Kate Elliott on writing women

9k word essay on writing women into fantasy "without quotas"; mostly it's a catalogue of the diverse role of women through history.

http://www.tor.com/2016/03/23/writing-women-characters-into-epic-fantasy-without-quotas/

Some random notes I took:

1300s Lollards insisted on equality of men and women

Napoleon’s civil code restricted married women’s property rights, for
example

In tenth century Saxony there is “plenty of evidence that women
accumulated, transmitted and alienated predial estate"hi

In medieval Valldigna, Spain, Aixa Glavieta “went to court six times
until she forced the Negral family return to her the terrace with two
mulberry trees”

Zhou Daguan on Cambodia: "The local people who know how to trade are all
women. So when a Chinese goes to this country, the first thing he must
do is take in a woman, partly with a view to profiting from her trading
abilities"

Anglo-Saxon Chronicles has king's sisters witnessing founding of a
monastery.

A woman of high birth in any stratified society will have companions and
servants commensurate with her position. ..She will also usually retain
important ties to her birth family, and will be expected to look after
their interests.

In many cases the one person a lord, prince, king, or emperor could
absolutely trust was his mother: only she, besides himself, had full
investment in his success.

[Alexander] appointed [Ada] to the governership of Caria as a whole.
This woman was the wife of Hidrieus—and also his sister, a relationship
in accordance with Carian custom; Hidrieus on his death-bed had
bequeathed her his power, government by women having been a familiar
thing in Asia from the time of Semiramis onward.