Why Howling Banshees are female

When I first raised this idea on Twitter, I got a lot of positive comments, even a confirmation of my reasoning from a Black Library author. I also had a few folks not quite follow or misunderstand what I was trying to express, and that's fine, because Twitter isn't necessarily the best place to get a point across. Regardless, it was probably worth writing it up in full anyway.

One thing that has always bothered me about the Eldar, specifically Craftworld Eldar, is a certain incongruity in their lore with regards to gender. They are described as making no distinction between genders societally, so why are one of their Aspect Warrior shrines so overtly female in form and membership? Why are there no male Howling Banshees? I am aware that the lore states mostly female, but that's still a cop-out in a species that doesn't view one's gender as a meaningful barrier to opportunity. It's an awkward way to write around edge cases and doesn't actually do justice to the Eldar. The answer to 'why aren't there male Howling Banshees' is that, well, there are. Sort of. The Eldar who decide to walk the path of the banshee could be male, female, non-binary or agender. But, when they done the mask, when they commit to their war-aspect, they are female. All of them.

For Craftworlders, the path is what separates them from oblivion. The Fall of the Eldar was a wake up call to the survivors, and for the Craftworld Eldar it meant focussing the mind with journeys of personal development, known as paths. An Eldar will walk many paths in their lifetime, taking lessons from each one and leaving it to walk another when they judge their time with it to be over. An Eldar's current path is absolute until it is not. An Eldar artist is an artist in totality, it defines everything they are. The same applies to an Eldar seer, an Eldar cook, an Eldar musician. It is important to understand that these are not jobs: they are a fundamental part of the Eldar's identity. So when an Eldar walks the path of the warrior, the rituals, customs and mindset of the aspect shrine they belong to become core to their identity.

This is quite a concept to grasp, especially in our current mode of separating work and play. We, as humans, have many identities, or things that people might define us. A doctor might be viewed, societally, as A Doctor, even if they themselves might also consider themselves as a parent, or a hobbyist, or define themselves along cultural or political archetypes (I'm generalising). But when that doctor is doing their job as a doctor, they are, unequivocally, a doctor. A good doctor or a bad doctor is still a doctor. ‘Doctor’ describes that the individual has certain modes of being, certain expectations and certain skills within the framework. It places that person within society, and role they play in that society,

For the Eldar, this individual would be a doctor even when not actively practicing, both to themselves and others. The performance of the role of 'doctor' would be absolute, with all the trappings and societal expectations of what a doctor is defining the individual in some way. For this Eldar, the phrase 'I am a doctor' would not merely be a statement about what they did for a living, but a tacit declaration of their entire self. 

So, an Eldar undertaking the path of the warrior is, throughout, a warrior. It is the role they have to play in Eldar society. Even when they are not fighting, they are training, mastering ritual forms designed to describe how they should move and fight in battle. Each Aspect Shrine follows the convention of (adjective) (plural noun) wherein the plural noun is a character from Eldar mythology, the spider, the dragon, the scorpion, the banshee. To follow the path of the warrior is to embody one of these mythological beings, and as we have discussed, this embodiment is total.

For Howling Banshees, the mythological creature they embody is always female. The Banshee is aligned with Morai Heg, the Crone Goddess, and is always female. In a society as undefined by gender as the Eldar, a character with a very specific expression of gender is noteworthy. It becomes an aspect to embody, as much a part of the shrine's identity as its fighting style. So for an Eldar to become a Howling Banshee they must be female, because banshees are always female. Part of being a Howling Banshee is being female.

If the Eldar represent a human experience, but magnified considerably, then we can infer that the Eldar possess the concept of gender fluidity, as that is something we can envisage and observe ourselves, in ourselves. However, for the Eldar it must be more pronounced, commonplace and normalised than in our own society. Social gender performance acknowledges that our gender isn't innate, but acquired and performed in response to social observations and influences. The word performance isn't intended to diminish or denigrate: it is a recognition of the reality of the situation. We present a certain way because we have observed, learned and parsed behaviour through our own individual selves, and come out the other side with a way to be. This process is probably true for the Eldar too, we can see it in the Drukhari, but because of how rigid the path is, how narrow and strict its focus must be, the Craftworld Eldar have an extra layer of societal impetus to incorporate into themselves. The ritualistic form of the banshee is female, so any Eldar wanting to become a banshee must also become female. The totality of the path instructs that acting is not enough, the performance must be total, all-encompassing. Regardless of who they were before, and who they may become after, the Eldar as a Howling Banshee is always female. This performance would not necessitate any changes to the body, Eldar are very androgynous, and the armour of the aspect warrior is as ritualised and codified as any other part of their chosen path. The exaggerated female form of the armour is likely an intentional representation of the mythological Banshee. The physical body underneath would be accepted as female regardless of its dimensions, because banshees are always female, and to be a Banshee is to be female regardless of how one looks.

So, why are there no male Howling Banshees? Because Howling Banshees are always female. This doesn't mean Eldar who are not women cannot become Banshees, it's that, if they do, for their time as a Banshee, they are female. They are acknowledged, accepted and recognised as such, by themselves and others, without question. And when they leave the path of the Banshee, wherever else they may go, they leave that specific female aspect behind them, taking only experience, to become someone else, as defined by their next path.