Fan ArticlesStarstripe shares an interesting thought about society within the Warriors universe.
Ok, so the other day I was wondering: Do Warriors treat toms and she-cats fairly? Especially in leadership. So I did some research and here it goes…
Out of the 5 founders of the clans, 3 of them were males. Windstar, one of the females, was succeeded by 4 males after. Shadowclan however, continued to keep its female line until the 5th leader Blizzardstar took leadership. Yet this isn’t bad. The idea of sexism is to favour one gender over another, no matter which gender. But Queens have at some points been put down as only ‘protective mother’s’. One example to change this was Daisytail. The band of Queens she created made Code 5. They rose up against the two toms in power during a battle. The rule they enforced was that a kit must be at least six moons old to become an apprentice. Here is an extract of a conversation between Daisytail and Hawkfoot, another Queen.
“I can’t let Specklepaw fight, I just can’t!”
“You don’t have a choice…”
To suggest the fact that mothers don’t have a choice and control over their kits in some way, in my opinion, is really bad. Another example is Daisy and Ferncloud who were criticised for their decision to stay in the nursery to care for their and other’s young. They were helping the clan in a different way. Just because they are not fighting doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
Back to leadership:
toms she-cats unknown-gendered
thunderclan 14 2 0
riverclan 8 7 1
windclan 8 5 1
shadowclan 12 7 1
skyclan 12 2 2
It seems here that sexism is definitely a thing. From these statistics the most sexist clan is definitely Thunderclan. With a whopping difference of 12 between female and male leaders. It’s easy to see that here. Their only female leaders were Doestar and Bluestar. Skyclan also have the same amount of she-cat leaders. This was Leafstar and Maplestar. However, we also have to keep in mind if the two unknown-gendered leaders were female. The difference would be narrowed to 8.
Riverclan is the most fair here, no matter whether the unknown-gendered leader was female or male. They have the least amount of difference between tom and she-cat leaders. However throughout all of the clans, toms dominate the leadership. Like Bluefur, they may want to volunteer, but can’t because they have to raise their kits, leaving toms free to become ‘stars’. Besides, Bluestar was forced in many ways, she was told by Goosefeather that she had to stop Thistleclaw and that was the main reason she decided to become leader. As well as this Leafstar was chosen by Firestar to take control. Sharpclaw at that point was very eager and I’m sure he would’ve risen to become leader instead.
Windclan, as one of the most equal clans was founded by a she-cat, but is then followed by 4 toms. Until one of the highest recorded female streaks began (3 she-cats). If Birchstar (who follows after Ivystar) is a she-cat then it’ll be the joint highest streak. Beating Riverclan’s streak of Dovestar, Birchstar and Darkstar but joining with the highest female leader streak to date: Shadowstar, Hollystar, Brindlestar and Lilystar. In case you were wondering, the highest male streak is from Thunderclan of 10 male leaders. Don’t worry I’m not going to list them all.
Shadowclan has had the highest female streak of 4 but hasn’t had a she-cat leader for over 13 years!! Since Dawnstar! Riverclan and Skyclan are the only clans with she-cat leaders at the moment.
But who is your favourite leader? And why? Is it a she-cat or tom? Or to you does sexism not exist in the Warriors world?
Let me know in the comments!
Goldenfawn
Embers of a Winter Dawn (Emberdawn)
🤍🪷 Lilybreeze 🪷🤍
✧˖°🍾⋆˙⟡ pineblossom (she/her) 🦢💫🩰 what are you doing new year's eve? 🌨️🧸🕯️mentor to skyshimmer! 🌲⋆✴︎˚｡⋆![[a full-body design of Juniperclaw walking with his colour palette]](https://blogclan.katecary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/tumblr_piz599bllS1wexk59o1_1280-385x300.png)
♡☆ Silverstorm ☆♡ she/they ☆❀ "I just want to live in my imagination, where hatred does not exist." 🌿 ☆ mentor to the MAGICAL Maplepaw! 🌷🫧💭
❄️☃️ Willowdawn ☃️❄️
This is a great article Starstripe, but I disagree. The leaders are not determined by gender, but purely by their abilities to lead and such.
And when Daisytail was told she didn’t have a choice I think that whoever she was talking to was just saying that her kit wasn’t in the nursery anymore and she couldn’t be his protector anymore.
Also, I think the Clans don’t really approve of haven by their warriors just be queens forever because the Clans are in a constant rivalry and they need all the warriors they have.
I’ve always thought that Warriors has had the she-cats and toms be equal. No cat downgrades another just because they’re male or female. The only remarks made about being toms or she-cats are when they’re talking teasingly about mates.
But still, great article!
I never really noticed but I don’t really think so if they were sexist then wouldn’t they not listen to the she cat leaders or defend that there should be a male
Mistystar and Crookedstar are my favorites! Go RiverClan. Good article, by the way. I can see that you did a lottttt of research.
Same here!
Great article!
Hmm….. But all U.S. presidents have been male so far. And in the elections in France, Emmanuel Macron beat Marine Le Pen.
Theresa May is PM in England, though, and she’ll most likely retain in the General Election.
Well, considering some of our recent female candidates, I’m sure there is a reason. (Last year I told the class I would be the first female president, just so it meant SHE wouldn’t. Then agai but Trump and Clinton weren’t that great…)
Clinton was a good candidate to be our first female president, the problem was she had a lot of opposition and people had been throwing mud at her for too long that it all stuck (30 years of opposition against your efforts will do that). I will admit she didn’t run her campaign as good as she could’ve but, there are a lot of factors.
The other issue is the US unfortunately is drowning in a lot of hate it seems, and the current occupant of the white house made it very clear that hate, racism and sexism is extremely prevalent in the country.
Plus there were some shadiness in this election, votes went missing in some states, I mean in Michigan a recount was attempted but over 8,000 votes were seemingly unaccounted for.
But I’ll stop with the political talk there, though you shouldn’t immediately say ‘oh they’re both terrible’ especially if you live in the US, until things change and we have more than a 2 party system as we do right now, you have to pick who’s more likely to do the best for you, which wasn’t what we got from people all across the US saying ‘Oh they’re both terrible’.
You’ve got to work with what you’ve got, better to take a lemon to make your lemonade, than a pumpkin.
Nice article! Question here, how much time went into researching this and typing it all up?
I disagree with this, to be honest. The representation of both genders in Warriors is fairly strong, in my opinion, and I think there’s no point in deeply evaluating what isn’t there. Good article in terms of stats, though. Also, I’d say it’s a lot more about ability than gender in who’s chosen for deputy, though I can definitely see and kinda agree with your Bluestar reasoning. That was a weird one.
Great article, you definitely spent a lot of time on the research! I understand what you mean, although all the female leader were better than the male 😉 But I agree with stuff like Daisy and how only female cats work in the nursery.
(I peronally like Bluestar)
I only know like 10 of the leaders but love them all but desagre with the article have a good day
Hay if you were leader of any clan your leader name would be starstar awesome right
Great article! You obviously put a lot of thought into this and your points are strong. I really enjoyed it 🙂
i agree with you on everything!! great article!!!!
I don’t think there’s sexism really in warriors, and leaders is a poor comparison as it’s based on ability. Also you have to take in consideration that a deputy the leader’s choose could die at any point, for instance when a leader picks their deputy they may have to change it at different times so they have to pick those who they know are capable or not a queen at the time when a new deputy was needed (in Bluestar’s case), I mean in the warriors universe a cat can die at any time, so a leader could have chosen their most reliable cat who is able (we haven’t seen them pick a deputy who was physically incapable of taking care of the clan needs as deputy) so that means a she cat could be a great warrior but if she’s kitted and caring for kits the position might be overturned and given to another cat (not necessarily a tom) that the leader thinks is worthy, it really depends on circumstance, how skilled a cat is, and how badly the clan needs a deputy or if that leader is super sentimental like Firestar.
I mean think when Mothwing decided to make the rule that medicine cats couldn’t have kits, the tom who was a medicine cat also got told it applied to him, even though he couldn’t carry kits. If warriors was really sexist they wouldn’t have bothered making it that no medicine cat could have kits, or it’d be some double standard where medicine cats who were she cats couldn’t have kits, but toms could. However since that is not the case, I can’t think of any real grounds for there to be sexism, they all seem pretty equal.
I just realized I put Mothwing instead of Moth Flight
Great article!
I wonder if since Riverclan is more laid-back (my perspective) they have more female leaders.