My dissertation is an exploration of how femininity is constructed in the characters of warrior women. I define and apply my theory of believable femininity: the notion that in order for characters gendered female to be accepted by an audience, specific textual markers must render them submissive to a dominating male figure. I examine the following warrior women at length: Britomart and Radigund from Spenser\u27s The Faerie Queene; Christine de Pizan\u27s treatment of Amazons in her Book of the City of Ladies and Hippolyta\u27s specific portrayal by de Pizan in comparison to Shakespeare\u27s Midsummer Night\u27s Dream, and the modern recreation of Hippolyta in DC Comics\u27 Wonder Woman series; Joan of Arc as she appears in Shakespeare\u27s 1 Henry VI and Bernard Shaw\u27s Saint Joan; the figure of Wonder Woman herself as a comic book and cultural phenomenon. My purpose is to illuminate what I feel is an unexamined requirement in warrior women that their strength always be subsumed by their femininity
