Women in your groups?

[Martin Wallgren]

Salve

What roles do women in your groups take. Do you have a strict non-fighting for them or?

Im setting som guidelines for our group right now and wanna know how you gone about it.

[FAVENTIANVS]

Our woman perform as Augusta Galla Placidia right now, but in the future she'll be the aquilifer...

[Gaius Decius Aquilius]

I'm in a small fringe of the re-enactment world so this may be typical of small groups. We have no women. The only two who ever expressed any interest wanted to be "Ceopatera", or a "patrician lady". No one had any interest in being the other 99% of Roman society, and stated this.

This said, we do welcome women in any impression that does not break preference against the "all patricians and no peasant scum" rule of thumb. Individuals who have physical limitations are also welcome, and can expect full cooperation of the entire group (all three of us), to help provide a suitable impression. There is a common sense threshold when handling weapons of any sort. In this, minors are excluded with one excepted incidence, while making a film, that did have insurance coverage.

In another forum it was noted that historically, no women were known in the Roman war machine. There were instances where Roman men dressed and behaved as women, however. Simple. Have any women re-enactor do an impression of a man pretending to be a woman.

Gaius Decius Aquilius
(Ralph Izard)

[Robert Vermaat]

Our woman perform as Augusta Galla Placidia right now, but in the future she'll be the aquilifer...

Erm... so that means that this summer at Archeon, there will no longer be an Augusta in our midst? We are very sad to hear that..

[Arthes]

Greetings,
I along with another lady or two in our group play both male and female roles.
On the field as late Roman soldiers. then a quick change into female kit for whatever living history we are doing.
We are mainly a display group with very little fighting at shows, although it does sometimes happen. My early re-enactment background was as a combatant, generally preferring the spear.
I disagree with the 'no females' in the Roman military, there were almost certainly females in the auxiliary cavalry, as shown by finds in Northern England and possibly support troops/infantry too...!
regards
Arthes

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Erm... so that means that this summer at Archeon, there will no longer be an Augusta in our midst? We are very sad to hear that..

Don't worry about that, Robert!. The Aquilifer impresion is an aditional role. At our group, a member use to have many impresions.

Faventianus is a late roman warrior, but in one time, he depicts a gaul trader of Terra Sigillata :lol:

At Archeon, will be an Augusta, even better than past year. We are working hardly in investigation and research to improve the impresion.

And Carme is so beauty dressed as Placidia!

[Viventius]

As Arthes says, in Comitatus, females are allowed in male kit as soldiers. However, we try not to appear in the Living History camp in male gear. It sometimes doesn't work - for example when we were doing the Ad Sigma last year a member of the public saw my (male) name on my shield and was asking about its meaning. I tried to make the conversation very short. Also, if the time between 'arena' shows is short, it's not worth getting changed. I have occasionally been in camp in male kit, but kept my head down, not talked to the public, and been doing something that wouldn't look out of place for a bloke (i.e. gossiping to my mates, while the women do all the work :lol: ).

When doing the male role, we wear helmets (borrowed or owned) which lends a more male look, at least from a distance. Cheek pieces on the helms also help. For some slightly built women, it might be good to wear armour to bulk them out a bit (I don't have that problem!). Lorica segmentata would probably hide a multitude of sins, in that respect :twisted: No armour: baggy tunics are a good idea. I always generously pouch mine over my belt allowing plenty of room around the chest area.

In England, one of the main events organisations, English Heritage, are not keen on women cross-dressing, as it's confusing for the public. At those shows, we certainly can't be seen in male kit wondering around the Living History camp as a matter of course. However, in allowing women into male kit, the group can maximise the number of soldiers doing drill, for example.

If you're female and caught in in male kit at virtually any show, there's only one way the conversation is likely to go! I don't like having the same conversation over and over, and in the Living History camp I am there to to talk about everyday aspects of life in Late Roman Britain.

Comitatus has a large Living History camp, and there are lots of women (dressed as women!) in it. Most of us don't portray high status females - except, appropriately, the Commandant's wife. We all have our specialisms, such as dyeing, weaving, pottery, cooking, etc.

Hope this helps

[Robert Vermaat]

Erm... so that means that this summer at Archeon, there will no longer be an Augusta in our midst? We are very sad to hear that..

Don't worry about that, Robert!. The Aquilifer impresion is an aditional role. At our group, a member use to have many impresions.
Faventianus is a late roman warrior, but in one time, he depicts a gaul trader of Terra Sigillata :lol:
At Archeon, will be an Augusta, even better than past year. We are working hardly in investigation and research to improve the impresion.
And Carme is so beauty dressed as Placidia!

Wha-hey! And there was much rejoicing..
I was thinking, we should do a show around that. I mean, why have an empress present and not do anything about that? Galla Placidia was a very poerful and historically influential person, after all. We could try to re-enact the defeat and submission of the usurper Iohannis, perhaps?
We could have his trial before the court (troops, guards, bucellarii, a magister militium, courtiers, maybe with an the boy Valentinian III present.. ).

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Let's go!!!

The Galla Placidia Impression was made for the past Archeon Event. Now we are working in "make sense" to that figure, and make some impresions to follow him.

I'll tell Carme to talk with you and we can make some kind of collaboration between our groups.

VALETE, COMILES

[FAVENTIANVS]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YEAH LOVELY!!

[Viventius]

Martin,

Did you find what we said of any use to you at all?

[Martin Wallgren]

Oh! Sorry!

I forgot to answer! Yepp alot. I will go on the We Are All Men non-regarding sex line. Our group will in the beginning only depict soldiers and we will focus on the fighting techniques so the girl in our ARMA Studygroup who is interessted will be one of the guys. She is more than fine with that she says. Thanks for all the respose.

And sorry again for the laps in answering.

[tlclark]

In England, one of the main events organisations, English Heritage, are not keen on women cross-dressing,

English not keen on cross-dressing?

You are shattering some real stereotypes here, or are all my Monty Python videos lying to me?

Travis

[Viventius]

Viventius wrote:

In England, one of the main events organisations, English Heritage, are not keen on women cross-dressing,

Travis wrote:

English not keen on cross-dressing?

You are shattering some real stereotypes here, or are all my Monty Python videos lying to me?

Oh that's just EH! The rest of us are as keen as a mustard about cross-dressing, I do assure you 8)

[Viventius]

Martin,

It's great to hear how you will be approaching your re-enactment. What Roman era will you be portraying - early or late?