To Be Or Not To Be, That Is The Question!

Woodswomen Or Women In Men’s Clothing.
This topic is important to me so forgive me if this turns into an epic blog post!
For a long time now I have been promoting the idea of a woodswoman for a living history persona. Arguements against my proposal include: we only have records of two women wearing men’s clothes and being woodsrunners, and, women did not wear men’s clothing in this period and these two women (Mrs Pentry & Ann Bailey) are the exception to the rule, and, women did women’s work not men’s work. Their job was to mind the house, cook, wash, clean, and raise children. Sometimes they had to help their husband with the farm work and to help fight Indians if the cabin was attacked but that is all.
Well firstly the record of Mrs Pentry is from the 17th century, and the record of Ann Bailey is from the 18th century. Mrs Pentry was a French Lady living in a fort until she met Mr Pentry. After marrying Mr Pentry she donned woodsmen clothing and joined her husband in a trading adventure deep in the wilderness (1).
Ann Bailey was also known as “Mad Ann” because after her husband was killed by Indians she started wearing men’s clothing and scouting the forests, sometimes alone and at other times accompanying militia (2).
Then there are all the primary records of women dressing as men and joining the army and navy, one became an officer and yet another was a doctor! (3).
I remember reading about a woman who’s husband was killed on the frontier whilst trying to prepare a home to receive his wife and nine children. On hearing of his death this woman travelled to their home site in the wilderness with her nine children and finished what her husband had started and settled there.
There are also records of women accompanying their husbands on hunts, but they do not state whether or not they were wearing men’s clothing.
All this makes me wonder why people are so against the idea of woodswomen, why don’t they think that this persona should be allowed. I can understand the red necks and macho types who hate to think that a woman may be his equal, but why should women be against the idea?
What is it we are trying to achieve in living history and historical re-enactment? I think perhaps we are losing sight of why we are involved in this activity. For some of us it is an academic exercise, but for most of us we do it for the experience and the fun.

We have no idea how many women were woodswomen, just as we have no idea how many men were woodsmen. We know about Mrs Pentry and Ann Bailey because someone wrote about them, kept a record of their existence. But how many other men and women lived and died on the New World frontier without any recognition of their existence.
Personally I do not think anyone has the right to say a woman, or women, can not take on the persona of a woodswoman and experience that lifestyle based on the fact that we only know of two women who did that. Even if you are re-enacting a battle in a specific place at a specific date in history, I can not see how you can say that there were no woodswomen present based on the fact that no one said there was.
Woodswomen existed, women did wear men’s clothing, and women did do men’s work. This to me proves that a determined woman in the 18th century was just as capable of being what ever she wanted to be just as much as a determined man.

1) , the other was propelled swiftly forward by a man and a woman. Both were dressed in hunters' costume; the woman in a close-fitting tunic of deerskin reaching to the knees, with leggins to match, and the man in hunting-shirt and trowsers of the same material.http://www.internetclassicbooks.com/Woman_on_the_American_Frontier9.htm

2) Her dress “differed little in appearance from the ordinary scout of the border”
Charles Mc Knight , Our western border 100 years ago. page 709.
“Attired herself like a man in hat, hunting-shirt, leggings and moccasins”
West Virginia History Quarterly, Vol XV11, October 1955.http://andreasworld.0catch.com/Military%20Page/revolutionary.html

3) There are accounts, verified by multiple official sources, of more than 20 women who dressed as men and served in the British Royal Navy or Marines from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-13474.html

4) Phoebe Hessel's gravestone in Brighton churchyard Sussex, tells of her having, "served for many years as a private Soldier http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-13474.html

5) Kit Cavanagh, better known as "Mother Ross" was one of several women who served as dragoons in the British Army. She fought during the 1690's at first disguised as a manhttp://www.leatherneck.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-13474.html

6) 1643. Mrs. Peter Nash and her daughter were women of almost masculine courage and firmness. They all handled axe and gun as skillfully as the men of the household; they could row a boat, ride horseback, swim, and drag a seine for shad; and Mehitabel, the younger daughter, though only fourteen years old, was already a woman of more than ordinary size and strength. These three women accompanied the men on their hunting and fishing excursions and assisted them in hoeing corn, in felling trees, and dragging home fuel and timber. http://www.internetclassicbooks.com/Woman_on_the_American_Frontier8.htm

7) "while the household slumbers, the captives, each with a tomahawk, strike vigorously, and fleetly, and with division of labor,--and of the twelve sleepers, ten lie dead; of one squaw the wound was not mortal; one child was spared from design. The love of glory next asserted its power; and the gun and tomahawk of the murderer of her infant, and a bag heaped full of scalps were choicely kept as trophies of the heroine. The streams are the guides which God has set for the stranger in the wilderness: in a bark canoe the three descend the Merrimac to the English settlement, astonishing their friends by their escape and filling the land with wonder at their successful daring."http://www.internetclassicbooks.com/Woman_on_the_American_Frontier13.htm

8) Who were these lonely wanderers in that wild and wintry waste! The presence of the rifle and of the large high boots which she wore, together with other circumstances, were evidences which enabled the shrewd hunters to guess a part of their story. It appeared that the family must have consisted originally of three persons, a man and wife, with the child now the sole survivor of the party. Voyaging down the Red river during the preceding summer and autumn; lured onward by the fatal beauty of the region, and deluded by the ease with which their wants could be supplied, they had evidently neglected to provide against the winter, which at length burst upon them all unprepared to encounter its rigors.http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ga/county/fulton/library/women/woffinal.pdf

9) Eventually Anne tired of her husband’s recreant ways and ran off with Captain Jack Rackham – Calico Jack. Dressed as a man, she immersed herself in the pirate culture,……
Mary, now on her own, continued to play a male role and became first a footman and then a soldier in the English army.http://www.essortment.com/all/pirateswomen_rzzx.htm

10) Carin or Karin (Catharina) du Rietz (1766-1788), was a Swedish woman who became a soldier at the Royal guard dressed as a man;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carin_du_Rietz

Here are two more links kindly posted by an anonymous follower to whom I am very grateful. Thank you, much appreciated.

Women Warriors of the 18th Century http://www.lothene.org/others/women18.html

Women Warriors of the 17th Century http://www.lothene.org/others/women17.html