You’ll notice there’s not a listing for Warrior. That’s because a warrior lurks in every female archetype, and pop culture has finally discovered that. Look at how warrior women have taken over the movie theaters, television, screens, and bookshelves. I think my decade has emerged. What do you think it means, and who started the trend?

Origins

As to the meaning, I’ll explore that another time. For now, let’s look at the origins of the warrior woman in contemporary culture though you could go back to history as well. Edgar Lee Masters in Spoon River Anthology wrote about a woman who “hated with the hate of Jael when the white hot hands went seeking the nail.” Jael was a woman in the Bible who killed a man by hammering a nail into his head.

Contemporary References

For our purposes, we’ll leave Jael and Joan of Arc and many others in the past. Let’s look at Honey West, a woman who first appeared in the 1957 book This Girl for Hire by G. G. Fickling, a pseudonym used by Gloria and Forest Fickling who wrote many mysteries including 10 about the girl detective. In the 1960s, Aaron Spelling brought Honey West, starring Anne Francis, to television.

Spelling was inspired by the British series The Avengers, with cool, calm, and collected Emma Peel, a spy who wore haute couture, caught bad guys, and never broke a sweat. Diana Rigg was made to play Emma Peel who could handle anything as well as or better than a man.

Ripley

Then Sigourney Weaver made movie history in 1979 as the first woman action star in the original Alien, a movie that scared me witless. Weaver as the intrepid Ripley kicked alien butt and blew it out the hatch. She reprised her role in 1966 and should have left it there because the other installments weakened the franchise and were more woman as victim than as warrior.

Buffy

Then Sarah Michelle Geller’s Buffy really kickstarted the whole butt-kicking female trend in 1997 when Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered on television. Until her stint as vampire slayer, popular opinion seemed to be that women warriors on television would alienate male viewers and readers and possibly a lot of the females too.

Au contraire. I think Buffy had as many male fans as female. Sure, maybe the men were looking at Buffy and Faith in terms of hot chicks, but I think those two made being tough, strong, and durable hot.

Cordelia

When Angel came along in 1999, the show costarred Charisma Carpenter as Coredia, a chick who grew from self-absorbed to selfless with a lot of stages in between, most of them requiring her to fight demons and other assorted bad guys.

I give credit for the rise in women warriors to Joss Whedon. He absolutely knows how to create a strong woman character. He did this in Firefly, a short lived series thanks to Fox TV, and in the 2005 movie Serenity in which all the actors reprised their roles.

Women of Firefly

Notable as the captain’s sidekick and right hand man was Zoe, a gorgeous warrior woman portrayed by Gina Torres. Firefly and Serenity also had Kaley as portrayed by Jewel Staite, the vulnerable but horny female spaceship mechanic. For the exotic, there was Morena Baccarin as the companion Inara Serra, a woman who commanded in a different way but who also knew how to fight. River Tam, the emotionally damaged teen rounded out the female cast. River was a killing machine trying to be sane and was played so well by Summer Glau, who is now a force to be reckoned with on The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Movies

In the movies we had Lara Croft in 2001 and 2003 as portrayed by Angelina Jolie, who also played Mrs. Smith to Brad Pitt’s Mr. Smith in 2005. Those two kick butt roles are possibly the most realistic when compared to the assassin she played later in Wanted or Grendel’s mother in Beowulf.

Jennifer Garner also played a warrior, the comic book heroine Elektra, but that was after she’d made a name for herself as the tough as nails agent Sydney Bristow in Alias which ran from 2001to 2006.

Takeaway Truth

Warrior women have always been with us. They’re just more visible now.