A real woman

I read Ivanhoe a few years back (please forgive any mis-remembrances on my part as it has been some time since I've read it!) and the thing that struck me the most, was Sir Walter Scott's portrayal of women.  Most people think a woman wielding a sword right along with the men is what it means to be equal and just to the fair sex, but I was quite surprised, if not shocked by what I read.  Coming from a generation where women and men are the same (or perhaps the former is superior? (sorry guys) and girls can do anything a boy can from go to the moon to playing football or running for president, Scott's writing surprised me.  Also in an age where every movie not based on a Jane Austen novel portrays men as dim-witted though lovable losers and the women as strong and decisive with it all together, Ivanhoe was almost counter intuitive.  His women, are women which is proper for a book set a thousand years ago.

Spoiler warning...if you have not read the book, a few interesting plot point lie ahead!

But it is not that they are just women, the character that impressed me most was the Jewess Rebecca.  She was everything feminine (or at least what feminine used to mean a century ago) yet she was strong, courageous, and unwilling to give into things she knew were wrong.  She was willing to fling herself off a balcony rather than give into the lust of a villainous man.  She also developed an emotional attachment to a more heroic character, but knowing it was wrong, did not 'awaken or arouse love before its time.'  Certain modern readers have complained that the title character and Rebecca should have ended up together rather than the much less interesting Rowena which would have been the case had this been a modern novel or movie.  But what was right prevailed rather than what felt right or good. 

That is what surprised me most about this book, that a woman actually had character and lived it out, even though it cost her love and might have cost her her life.  I would rather see a woman like this any day than a horde of sword wielding amazons.  Women may not have the physical strength of men, but it is the strength of our hearts that determines how much of a woman we truly are.  Too bad Rebecca is not considered a major role model by today's young women.