OnlineBookClub.org

Having said that, I don’t think we are any further ahead today than the Celts were all those years ago.

Sad, but true.

Though I've only read the reviews, I always appreciate the portrayal of strong female characters in any book.

gali wrote: ↑01 Sep 2018, 05:16

cristinaro wrote: ↑01 Sep 2018, 05:05 One of the things I liked about Linnea Tanner's novel is the portrayal of strong women. What is more, there are both positive and negative female characters such as Catrin, Queen Rhiannon, Vala, Mor or Rhan.

What do you think of their roles in the novel?
Is there any difference between the way Celts and Romans saw women and their roles?
Was the Celtic system genuinely promoting gender equality or not?

I liked that too.

There was certainly difference between the way Celts and Romans' women. The Celt women had more freedom, were equal to the men, and could choose their own husbands (most times), while the Roman treated women as inferior. I am not sure the Celtic system genuinely promoted gender equality, as in some cases the women were forced to marry people of the other tribes in order to strength political connections.

Well, I believe that's unfair as the men were also married off the same way. In general royalty worked that way, regardless of gender. In other aspects the Celtics seemed to have full gender equality.

I also liked the treatment of women in the book. I felt like the Celtic women had more free agency than the Roman women did.

Shalomsamuels1 wrote: ↑27 Sep 2018, 12:38 Well, I believe that's unfair as the men were also married off the same way. In general royalty worked that way, regardless of gender.

True. It's often forgotten that women weren't the only ones who often didn't have a choice. Most royal marriages were between two teens who met just a few days ago. And even when they weren't young and powerless they still didn't have that much choice. For instance, the marriage of Louis XIV and Marquise de Maintenon was never publicly acknowledged due to their different social status.

The intention of the author was to bring about irony, to freedom at large so to speak. But I would say its true, the celts were once led by a ferocious queen called Budiqua once,that explains the freedom women enjoy.

Any story with dominant women roles always catches my attention. Romans did not have as much equality.

Celtic system was genuinely promoting gender equality. This is evident in the women roles plus the rise of strong women from theircommunity.

ZenaLei7 wrote: ↑25 Sep 2018, 13:59 I think that the portrayal of strong female characters added a big plus to this book. There was a clear difference between the way the Celts and Romans treated their women and I think the Celtic society was a lot more fair than the Romans.

The Celtic women were very different. There were opinionated and were allowed to make their choices of marriage partners.

I just read the review and I love how the women characters are portrayed.

I really appreciate books that depict strong women. I think there needs to be more of it in literature!

I think that the queen was the strongest woman in the book. She ruled a kingdom in her husband's absence and didn't back down from making hard choices when she had to do it. While she isn't the most sympathetic character, she was by far stronger than Catrin.

Haven't read the book yet but strongly considering it simply because of the strong women character mentions.

I appreciate everyone's comments about how Celtic and Roman women were portrayed in Apollo's Raven. One of the reasons I wrote about the ancient Celts is to bring forth historical evidence that women were treated more equally in their culture. The series will explore various aspects of Celtic women as Catrin matures. These characteristics will be based on the complex archetypes of Celtic goddesses whose functions embrace the entire religious spectrum: healing to warfare, creation to destruction, nourishment to the Otherworld of the dead. Romano-Celtic friezes depict the male and female deities equal in size, although they have different functions. The potency of the divine couple was in their marriage to assure health, fertility, and protection of the land. In the Romano-Celtic areas, the goddess interestingly often appears as a local Celtic native while her partner is demonstrably of Roman origin. It seems to express a hidden message of the idea of ‘marriage’ between Celt and Roman, the conquered and the conqueror.

The Roman is truly patriarchic and that is no surprise and the Celts have been treating women as equals, though it might have been a part of their culture which may not be a promotion to gender equality. But still, the womesn in this story is truly exceptional.

AliceofX wrote: ↑01 Sep 2018, 15:36

cristinaro wrote: ↑01 Sep 2018, 05:05 Is there any difference between the way Celts and Romans saw women and their roles?
Was the Celtic system genuinely promoting gender equality or not?

So I've been doing some reading and from what I understand there was no such thing as "Celts." Instead, it was various different tribes and people from the British Isles to Anatolia. There is no answer to that question because there was no such thing as a Celtic system.

Besides that, as a history lover, I have grown extremely skeptical about claims of ancient matriarchal or gender-equal societies. There's no solid evidence for them, just wishful thinking that doesn't align with reality. I'm just sick of certain feminists who think rewriting history is going to "inspire women" or something like that when all it does is delegitimize the movement and makes them appear like quacks.

I think that the author may have exaggerated the difference of how the Romans and Celts treated women to make the Romans seem more villainous. The Roman senator Lucius is being set up as the bad guy.