Model Anais Mali is styled by Jonathan Mahaut in ‘Amazon’, lensed by Urivaldo Lopes for French Revue De Modes #25, Fall/Winter 2014/15.

In Greek mythology, the Amazons were fierce female warriors who descended from Ares, the god of war. Amazonian women are frequently pictured fighting on horseback with bows and arrows, axes and spears. Frequently Amazons carry a crescent-shaped shield. As patriarchal values soared in Greece and especially under Aristotle, the Amazons were portrayed as man-hating women.

The Amazon River in South America is believed to have been named by the Spanish explorer Fransisco de Orellana in 1541 who encountered female warriors on his voyage through a territory then called Maranon.

In Ukraine, Katerina Tarnovska is the leader of a group called the Asgarda. These women claim to be a new tribe of Amazons that represent a nationalist, maternalist movement seeking to change patriarchal values.

Although Tarnovska is adamant that the spirit of Amazonian women is alive in her her genes, Natalia Lavrinkeo, a senior researcher at Ukraine’s Institute of Sociology (NASU) believes the Asgarda movement was created by the nationalist political party. Lavrinko argues the the real purpose of Asgarda is designed “to attract more women to a movement whose real purpose is to promote childbirth and perpetuate the Ukraine’s overwhelmingly patriarchal society,” writes Prospect Magazine.

Asgarda is not aligned with FEMEN, the group of breast-baring feminists committed to overturning the patriarchy.

A very real-life story about women warriors is playing out in Syria where one-third of the Kurdish army fighting ISIS is made up of women fighting alongside the men. I posted last night an extraordinary set of images of these fighters who say that ISIS is very afraid of them. ISIS believes that if a man is killed by a woman in battle, he will not go to heaven.

Read Kurdish Women Fighters In Syria Say ISIS Fears Women Soldiers So Much They Shake.