I read your post about sexism in Berserk and I must say that I agree with most of it but there's the menstruation part. People tend to forget Casca wears a set of armor and probably chainmail. I have worn those, and my boyfriend too, for an LARP in summer. It's very, very easy to have a heatstrike while wearing those if you're not too careful. They are heavy and hot, so I can see, considering she might have a migraine or heat waves, why she fainted, and it's not out of weakness.
Thanks so much! I’m glad it was an interesting read for you.
About the menstruation scenes, I just thought I should clarify that I don’t really consider it “weak” of any woman to be overwhelmed by her period pains from time to time (I’d be a total hypocrite if I did XD). It’s not about levels of strength or endurance at all. If a woman faints because of her period, I’d say it’s because her pains are a lot worse than normal, not because she’s less tough than most other women.
But we’ve seen Casca fight through a lot of pain under different circumstances (though I guess she could’ve been full of adrenalin during the Midland ambush) and I think it’s fair to say that the manga implies that her period is the reason why she isn’t up to her usual standard with Adon the first time and during the 100-man battle. And it’s interesting to me that she never seemed to suffer that way before (because no-one could guess what was wrong with her) and that it never comes up again afterwards.
I hadn’t considered the possibility of her armour affecting her though! *_* I really love details like that, and it makes a lot of sense. Thanks very much for pointing it out to me. I do think there are lots of realistic in-universe explanations for why this one time was especially hard on Casca, but the out-of-universe explanation (of it being a plot device) just happens to be the one that seems most likely to me. So then I start thinking is it a good device or not, was it worth using here, etc…