Claymore: Empowering or Degrading Women

Claymore, a medieval anime set on a fictional island terrorized by human-eating demons called Yoma, is about a group of female knights that are hybridized with the demons, by a group called The Organization, to enhance their strengths and abilities so they can defend the cities they are assigned 

to. Besides the obvious issue of all these women being blonde haired, blue eyed "beauties" (claimed to be a side-effect of gaining "enhanced" abilities) and obvious issues with their "armor" you would think, at a glance, this story was promoting female empowerment with all female main characters. However, similar to the Albina Myth, women are viewed as beings who are driven by sexual desire which is why they are so well suited to combine with these demon-like Yoma beings. Like Albina and her sisters copulating with demons and giving birth to giants the Claymore Knights fusing with Yoma is described as a sexual climax and males proved to be insufficient at this act.  On top of this, because of womens' "volatile nature" they are known to becoming an Awakened Being which is a Claymore who has used her ability too much and has become too unstable and shifts form into a demon herself, their organization tries to control them but they leave and rampage the land. Now this doesn't mean that there aren't any male Claymore or Awakened Beings but they are far and few between (1 for every 5-10 women).

This representation, dissimilar to our current stories where women are in positions of (religious) power and persuade men to change, Claymore is a group of powerful women who are secretly being controlled by The Organization, which is found to be a group of old men. This story reflects more of the stories in our first unit like HKB, the Albina Myth, and even King of Tars where women's actions were dictated by ruling men and, in some instances, they had to defy them if there was any hope of freedom but this freedom was usually met with some form of negativity in the eyes of the society at the time (Albina sleeping with demons). With the King of Tars the princess's path is dictated by her father, the king, but she is given some religious power by being sent to the sultan.

Although a tale of a group of all female knights seems to be a step in the right direction the implementation of this tale resembles a step backwards towards some of the stories of old and leaves much room for improvement. 

Women in the Medieval Time Period

Women who follow to the “normal” roles of wives, mothers, and peace weavers generally appear as confined and content. Even though they have no control and put into a submissive role against their will, the confined woman of medieval literature appears perfectly happy and gracious to live in such a role. Women in medieval literature is not dangerous and poses no threat to the male power structure. Such as King of Tars and Game of Thrones offers a clear example of a women’s role. Both of these works shows certain ideas about the role of the medieval woman and what her interactions with men should be. In a Game of Thrones Daenerys is dressed to catch the eyes of men, one in particular, and is put in weird almost a childlike role with her brother. Her brother uses her as an object to get what he wants, to reclaim his throne. Also when she is pregnant with “the stallion that mounts the throne,” she is only seen as an object, just as the career of the baby, forgetting that half of the baby’s genetic makeup is hers. In the King of Tars a Sultan demanded the hand of the Christian princess. The king refuses and the Sultan and his army attacks the Christians. The Christian princess was forced to leave her home and go with the Sultan. Again the women were used as only objects to settle disagreements and as a bargaining tool between two different races, or religious groups. Also in both of these books the women were fair and every beautiful. Saying that fair and super white is more desirable than any other skin tone. So basically women were seen to be trophy wives and to bear children.      

Zara Robinson