40. Real-Life Xenas: Warrior Women Across the World

Happy 2022 and welcome to another episode of History is Gay! This time, we're picking up where we left off with Meghan Rose and S.C. Lucier in our discussion of Amazons and real-life warrior women in history! It's not just the Greco-Roman world that marveled at fierce, strong female fighters, but all over the world! This episode, we're visiting Benin, Africa to learn about the real-life dora milaje of Black Panther fame, the gender-bending Dahomey Amazons; badass female samurai defending their homesteads in Japan, and Viking shieldmaidens and mythical Valkyries– who may have been a third gender? Strap-in for a whirlwind worldwide tour of gender transgression and badass real-life Xenas we want to see all the movies about!

You can learn more about our guest hosts Meg and Luce, Xena: Warrior Musical, and more of their forthcoming projects at www.xenawarriormusical.com, @XenatheMusical on Twitter, and @XenaWarriorMusical on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube!  

Outline
0:00 – Introduction
4:27 – Announcements
7:51 – Follow-Up from Last Episode
12:48 – Main Topic: Warrior Women Across the World
13:33 – Word of the Week
18:54 – Amazon-Like Women in Africa: Dahomey Amazons/mino
43:22-44:13 – Content warning: Discussion of slave trade
46:22 – Amazon-Like Women in Japan: onna-bugeisha
1:06:50 – Amazon-Like Women in Scandinavia: the Vikings!
1:30:48 – Pop-Culture Tie-In
1:33:43 – How Gay were They?
1:39:07 – Closing and Where to Find us Online

This episode is sponsored by Surfshark VPN, an awesome app and browser extension that not only protects your privacy online, but changes the virtual location of your phone or computer to anywhere in the world, allowing you access to content geoblocked content. 

Surfshark VPN is offering 83% off and 3 months free for History is Gay listeners. Just head over to https://surfshark.deals/HISTORYISGAY or go to surfshark.com and enter code HISTORYISGAY to redeem this amazing deal! Plus, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can try it out risk-free. 

Want to help us continue to make the show? Support us on our NEWLY REVAMPED Patreon and get awesome goodies, behind-the-scenes access, special minisodes, and more! We have a brand-new Discord server for everyone to hang out in, exclusive O.G. Lesbian Sappho t-shirts, and some really fun extras coming your way! You can also get super cool merch in our store! Shirts, hoodies, totes, a coloring book, and other neat things.

If you'd like to help us transcribe the show for our d/Deaf and hard of hearing fans, please head on over to .css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}