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Comment by aristofun | Hacker News Reader

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aristofun·

This is what strikes me more than the topic:

> The person below you has the advantage of jabbing at your legs

Weren't virtually all fighters in those times men?

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From the captioned art in the article: "Siege, from the Peterborough Psalter, early 14th century, via the KBR Museum, Belgium. Yes, those defenders are all women."

No.

oh really, how much evidence do you have about women storming the castles all the way through inside?

How much evidence do you have that "storming the castles" was how sieges ended at all? Errol Flynn movies are not reality.

To quote James Wright, who is an archaeologist:

> we know a fair bit about how sieges were ended, and it was never the desperate violent rout on the staircases that is so beloved of Hollywood films.

https://triskeleheritage.triskelepublishing.com/mediaeval-my...

Like, reading a book or 30 seconds of googling?

So what?

Can you expand on that?

why use (abuse) the word "person" then?

Because if you say the "man" it implies that women fighters would not have the same advantage, when clearly they would.

As since men are people, I'd argue it's not an abuse of language.

again — in those times women did not fight to get advantage in the first place why not use this to be more precise in the language?

Majority, but not all were men? But why care about that at all and consider it the most striking thing about the article? Even rethinking it 3 times I'm not sure what you find preciser in this, or how it is not completely irrelevant?

You sound pretty sure that women would never be among the attackers, but that seems like a risky bet to me. There are historical accounts of Viking attackers who were women, for example.

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