GENDERLESS JOAN OF ARC

The Woman's Own columnist has her say on historical figures, boobs and bags...

- DAWN NEESOM

Let powerful women of the past remain female...

The famous quote is, ‘I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman but I have the heart and stomach of a king.’

Not me, obviously, because I really don’t want a bloke’s stomach. Especially not the beer-bellied kind. Nope, we’re having a bit of a history lesson courtesy of Queen Elizabeth I, who uttered that famous quote while rallying her troops to face the Spanish Armada. She often roared this morale-raising rhetoric while wearing armour.

So far, so ultimate girl power, right?

Woman in a man’s job, fierce, feisty and fearless. Yet feminine enough to worry about hair and make-up at the same time.

Aah, but hold on. Not so fast. Because according to London’s Globe theatre, the fact that Queen Liz used the word ‘king’ and wore battle dress in, er, battle, meant that she was - wait for it - non-binary.

Oh, for goodness’ sake.

The same theatre’s new play about Joan of Arc centres on the fact that one of France’s favourite patron saints also didn’t identify as a woman and would have used the pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them’.

They issued a picture of the actor playing the role wearing a chest binder to flatten their breasts.

As Joan successfully led several French military actions in bloody battles against the English, I very much doubt she gave a monkey’s what her pronouns were.

Aah, but here lies the crux of this matter. Both Joan and Elizabeth were women in charge of men. And we can’t have that, can we?