Hi! I’ve just started to get into your books, and I’m so glad I did, because they are AMAZING! I started with the Infernal Devices series, and now I’m reading the Mortal Instruments :) I have a quick question though! In City of Bones, someone (I think it was Jace) was telling Clary that women had only just started to be accepted into the Clave. But in the Infernal Devices, women (like Charlotte and Jessamine) seemed to be fairly important. Can you clarify? :) Again, I love your books so much! xoxo — o-meio ”

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Thanks!

It’s interesting how Jace’s comment in City of Bones gets construed. Here’s what he actually says.

 ”There have always been women in the Clave—mastering the runes, creating weaponry, teaching the Killing Arts— only a few were warriors, ones with exceptional abilities. They had to fight to be trained. Maryse was a part of the first generation to be trained as a matter of course.”

He in fact explicitly states that women have always been warriors, but that they had to insist on being trained rather than being required to do it. This is why Jessamine isn’t trained; this is why there are many fewer women in the Enclave scene than men, and this is why there are many fewer (probably three among fifty) women in the vampire fight scene than men. There were women Shadowhunters who fought before the present day. They were simply fewer, and had to fight harder to get training and be accorded respect. Jace is actually extremely clear that there were fighting women Shadowhunters in the past, but I think we’re so used to reading narratives of women being kept out of various professions — soldiering, doctoring — that it gets read as “No women in the Clave before.” 

And this: “creating weaponry” is an early reference to the Iron Sisters.