Events that allow women portraying soldiers?

[Nurglitch]

I can't comment on the situation in Europe or in the US, but here in Britain I don't recall ever having seen an event organiser specifying a policy of woman not protraying soldiers

I doubt it would even be legal.

women's legs are simply not the same shape as men's legs and so any woman would need to be able to completely cover her legs.

Sorry, but the leg shapes don't matter squat. Pretty much none of us looks like a Roman. We live differently, we eat differently, we have 2000yr later fenotypes. If you are about to start picking apart such minor details as leg shapes, you should really start with the legionary Porcus Obesus who has ample presence in British events and is totally not what a soldier looks like. Make every such type loose 60kg and then start demanding standard Roman leg shapes.

For many women the shape of their rear ends would also be an issue to overcome. Also mail is a problem, as it hugs the figure and thus a woman's body shape is hard to hide.

Only if worn as ornamentation (which is unfortunatelly standard in Roman reenactment). If mail is worn as armour it has to have quite thick padded gambeson/aketon underneath. Chain by itself does not absorb blows, it just changes sharp trauma to blunt trauma. If worn properly as chain + gambeson it will distort the figure as much as you may wish.



And whence the assumption that women have to pretend to be men? I mean - hiding leg shapes, why not start using fake moustaches? We are not Roman soldiers, we are reenactors. We are XXc people wearing stuff that sort-of looks like what they wore 2k years ago. Experimental archeology can be done by men and women alike.