Man gets history lesson after moaning about a woman fighting with a sword in The Witcher

The US Conservative commentator Andrew Klavan has been on the receiving end of a history lesson after criticising a female character in the Netflix series The Witcher who fights with a sword.

In a segment about feminism on his podcast on the right-wing website The Daily Wire Klavan described his annoyance at the character of Queen Calanthe who is skilled with a sword and doesn't act in a stereotypical lady-like fashion.

Immediately I was put off by the fact that there's a queen in this who fights like a man. There's a couple of scenes where women fight with swords.

And I just hate these scenes, because no women can fight with swords. Zero women can fight with a sword. 

What I mean by that is in a situation where you are fighting men who are used to fighting with swords, you are going to get killed if you are a woman fighting with a sword 100 percent of the time.

A woman with a sword could kill somebody who doesn't know how to fight with a sword. But in a war situation, where you are swinging this five to ten pound sword again and again and again, against much, much, much stronger men, they are going to kill you.

They should have made the character a man. She's a man. She's gross. She swaggers around and she rips into the meat and tears it with her teeth and curses people. 

It was a feminist statement and I was like 'please, give me a break.' I don't if that is in the book but this is not the way that any woman behaves. 

Despite admitting to having not read The Witcher or presumably not playing the video games either, Klavan has clearly not done any research before making such a bold statement about women fighting with swords.

Luckily for him, there have been plenty of replies to the above video highlighting the many examples of women welding a sword throughout history.

Firstly, there is fencing.

Then there are Vikings.

How about Julie d'Aubigny?

What about Joan of Arc, Boudica, Lady Trieu...

Also, let's not forget that he is reviewing a fantasy show called The Witcher that also features all sorts of monsters so it feels a bit rich that he should be calling something out for 'not being realistic.'

HT Newsweek