Disambiguation

Panther Girl is used in several senses. In the novels it describes a specific fictional figure. In community practice it denotes an identity adopted within Panther lineages. In broader use it is sometimes an aesthetic reference without reference to any structured community.

Panther Girl is a term from the Gorean setting for a free woman who has withdrawn from city life to live in the northern forests, either alone or as part of a band. In the novels these women are depicted as living apart from the ordinary institutions of the cities and following their own customs. In contemporary Gorean communities the term has been adopted, sometimes as Panther Woman, by practitioners who identify with an autonomous, forest-dwelling, matriarchal or Reformed Panther tradition.

The Panther motif has generated its own community lineages, sometimes closely tied to and sometimes distinct from mainstream Gorean groups.

Community Panther traditions differ significantly in their relationship to the source material and to broader Gorean protocol.