To me, the author sounded reasonable and moderate in the interview. She didn’t say that “most” women could have done this; but that a portion of women could have done it.
Those times and cultures were rough, both men and women had to be a lot tougher than we are today; and they stressed, in many areas, very different values than ours. If there existed a powerful cultural incentive, and the freedom for women to at least try, I think many women could have given rise to the “myth” through their accomplishments. I think they would have held a unique position; been a certain “class” of people/women; a cult or “priesthood”.
We may think that we “know” a lot about ancient people and their cultures; but I think there’s a lot of what we know that we don’t really *understand*.
This is what makes the study - even of something as “well-known” to most of us in America as the Bible - so endlessly fascinating (i.e., ‘what did they really mean by that word, after it’s translated down through several languages and thousands of years to us; what did that image or object really symbolize to them, in their own time and milieu; what might this story have meant to tell those people, in their own day, deep under the surface’, etc.)
-JT
A very reasonable response.
My partial disagreement is strictly one of the physical limitations.
It is probable that a man can, on average, pull twice the draw weight bow of a woman. Some a good bit more.
There is no reason in this world that a woman can’t be as skilled with a bow as a man, but the draw weight difference means that he can shoot from a much greater distance and that his arrows will hit with much greater force.
Important factors in a combat situation. I just get tired of the female warrior meme. It’s so utterly stupid. And I sometimes wonder if it plays a role in young women getting themselves into dangerous situation because they don’t realize how utterly vulnerable they are without a man to defend them. Oe a gun.