Enjolras listens to this explanation thoughtfully.
His views of women in battle are not, exactly, what they were. In Paris he was neither opposed to the rights of women, nor especially preoccupied with them -- he held, like many, that it was pragmatic to begin by achieving rights for all men, and extend that to women after the former was achieved -- and he knew of women who fought with men in the streets and on the barricades. It was women in the market, after all, who began and led the march on Versailles in '89. But almost no one, of any gender, truly advocated for women on the battlefield as a good and desirable thing. Battles of any sort are a tragedy, to his mind, even when they bring glory; the violent death of any human being is a betrayal of brother by brother; but men and women are different, and women are gentler, softer, fitted by nature for motherhood and not for gun and sword.
He's read at Milliways of future years, though. Of the armies of other societies, the battles metaphorical and literal of women. It hasn't been a primary focus for him here either, but he's read of it, and he's thought about it, to no immediate conclusion. The future is not infallible, despite its progress; does he agree with later societies' conclusions about the fundamental nature of men and women, and those who feel themselves to be neither? He's not sure.
And yet. To fall back on prejudices and generalities while ignoring the realities and needs of the person in front of you -- that's an easy way to blind yourself to the world, and an unconscionable one. What matters when talking to an individual is that individual, and the realities of her situation.
"I am," he says. "With the saber, primarily. I don't know how similar the style is from the little I saw of yours."
no subject
His views of women in battle are not, exactly, what they were. In Paris he was neither opposed to the rights of women, nor especially preoccupied with them -- he held, like many, that it was pragmatic to begin by achieving rights for all men, and extend that to women after the former was achieved -- and he knew of women who fought with men in the streets and on the barricades. It was women in the market, after all, who began and led the march on Versailles in '89. But almost no one, of any gender, truly advocated for women on the battlefield as a good and desirable thing. Battles of any sort are a tragedy, to his mind, even when they bring glory; the violent death of any human being is a betrayal of brother by brother; but men and women are different, and women are gentler, softer, fitted by nature for motherhood and not for gun and sword.
He's read at Milliways of future years, though. Of the armies of other societies, the battles metaphorical and literal of women. It hasn't been a primary focus for him here either, but he's read of it, and he's thought about it, to no immediate conclusion. The future is not infallible, despite its progress; does he agree with later societies' conclusions about the fundamental nature of men and women, and those who feel themselves to be neither? He's not sure.
And yet. To fall back on prejudices and generalities while ignoring the realities and needs of the person in front of you -- that's an easy way to blind yourself to the world, and an unconscionable one. What matters when talking to an individual is that individual, and the realities of her situation.
"I am," he says. "With the saber, primarily. I don't know how similar the style is from the little I saw of yours."