Well, let’s see… Joan of Arc could have been a skater, given that she survived a stone canonball bouncing off her helmet. (And even an arrow to the throat, in an earlier battle.) But she is thought to have been mostly a standard bearer and strategist, rather than a combatant. But, the other side wasn’t the one that had a female military leader, and it started losing for the first time in decades.
And, though it can’t be said that they affected the outcome, it seems that about a quarter of one percent (or more) of the soldiers in the civil war were secretly female. And again, the side with more of them (though possibly only because they had far more soldiers in general) won. One Confederate soldier found at Gettysburg by a Union dead-patrol, who was documented to have had a female body, seemed, by location, to have died in Pickett’s Charge, so it ain’t like they were hanging back, either.
And the Soviet Union quite likely would have fallen to the Nazis, if women hadn’t flown over 30,000 combat sorties, “manned” a tank unit in the battle for Moscow, and even, in the case of one sniper (of many), killed more than 300 Germans alone.
The same goes for Great Britain in WWII. If it hadn’t been for the all female plotter staffs at the coastal installations of Fighter Control, that plotted the incoming German bombers (and, as such, were a primary target of fierce German bombing), the B.o.B. might well have been lost to the Nazis… who themselves were “above” using women on what amounted to the front lines.
And the North Vietnamese had females fighting, which we didn’t… and that didn’t work out so well for the superpower.
Basically, whenever a country is desperate enough to really mean business by using all of its human resources, it usually prevails.
So, in conclusion, they got balls; you just can’t see ’em (which is nice).
More like a quarter of POINT one percent… and they weren’t serving with anybody’s blessings cept their hubbies’, in THAT war. But still the only American example. Oddly enough, though, I’ll bet there are very few skater chicks in Russia these days, even though females over there were active participants, on a historically unprecedented scale, in WWII. In fact, IS there a skate scene at all in Russia? Anybody?? T-34 trucks???
There was a burgeoning skate scene in summer, but it bogged down in the mud of November, and, unfortunately, does not appear to be well supplied enough to survive the Russian winter.
course I coulda just googled it to find that there’s plenty of skating, (though skate chicks maybe not), and has been for years, though their parks seem more street oriented, with nothing as monolithic as Shanghai (not that anything is, except maybe the Cayman Islands park)(which just goes to show that if you leave it to local demand, you will never get anything monolithic, and, if there’s no “you” there, i.e., if there weren’t any locals, one might)
8 comments
Betsy
Right on! Look at the footage for the recent Vans Women’s Combi Bowl contest to see the girls KILLING IT!
Whoah
Yeah, thanks for the heads up. I hadn’t seen Nora V’s skating before, and she kills it, with style.
MC
I did, that was rad!
Whoah
Well, let’s see… Joan of Arc could have been a skater, given that she survived a stone canonball bouncing off her helmet. (And even an arrow to the throat, in an earlier battle.) But she is thought to have been mostly a standard bearer and strategist, rather than a combatant. But, the other side wasn’t the one that had a female military leader, and it started losing for the first time in decades.
And, though it can’t be said that they affected the outcome, it seems that about a quarter of one percent (or more) of the soldiers in the civil war were secretly female. And again, the side with more of them (though possibly only because they had far more soldiers in general) won. One Confederate soldier found at Gettysburg by a Union dead-patrol, who was documented to have had a female body, seemed, by location, to have died in Pickett’s Charge, so it ain’t like they were hanging back, either.
And the Soviet Union quite likely would have fallen to the Nazis, if women hadn’t flown over 30,000 combat sorties, “manned” a tank unit in the battle for Moscow, and even, in the case of one sniper (of many), killed more than 300 Germans alone.
The same goes for Great Britain in WWII. If it hadn’t been for the all female plotter staffs at the coastal installations of Fighter Control, that plotted the incoming German bombers (and, as such, were a primary target of fierce German bombing), the B.o.B. might well have been lost to the Nazis… who themselves were “above” using women on what amounted to the front lines.
And the North Vietnamese had females fighting, which we didn’t… and that didn’t work out so well for the superpower.
Basically, whenever a country is desperate enough to really mean business by using all of its human resources, it usually prevails.
So, in conclusion, they got balls; you just can’t see ’em (which is nice).
whoops
More like a quarter of POINT one percent… and they weren’t serving with anybody’s blessings cept their hubbies’, in THAT war. But still the only American example. Oddly enough, though, I’ll bet there are very few skater chicks in Russia these days, even though females over there were active participants, on a historically unprecedented scale, in WWII. In fact, IS there a skate scene at all in Russia? Anybody?? T-34 trucks???
SkateNazi
There was a burgeoning skate scene in summer, but it bogged down in the mud of November, and, unfortunately, does not appear to be well supplied enough to survive the Russian winter.
whoops
course I coulda just googled it to find that there’s plenty of skating, (though skate chicks maybe not), and has been for years, though their parks seem more street oriented, with nothing as monolithic as Shanghai (not that anything is, except maybe the Cayman Islands park)(which just goes to show that if you leave it to local demand, you will never get anything monolithic, and, if there’s no “you” there, i.e., if there weren’t any locals, one might)
englishrussia.com
“Many Russian girls really love skating and are not afraid of grazes on their knees.”