Who can resist a woman wielding a sword? Think about a lady with a weapon. Can you not imagine her penetrating impenetrable gaze and call up the muscular thighs which have enabled her to travel to this position of power? A woman in control of a phallus is sexy for she has mastered the symbol of masculinity. In these times, when gender is often a matter of choice and mastery of one's animus is an evolutionary step, a woman with a sword represents transcendence. She is a quixotic erotic equal because her sword points to a masculinity not backed up by an actual phallus. The swashbuckling woman has constructed herself as being powerful, for the absence of a penis, in her case, does not point to a lack of military prowess. She is ferocious, a secret weapon able to penetrate the very power structure which she challenges. The woman warrior is equally irresitable to the female reader. As her sword dismembers male characters, the patriarchy becomes vulnerable and falls apart in the narrative space. She invades that mysterious male realm called war and represents women's' engagement with and challenge to masculine manifestations of power.

Folklore, literature, cinema and popular culture abound with bad ass babes waving weapons, yet I invite you into that mythic powerhouse of Western society: The Bible. The juiciest accounts of sex and violence are to be found within its pages. The Bible is not exempt from the lure of providing its audience with the particularly feminist brand of the sex and violence combo--the woman with a weapon. Paradoxically, the Bible gives us a more progressive view of women warriors by representing women who don't just wave around faux-phalluses, but topple the patriarchy using domestic tools and strong voices. The book of Judges, one of the books included in the section of the Hebrew Bible known as Prophets, provides accounts of the wild west period in ancient Israel.

In this time of unstable leadership, there was a glory period when a woman oversaw the scattered tribes of Israel. Devorah the Prophetess, a woman of spirit, judged Israel from beneath an enormous palm tree beside a spring. The Israelites would travel from all over the country to seek out Devorah's justice, and legend maintains that the prophetess "dispensed judgment in the open air." During Devorah's period, the Israelites were engaged in a war with the Canaanites, a people with an equally strong claim on the land. The Canaanites proved inconquerable under the leadership of a fierce general named Sisera. When Devorah the Prophetess had enough of watching her people humbled by a base and militaristic Canaanite, she sent for Barak, Israel's main military man, and told him that God was ready to even the score. She advised Barak to ascend the mountain of Tabor and face his enemy. Her words, apparent to Barak as truth, frightened him. The mere thought of Sisera's dark eyes made him quiver. The General told the Prophetess that if she would accompany him, he would go, but if she would not climb the mountain, than neither would he.

"I'll go with you," Devorah promised, "but, Barak, you are to expect no glory from this battle. Sisera will die at the hands of a woman."

Devorah led Barak up the mountain where the Canaanite and Israelite troops clashed. As promised by the Prophetess, Sisera's troops were easily defeated, yet the feared general slipped off his horse before Barak had the chance to face him. Fatigued by battle, he wandered through the hills and, eventually, reached the tent of a woman named Yael.

Between her legs he sank, he fell Where he bowed he fell Where he fell he died.

Hearing footsteps, Yael emerged from her tent and addressed the general demurely, "Come in, my lord, come in, and do not be afraid." With that, she ushered the general into her domain. Being more adept at giving commands than compliments, Sisera issued one to Yael, "Give me some water to drink; I am thirsty."

"Where does the guy think he is?" Yael said to herself, "the nearest spring is 10 miles away. City boy thinks that water is easy to come by." Yael offered Sisera milk with a warm smile. About this milk, we are unsure. Did it come from a goat? A cow? Was it drugged, or does milk have an inherent tranquilizing quality? Is this milk really a symbol of the attributes of a woman's body? In any case, the general began to feel drowsy.

Yael waited outside her tent until she was sure that this man who inspired fear in the hearts of all Israel was sleeping, then she pulled one of her tent pegs out of the earth and entered the folds of her home. Yael approached Sisera softly. She looked at him, an enormous baby in a uniform, lifted her peg into the air and brought it down, staking his head into the ground. Sisera trembled, fell, and died.

Later, when Barak, the Israelite commander, arrived, Yael greeted him and said, "Come, I will show you the man you are looking for." Inside Yael's tent, Barak saw his enemy silent and bloody, slaughtered by a tent peg. Devorah's words sounded in his thoughts, "you will have no glory on the path that you walk because God sells Sisera into the hands of a woman." Women have won this war, Barak thought to himself and went on to tell Devorah the news.

Later that day, Devorah the Prophetess sang a victory song to all Israel. Her song, sharp and concise, tells the story in a poetic reflection of Yael's blow to Sisera. Devorah speaks of her prophesy as having the power to make the earth tremble, the heavens drop, the clouds pour out water, and the mountains melt. The Prophetess tells the world that she has arrived and that there is no one else like her:

Champions there were none,
None left in Israel,
Until I, Devorah, arose,
Arose, a mother in Israel.

After all, who else is there to sing the praises of a woman? Patriarchal documenters, no matter how enlightened, exhibit a particular negligence when it comes to women's stories. Devorah weaves her history into the milito-political one. Since tribal division was the social reality, Devorah congratulates the tribes who rushed to Barak's aid and chastises those who refrained from battle. Then, Devorah reaches the climax of her song: singing the praises of Yael. Devorah shouts out to the woman who fulfilled her prophesy:

Blest above women be Yael
The wife of Heber the Kenite
Blest above all women in the tents.
He asked for water: she gave him milk.
She produced cream in a splendid dish.
In her left hand she held the tent peg
In her right the workman's hammer
She hammered Sisera and crushed his head
She struck and his brains ebbed out
Between her legs he sank, he fell, he lay
Between her legs he sank, he fell
Where he bowed he fell
Where he fell he died.

Devorah's description relishes the phallic weapons held in Yael's hands. However, the tent peg is also a symbol of domesticity, a piece of the home, and when Sisera keels over between Yael's legs, he is humbled by the power of woman. Devorah notes that Sisera bows before he dies, not to the phallus, but to the cunt. The leader of the entire Canaanite army sinks, bows, and falls before the void that is the source of life, the true Holy of Holies.

The Prophetess enables the heroine. Because a woman's voice prophesies female glory, a woman succeeds. Yael is given strength through Devorah's vision and becomes famous through Devorah's broadcast of the story. We hear of the woman warrior because a woman tells the story. The female storyteller gives us this story raw, complete with a tool of domesticity turned into a weapon. When Yael defeats the general with a tent peg, the army is taken down by the home. Yael needs no sword because her strength comes from what she already has, not from what is appropriated from the military culture. With the tools of domesticity and the female voice, the power of the biblical patriarchy is destroyed, and the land is quiet for the next forty years.