World Constructing with Girls Warriors, Interview with Pamela D. Toler
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“There’s been an extended custom of claiming that girls that girls who dominated have been exceptions, that girls who fought have been exceptions. That, you already know, it’s Joan of Arc, it’s not GI Joan. And that entice will get us over and over, not simply with girls warriors.” — Pamela D. Toler
On this episode of How To Write the Future podcast, host Beth Barany interviews creator, speaker, and historian Pamela D. Toler. Collectively they dive into the significance of girls in historical past and talk about the numerous challenges in documenting Girls’s Historical past and the way this historical past can be utilized in your tales. Additionally they talk about Pamela’s guide, Girls Warriors: An Surprising Historical past.
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See additionally:
Ep. 146 – How Historic Feminine Warriors Form Our Future
https://writersfunzone.com/weblog/2025/03/31/how-ancient-female-warriors-shape-our-future/
Girls Warriors: An Surprising Historical past: https://books2read.com/womenwarriorstoler
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The How To Write The Future podcast is for science fiction and fantasy writers who wish to write optimistic futures and efficiently convey these tales out into {the marketplace}. Hosted by Beth Barany, science fiction novelist and creativity coach for writers. We cowl suggestions for fiction writers. This podcast is for readers too should you’re in any respect inquisitive about the way forward for humanity.
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ABOUT PAMELA D. TOLER
Armed with a PhD in historical past, a well-thumbed deck of library playing cards, and a big bump of curiosity, creator, speaker, and historian Pamela D. Toler writes historic non-fiction for a well-liked viewers. She goes past the acquainted boundaries of American historical past to inform tales from different elements of the world in addition to historical past from the opposite facet of the battlefield, the gender line, or the colour bar. Toler is the creator of ten books of fashionable historical past for youngsters and adults, together with Girls Warriors: An Surprising Historical past and The Dragon From Chicago: the Untold Story of an American Report in Nazi Germany.
Web site: https://www.pameladtoler.com/
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamelatolerauthor/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelatoler/
Transcript for World Constructing with Girls Warriors, Interview with Pamela D. Toler
[00:00] Meet the Host: Beth Barany Welcome to Tips on how to Write the Future Podcast.
I’m your host, Beth Barany. I’m an award-winning science fiction and fantasy instructor, editor and filmmaker. And I care very a lot about people having the ability to form their very own future, each by the tales we write, in addition to the best way we strategy the world in the best way we take into consideration our future as a result of I imagine that we people can create optimistic, optimistic futures by our tales and in addition by how we stay our day-to-day lives.
And so forth that word, we are literally gonna do some historical past deep dive immediately as a result of the place we got here from completely impacts how we’re immediately and the way we understand the longer term.
And let’s shed a lightweight on certainly one of my very favourite matters: girls warriors.
[00:48] Introducing Particular Visitor: Pamela D. Toler
I’m so excited immediately to have with me a particular visitor, Pamela D. Toler creator, and fabulous human being. Welcome Pam. or Pamela, what do you like, Pam? Pamela?
I want Pamela.
Pamela. So welcome, Pamela. I’m so glad that you just’re right here immediately.
Oh, I’m delighted to be right here.
Let me learn your bio for everybody. to allow them to find out about you.
[01:12] Pamela’s Background and Work
Lemme inform you all a little bit bit about Pamela.
Armed with a PhD in historical past, a properly thumbed deck of library playing cards and a big bump of curiosity, creator, speaker, and historian, Pamela D. Toler writes historic nonfiction for a well-liked viewers. She goes past the acquainted boundaries of American historical past to inform tales from different elements of the world, in addition to historical past from the opposite facet of the battlefield, the gender line, or the Coloration Bar. Toler is the creator of 10 books of fashionable historical past for youngsters and adults, together with Girls Warriors: An Surprising Historical past, and The Dragon from Chicago, the Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany.
Thanks a lot for being right here, Pamela. I’m actually grateful that you just took the time immediately and I simply should do some exhibiting off.
I’ve your Lady Warriors guide. And I even have your Dragon from Chicago guide.
So very thrilling to have these each right here. And I simply wanna say it’s actually fascinating to me that you just took the leap from having your PhD in historical past to deciding to jot down books for the favored audiences. I’m actually grateful as a result of we want individuals such as you who can translate, and produce these tales to life.
So I’m actually grateful that you just’re doing this work.
I do wanna invite everybody to take a look at Pamela D. Toler’s materials. Her hyperlinks might be within the present notes and the article that accompanies this podcast. So everybody you should definitely examine these out. She has a superb column about historical past. I like studying it.
[02:49] The Significance of Girls’s Historical past
Now I’ve a query for you that has been, I swear to you, plaguing me since I used to be a toddler. Which is… no strain.
No strain, no strain. And since I come from a household that prized itself on being a feminist household, but in addition I’m a toddler of the seventies, and okay, I simply have to inform this private story.
After I was 16, I turned to my mother and I stated, mother, how come girls aren’t equal to males? I believed they have been. I used to be introduced as much as imagine that they have been. How come they’re not? And he or she stated to me, properly, primarily social change takes a very long time.
It’s takes generations. And my household had already been engaged on it for 4 generations.
I’ve a great-great-grandmother who was an advocate for abortion. I do know that’s very controversial lately. However within the Midwest, it was unlawful then, utterly unlawful and. and my nice grandmother who was an advocate for ladies’s rights and her mom was the one who was additionally professional training for ladies.
After which right here I’m, 5 generations later within the seventies or eighties by then wanting round, how come equality isn’t right here but? And my mother was like, she’s a realist. She’s like, properly, mm-hmm. Takes a very long time. And I’m like, you already know, unhappy about that.
Yeah.
[00:03:58] Challenges in Documenting Girls’s Historical past
So this segues me to our first query, which is: How is it that girls have been disappeared or girls disappear from historical past?
We’re 50% of the human inhabitants.
There are loads of causes. and at some stage, the primary one comes again to: what individuals have thought have been price telling. What have been the tales that have been price telling? And if historical past was the story of energy, then you’re largely speaking about males in positions of energy.
And once you’re speaking a few girl ready of energy, she’s all the time an exception for no matter purpose, even if, should you look over the broad vary of historical past, the variety of girls who’ve truly dominated, and in lots of circumstances dominated with an iron fist is extraordinarily giant, however loads of their tales find yourself then getting erased or instructed with excessive prejudice by the individuals who file the historical past. They both take away girls from historical past, which has occurred in some actually egregious methods. Hatshepsut of Egypt, the place her successor merely takes their identify off the monuments. So generally it’s literal erasure, however you additionally get cases the place somebody who’s writing the historical past, and loads of occasions, significantly within the historical world and even the Medieval world, we’re getting sources which can be written a very long time after the very fact and also you get loads of trash speaking. You get loads of: there was actually a person behind her pulling the strings or, she was a horrible human being, or, she didn’t exist, or she didn’t actually do what the information say she did.
I used to be simply astonished what number of occasions, significantly in girls warriors the place I used to be studying secondary trendy historians taking a look at older histories, making the argument that she’s a metaphor: This isn’t somebody who truly was there. She’s a metaphor, or, yeah, she was there, however all this different stuff has gathered and he or she didn’t actually do what our precise supply says she did. And never all the time in historical occasions. There’s a girl named Amina of Hausa who was a recent of Elizabeth the First of England, and there are historians who stated, yeah, we’re not likely certain she existed. So yeah.
So it looks like it’s loads of both overt erasure. What occurred to the Egyptian? I don’t know the identify for the Egyptian chief.
She’s a Pharaoh.
Pharaoh, that’s proper. Thanks. My mind went blip. Or simply male, dare I say, male dominated bias.
Mm-hmm.
And a girl couldn’t do that- type of factor. Would you say, in order that appears to predominate during the last, I don’t know, what, two, three, 5,000 years. it appears to have been for a very long time. it’s for a very long time We actually begin having the thought of girls’s historical past round 1980.
That’s when girls’s historical past as a self-discipline begins and historians start taking a look at completely different sources to inform us what girls’s lives have been like. But additionally since then, you get rising numbers of individuals like me going and bringing to life tales which can be put within the footnotes, as a result of loads of occasions girls don’t disappear utterly. Their sources find yourself hooked up to their husband’s papers is one factor.
Or they simply present up in a footnote. Or in additional conventional writing, they get used as a horrible instance: That is somebody you don’t wanna be. So it’s actually solely about 1980 that you just get a physique of labor that’s making an attempt to convey girls again into the sunshine.
That’s fascinating and in addition explains lots when it comes to why that materials wasn’t useful once I was a toddler.
And the opposite factor, I’m sorry, you might have different questions, I do know not simply why girls get erased, but it surely’s additionally a query of what sources get stored. Yeah. Who decides what archives are price maintaining? In the event you’re writing girls’s historical past, you’re typically having to work across the archives in some actually attention-grabbing methods as a result of papers could not have been stored.
Yeah. That’s fascinating. ’trigger you return so far as you may to authentic sources, proper?
Roughly authentic sources in some circumstances.
Let’s segue to our subsequent, my different very fascinating, I might say, obsession that I’ve been dabbling in for years and hope to do one thing very particular with in some unspecified time in the future.
[08:39] Defining Girls Warriors
I cherished your guide on girl warriors. I used to be additionally annoyed on the limitations of historical past, like we solely have sure historic paperwork, but it surely sounds such as you took your time to determine who to incorporate in your guide. And so how do you outline girls warriors for-
I’m simply gonna present it on display for everybody. Girls Warriors: an Surprising Historical past, lovely cowl. And, and defining turned out to be actually vital as a result of even if in some methods there’s this sense that girls didn’t combat. In reality, I had so many examples that I needed to make exhausting selections, and I went in with a very easy definition, which was I wished girls who actually fought, that this isn’t girls for whom combating was a metaphor.
These have been girls who picked up a rock or a gun or a sword and truly fought. And that’s a reasonably good definition should you’re speaking about girls on the entrance traces in any method, whether or not they’re common troopers or are defending a besieged fortress.
It will get much less clear once you’re speaking about commanders as a result of there’s an actual big selection that girls commanders can take.
On the one finish there may be Elizabeth The First on her white horse along with her silver cuirass over her robe saying, I’ve the weak physique of a girl, however the coronary heart of a king. And he or she’s sending individuals off to combat, however she’s not going into the sphere.
And on the different finish, you might have somebody like Boudica so simply keep within the British Isles, who clearly is correct there, sword in hand combating. And also you’ve acquired every little thing in between.
I ended up utilizing a contemporary American navy definition known as a “combatant commander,” the place they won’t essentially be holding a weapon. In spite of everything, you don’t assume that normal Eisenhower wasn’t a warrior in World Warfare II, even when he wasn’t taking pictures. However the place they’re on the entrance, they’re making command selections. They could be making tactical selections, logistical preparations.
So somebody who’s actively concerned within the unwinding of a conflict the place they’re, they’re hands-on, even when they aren’t bodily combating with a weapon.
The opposite selections that I wanted to make- I actually did need this to be a worldwide historical past. So I took time to decide on individuals from all world wide and from throughout time, starting from the second millennium, B. C. E. I believe the final particular person I discuss aboutwas truly within the Falklands Warfare, however she’s nearly a footnote as a result of principally I didn’t go a lot previous World Warfare II in taking a look at lively combatants.
So, no. Tibet and with the Chinese language invasion, however first half of the twentieth century is the place I finish. So I additionally needed to make these sorts of selections.
And I didn’t need all queens and I wished common girls. I didn’t need it to be a complete guide of exceptions.
I wished bizarre girls combating as a result of they wanted to as properly. So numerous selections that needed to be made.
You possibly can’t embrace everybody.
On this guide, what was essentially the most shocking factor that you just’ve found about girls warriors?
Actually simply what number of of them there have been. I went in with a very fats folder of tales that I had been accumulating for 20 years, possibly earlier than I even thought of writing the guide, however I simply stored discovering extra and it grew to become clear that even when particular person girls have been exceptions of their occasions and locations, there’s a degree at which: What number of girls do it’s a must to have over the historical past of time for it to cease being an exception?
So the actual factor that simply acquired me was what number of they’re and the way unexamined that’s.
[12:51] The Lure of the Particular person Exception
So I respect that you’ve got taken your time to ask all these unbelievable questions, together with this subsequent one which I might like to discover with you, which is: how does the entice of the person exception, and also you’re gonna should outline what which means, contribute to the erasure of girls from historical past?
There’s been an extended custom of claiming that girls have been exceptions that, that girls who dominated have been exceptions, that girls who fought have been exceptions. That, it’s Joan of Arc, it’s not GI Joan. And that entice will get us over and over, not simply with girls warriors. I just lately was studying a guide known as The Swans of Harlem about black dancers in our lifetime, and the way that guide acquired triggered by Misty Copeland being handled within the information as if she have been the primary, as if she have been an exception, and this journalist going again in, discovering this group of girls.
So what the entice of the exception does is it stops you from wanting extra broadly. It stops you from seeing who that exception constructed on. It stops you from seeing who else is doing one thing that appears lots like that.
Within the case of girls warriors, the opposite factor that the distinctive does is that if we begin defining girls warriors as exceptions. In the event you begin dubbing the black girls who fought in Dahomey because the black Amazons of Dahomey. In the event you name girls who’re nationwide heroines, as a result of they combat the Joan of Arc of wherever it’s, you begin making a definition which means that is one thing you may’t aspire to.
This can be a huge heroic factor that stands aside. However you one who is having to defend your private home as a result of the Nazis are marching into Russia, you’re not likely a warrior. So the actual entice of the exception is just not even that it means we don’t see it, however that we don’t assume we will be it.
I assume we come again to that: “In the event you can’t see it, you may’t be it” phrase. But it surely’s true and it’s very a lot true as a historian wanting, is that exceptionalism concept will get you each time.
I truly do love that you just’ve tied it again to, “should you can’t see it, you may’t be it.” I do know, Geena Davis makes use of that in her promotions.
As a result of it’s actually true.
After I was a toddler, I wished to be a physician, or at the very least that’s what I instructed all of the adults. ’trigger that was what impressed them essentially the most. But additionally, I had a deep need to assist individuals and I knew that hospital factor. However once I went in search of different medical doctors, girls who have been medical doctors, my dad and mom have been like, there’s this girl, It’s like they couldn’t give me very many tales when in reality there was in all probability much more tales on the market that existed. They simply couldn’t give them to me ’trigger it wasn’t due to this entire exceptionalism factor. Yeah. So I actually respect you explaining the entire exception as a result of it does yet another factor that I discover, which is it, it removes us from neighborhood. Oh, have a look at, oh, have a look at my grandmother who did this, and my auntie who did that, and my neighbor did this.
Like It isolates girls, which I believe is among the instruments which have been used to remove our energy is to isolate girls.
There’s an exquisite Peanut cartoon the place Lucy is making a report in class and he or she stands up and talks about what her grandmother did in World Warfare II after which says, it’s best to go ask your grandmother what she did. ‘Trigger it’s not simply all baking cookies.
It does. It isolates you. And the entire concept that you just go house and also you don’t speak about it. And admittedly, loads of males who fought in World Warfare II additionally went house and didn’t speak about it. The distinction is that we knew males fought in World Warfare II, and excluding Rosie the Riveter, we didn’t have an actual clear sense of simply how a lot girls did and what they did.
And people tales are solely beginning to be instructed now. And a few of that’s as a result of there have been paperwork that weren’t capable of be launched till a sure variety of years after the conflict. In order that’s the rationale among the tales don’t get instructed, but in addition there’s a way of going house and never speaking about it.
And the Russian authorities truly instructed the ladies who have been fighter pilots and bombers and mechanics in World Warfare II to not speak about their service.
Wow.
And clearly the Bletchley Park individuals had signed secrecy act paperwork to not speak about their service. However yeah, generally it’s simply an act of we don’t speak about this.
And that’s actually too unhealthy. That goes again to my, how come we don’t know the tales? And individuals are being instructed actively to not speak about it. And I really feel like possibly as a result of I come from a household of storytellers who inform the tales of their communities, however I really feel so strongly about bringing forth these girls warrior tales as a result of girls being courageous, I don’t need it to be an exception.
I need it to be a part of our traits. And that’s why I write tales about courageous younger girls on the one hand in my fantasy worlds. After which in my sci-fi, I’ve acquired this lead investigator doing The Courageous. And, As a matter in fact. Like in fact girls get to be courageous. Girls are courageous.
And so I really feel like, Pamela, we may preserve going for a very long time.
You’re such a font of knowledge and, I actually like discovering out how girls have been represented, but in addition bringing girls again into the dialog and into the dialogue,by telling their tales.
Once more, everybody try Pamela’s books.
I’ll put these up on the display and I’ll put hyperlinks to those books. and I do know you’re engaged on extra tasks. as we wrap up immediately.
[18:47] Trying to the Future
Are you able to communicate to the longer term since this podcast theme is about wanting towards the longer term and the way can we wanna make our future? And naturally there’s many futures, however as you look to the longer term, possibly, one factor that’s private, like what you’re engaged on, and in addition your want or hope for the writers who’re listening to this and people who care in regards to the future. These are my viewers. Lots of writers take heed to this.
What are you able to inform us about serving to us write extra optimistic, optimistic, and inclusive futures?
First. I don’t know what I’m engaged on proper now. I’m wanting in order that I can’t assist and proper now what I actually need is for us to not lose what we gained. But when we’re speaking about making an attempt to jot down a few extra optimistic world, a few world the place it’s assumed that girls are robust and good and doing no matter males do, and on the alternate facet that males have the choice of being the one to remain house and handle youngsters, to be caretakers too, as a result of these two issues go collectively.
Once more, to make use of one thing that will get stated lots, however girls’s rights are additionally males’s rights. I might say, preserve that in thoughts with no matter you’re writing about no matter future world you’re creating is that should you open the alternatives for one group, it doesn’t imply you’re closing the door for another person.
You aren’t taking one thing away from another person. You in the very best variations of that, you’re truly making the alternatives broader for everybody.
[20:22] Conclusion and Last Ideas
I like that. That’s an ideal word to finish on.
Oh my goodness. Thanks a lot, Pamela. I simply wanna encourage everybody to take a look at, Pamela’s sources, and I’m gonna finish on this, everybody.
Write lengthy and prosper.
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ABOUT BETH BARANY
Beth Barany teaches science fiction and fantasy novelists tips on how to write, edit, and publish their books as a coach, instructor, marketing consultant, and developmental editor. She’s an award-winning fantasy and science fiction novelist and runs the podcast, “How To Write The Future.”
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