aware that the idea of ancient Ireland being an egalitarian society is a myth, but I also feel that these are blanket statements that probably leave out a lot of nuance.

I want to ask if you've read or studied anything about medieval Ireland, and can recommend any sources concerning gender roles, social attitudes and legal rights of women during that place and period.

Hello again. I'm going to leave the weird tendency to believe weird things about The Celts™ (which you identify, with dubious accuracy, as "popular belief") to one side. Once again, the Victorians have a lot to answer for.

Kari Sperring, alias Kari Maund, received an excellent degree, but appears to have abandoned sober academic argument for books with titles like Princess Nest of Wales: Seductress of the English about 20 years ago.

Yes, most medieval societies are strongly patriarchal. The same can be said of many modern societies. Again I refer you to Judith Bennett's concept of patriarchal equilibrium. It's also true that women in medieval societies were subject to various forms of legal disability. But their legal disability does not mean that they were "by and large, property," in economic, social, or cultural fact. Were their options limited in law? yes. Does this mean that they did not participate in farming, in crafts, in arts, in ruling, in the religious life? No, no, no, no, and very definitely no.

I'm also going to gently suggest that the desire to find women doing the most archetypically masculine activity as evidence of their opportunities is... limited and limiting. Since you use the terms "early," "ancient," and "medieval" Ireland interchangeably, I'm not sure if The Ulster Cycle will be useful to you.

Four Courts Press, Dublin is generally a good place to look for works on medieval Ireland:

This work focuses on ideas of gender and power in medieval Ireland:

Cool History Facts tip jar here.

Hi, I saw your reply about Ruby Gillman, and while I havent watched the film I agree with you and other critics that the movie is spreading a dangerous message that sometimes, bigotry is justified and necessary to protect yourself.

Here are some thoughts I want to share:

The film starts with grandmama telling the audience and krakens and mermaids respectively, stating that all mermaids are "vain, selfish narcissists (yeah thats ableist)". Usually when blanket statements like that are made in the beginning of a story, the narrative will show that its wrong, so the fact grandmama's prejudice is validated goes against narrative conventions, and not in a good way.

Since the Gillmans are meant to be a metaphor for the immigrant experience, having to hide what they are to stay safe, that raises the question of what mermaids are supposed to be, who are also in hiding. It creates the subtext that its this other group that you should hate, not us.

Something about the way mermaids are framed and stereotyped as "vain, selfish, materialistic" mean girl caricatures makes me uncomfortable and pissed off. I think that said stereotypes originates in misogynistic stereotypes of teenage girls and women, very prevalent in media from the 90s, which is ironic to see perpetuated in a "progressive" film.

Hi, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

I think the biggest problem here is that the message and the narrative directly contradict themselves, I don't think the writers/producers were consciously trying to make a "bigotry sometimes good" movie, but they wanted to have a cake and eat it too - tell a "don't be prejudiced" moral but also include a "whoa look a mermaid, usually depicted as a good guy, is ACTUALLY a bad guy!!!!" plot. The argument that "mermaids were actually evil monsters in the mythology" that people often use to defend this decision doesn't really work here because guess what... Guess what krakens were always depicted as...

It just made this movie's message a mess and I don't think people are wrong for pointing it out. I'm also not too thrilled about seeing this ableist usage of the word narcissist in more and more childrens media but hey, it's not like this genre is exempt from normalizing bigotry (given that it's adults that produce it, it's not surprising that they carry over their own biases like racism or misogyny, culture reinforces itself and so on and so forth). Honestly I'm kinda glad that it flopped, especially when it was during the time when everybody was jumping on DreamWorks' dick after the Last Wish so I guess it was pretty sobering lol.

I know that "it's just a children's movie", but I think ESPECIALLY children's movies should be subjected to criticism on a moral ground. Listen, I really like dark themes, but small children are still new to this world and absorb information uncritically. Media, as part of a specific culture, normalize and reinforce societal forces like bigotry and stereotypes. Obviously consuming media is not a replacement for parenting and just putting on some "unproblematic" movies for your children with no other work won't guarantee that they won't ever be bigoted but man, isn't that kinda fucked up that it's billion dollar companies that dictate how children's content looks like and what it includes, including all the cultural hiccups of the times we live in?