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Issue 1:
The Twitter post in itself isn't too bad, it's not extra scholarly but it fits decently well with other stuff I've heard about the Vikings and it's not outrageous. The caption, however, is fucking absurd. It's in no way widely accepted, or even narrowly accepted, that Viking history was recorded by women. What the fuck. Fuck off.
Issue 2:
There is a difference between gender fluidity and non-strict gender roles. You're arguing that women being in charge of economic matters is somehow gender fluid.
A) women have been in charge of household economics in lots of cultures
B) having non-Western gender roles does not mean that gender roles are less strict, or that this in any way affects gender. Gender identity and gender roles are not the same thing.
C) if you're referring to the Viking Warrior Women graves: fighting does not make a woman into a man (as you would imply if you think this means the Vikings had gender fluidity); the women warriors thing has been largely debunked. These graves may hold female remains with weapons, but weapons does not equal a warrior, occupational pathologies do and the 'warrior women' had none. More likely they were buried with weapons because they were seen as being in control of warfare, potentially as Queens or female Jarls or what have you. Which is still SUPER BADASS by the way.
D) thus even if you see the debunked warrior women myth or the control of household economy as non-traditional gender roles, which is a flawed argument where you project your own views onto an ancient civilisation by the way, this has no effect on actual gender identity. Gender roles =/= gender identity. I do not become a man because I like shooting a bow or punching someone any more than cooking makes me a woman.
Issue 3:
Claiming that stories of the gods can be transferred wholesale onto the society.
A) they are gods. They have magic.
B) Loki was gender-fluid in that he could change his gender at will, but he could also shapeshift and he fathered a serpent and a wolf, and BIRTHED Sleipnir. This does not mean you can say that since Loki can change his gender, Vikings had gender-fluidity. Loki was meant to be subversive, it's part of the humour of the stories.
C) Thor dressing as a woman was supposed to be humiliating and was furthermore a disguise. It has nothing to do with cross-dressing in the sense of doing it for pleasure or fun. And in any case, actual cross-dressing is something that is IMMENSELY common in male-only milieus, like the military. You see it among PoWs during WWII a lot, where dressing as a woman was part of a fairly common sketch show type of entertainment. This has no real bearing on gender-fluidity.
Issue 4:
In reality, women in Viking societies were comparatively independent -- but compared to women in other societies at the same time, not compared to today. See source by the National Museum of Denmark: https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/the-people/women/?fbclid=IwAR0rdrXckyGv5IyqmNziqArXAoxKpjIi_MxvyNwb0UERVkTYcyt8Vu0dIo0
But I will sum up:
A) Viking age women were in charge of the home, especially when the men were away on expeditions. So basically she would be in charge of getting the harvest in when the men were away, and would always be in charge of cooking and housekeeping, including spinning, sewing, etc.
B) Archaeological finds show that textile production was reserved for women (with metalwork and carpentry done by men), so there were definitely some firm gender-roles there, which fit fairly well with our modern Western idea of gender-roles.
C) Written records show that Viking women were independent and had certain rights, and as I said they were more independent than women elsewhere in the same period. However, even women with strong positions were officially inferior to men, could not appear in court or receive a share of a man's inheritance. Men had the political power.
D) Women lived at home till they got married. Marriage was a political contract between families where the woman was not always consulted as to her preference. Sagas describe that going against one's family's wishes as to marriage often ended badly. However, if a marriage was unhappy, divorce was possible. Specifically divorce was possible in the case of sudden poverty in the man's family, if he didn't sleep with his wife for three years, or if he struck her three times (coming down hard on abusive men, which was very forward thinking!). However, while female infidelity was punished harshly, men could bring their mistresses into the house (though the wife stayed in authority over the household).
Issue 5:
YOU ALWAYS FUCKING HAVE TO CITE YOUR FUCKING SOURCES YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING WALNUT. Refusing to cite your sources not only makes it VERY obvious that you have no sources, which just makes it hard to take you seriously, it also makes you look really really unsound as a scholar. Probs because it means you are an unsound scholar.
You're also not a history teacher. Don't claim to be stuff you're not. You teach High School English. Get over yourself.
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