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Forged in Fire became one of our favorite shows last summer, but we had one major quibble with the high-stakes reality competition: Where were all the women?
While it’s true that bladesmithing has long been a predominantly male craft, there are many women who make a living forging knives, blades, and weapons. Heck, there’s even a whole subplot in the movie A Knight’s Tale about female smiths!* Were women simply not allowed in the forge?
When we spoke to host Wil Willis and the judges on set in December, swordsmith and medieval weapons expert David Baker explained that the “brotherhood” of blade-smiths was not confined to men alone: “We throw the term brotherhood around a lot and it is definitely a male-dominated world, but when we throw brotherhood around the women in that brotherhood are just as included in that term as anybody else.”
To wit, tonight’s season two premiere will include a female smith. She complains on the show that it is a difficult world for women to break into. It’s not just that they have to overcome sexism…but glove sizes.
There are two female smiths confirmed for season two and executive producer Simon Thomas told us there’s hope for even more in future seasons. “We spoke to more [women] during the casting process as well and variably these people have lives and jobs outside of this and it’s not always possible but I imagine that’s something that will only increase over the episodes as we go further into the future.”
History Channel VP and head of Programming & Development, Tim Healy explained that it wasn’t just hard getting female smiths to sign on for the show. “For season one of this show, it was tricky getting women because it was tricky just finding enough men because when you’re doing season one of a show that no one’s ever seen before they’re like, ‘What is this? I don’t want to do this!’” he explained. “Also it takes a lot of guts to do this because your skill is being put on display and it’s not easy to lose.”
The irony of all this is that the genesis for the idea of Forged in Fire came from Healy’s fourteen year old daughter.
“She loves Master Chef and cooking shows so I started watching a lot of cooking competition shows with her,” Healy said.”How could we do a cooking competition show without cooking? From working on shows like American Pickers or the team that does Pawn Stars, we know that every time a weapon or a bladed weapon is featured the ratings tick up a little bit. So it was kind of like a lightbulb moment that was like,’Yeah, let’s do a cooking show where they make weapons from scratch.'”
Healy merged this idea with a show that Outpost producer Jodi Flynn pitched called Gunsmiths. Flynn’s idea was to make a version of “Project Runway for guys making guns but that was arching out over a season.”
Forged In Fire is hoping that by including more women smiths, it’ll encourage diversity in the industry and diversity is on Healy’s mind.
“I don’t want to shoehorn in female character for the sake of having female characters. So what’s really important to us as a brand is the level of authenticity.” He added, “I think as a network we’re constantly striving to be more diverse and to expand the range of our characters, but it really comes down to that authenticity.
Season two of Forged in Fire debuts tonight on History at 10/9 C. You can stream History live on Sling TV; to learn more click here.
[Where to Stream Forged In Fire]
*A Knight’s Tale is a medieval fantasy film and should not be considered historical record.
