Historical Examples of Women Warriors

[DRD1812]

I'd like to have more than Joan of Arc, Mulan, and the Amazons to point towards. When it comes time for one of those obnoxious historical accuracy debates, what is your go-to example? Which legendary ladies make an especially good basis for a PC?

[Ryze Kuja]

Artemisia of Caria was a naval commander for Xerxes the King of Persia and was known for her quick thinking as a naval strategist. Her enemies placed high bounties on her head because she 1) was a brilliant strategist responsible for many victories and 2) even in retreat she was difficult to defeat or capture, and pulled off impressive "hat tricks" to evade capture.

Grace O'Malley was an Irish pirate back in the 1500-1600's who would board ships that traveled near Ireland and "tax" them for passage.

Nakano Takeko was a famous samurai (one of the only women allowed ever), and she made a name for herself as a fearsome warrior in the Japanese Civil War in the 1800's.

Ching Shih was a poverty-born chinese prostitute who ended up becoming a pirate queen of over 2,000 ships and 70,000+ pirates in her command.

Cleopatra was not a warrior per se, but was an outstanding general. She was also a master manipulator when it came to regaining her reign (a literal Game of Thrones).

Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Susan B. Anthony were warriors of a different type too, less on a battlefield, and more in challenging society and status quo. These ladies would be Bards probably.

Modern day Ronda Rousey was the first female MMA fighter to be inducted into the MMA Hall of Fame. She was an insanely gifted/talented grappler and judo specialist.

Arachidamia was the Queen of Sparta and general badass. While the men of Sparta were away on campaign, scouts reported that Sparta was about to be attacked by King Pyrrhus, and they were talking about sending the women away to safety. Arachidamia wasn't a warrior per se, but was a great leader, and rather than sending the women away to safety, she led the women in the upcoming battle in battlefield support while being exposed to danger; they entered the battlefield to retrieve wounded men, repairing/constructing walls, etc.

One of biggest badass women of all time: Queen Boudicca. After her husband killed and daughters raped, she rebelled against the romans and started burning their cities to the ground. She was an actual warrior and hard as any man, and she was ruthless. If you excavate in the Roman cities she sacked (in England), you can find a thick layer of ash from when she burnt them down.

[Quixote]

How about the Night Witches? The all-women Russian pilots during WWII? If you look them up, there're enough crazy stories about them to start a whole mythology.

But really...most human societies have been...not very good to women. So a lack of "warrior women" isn't because women can't be warriors any more than a lack of "women CEO's" is because women can't run a business. It's just nonsense.

Rothfuss's "Wise Man's Fear" is a fantastic book. Within that story is a culture basically built from the ground up. They're like...Irish nomads + Tibetan monks + sign language + women-dominated, and that's all a gross oversimplification, and they look at the white European-esque guy who comes to them with the same pity-contempt that most white European-esque guys look at other cultures with. They're a great example of women warriors. Also men, but women make better fighters, obviously.

[VoodistMonk]

The Ruskies also had a bunch of badass female snipers in WWII.

And more recently, the Kurds have all-female units fighting jihadists. These ladies are baller AF.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Julie d'Aubigny

I'm not going to bother linking to all sources, because Google is a thing (and just googling 'women warriros in history' will get you most of these).

A bunch of pirates like the aforementioned Cheng I Sao and Anne Bonney - said to stand alongside her crew in combat. Also Grace O'Malley was scary, taking up arms to defend her ship the day after giving birth.

Tomoe Gozen was another feared warrior in Japan.

Let's not forget Mu Lan.

Khutulun was a cousin of Khublai Khan and a total badass (supposedly suitors had to beat her in wrestling, and forfeited horses if they lost - and she had a herd of thousands)

Lady Trieu of Vietnam is described as the Vietnamese Joan of Arc, only with more war elephants and swordplay.

Lozen the Apache warrior.

Plenty of war leaders like Boudica.

[PCScipio]

Khawlah bint al-Azwar was an Arab Muslim female warrior during the 7th century Islamic conquest.

"There is not an Arab city that does not have a school carrying the name of Khawala Bint Al Azwar, the extraordinary woman who was so contemporary of the early years of Islam." AlShindagah Online

[W E Ray]

dot

[Mark Hoover 330]

Not all warriors fight with guns, swords, or pirate ships.

Greta Thunberg has stood on the floor of the UN and called adult peers fools in the fight for climate change. Jane Fonda bucked nearly every stereotype and continues to drive for gender equality in American politics.

Mother Teresa healed the sick and cared for thousands, but she also quietly fought within the Roman-Catholic church for reform on the stances of abortion and contraception. She was honored with a Nobel peace prize and sainthood.

Malala Yousafzai defied the Taliban in 2012 and got on a school bus with other girls. For her defiance she was shot in the head, but she survived. She has continued to advocate for female rights and education in oppressive societies around the world and also won the Nobel peace prize.

There are PLENTY of historical figures to honor and respect in every aspect of combat, be it physical, strategic, political, or simple civil disobedience.

[Lemartes]

VoodistMonk wrote:

The Ruskies also had a bunch of badass female snipers in WWII.

And more recently, the Kurds have all-female units fighting jihadists. These ladies are baller AF.

Also:

Westheimer joined the Haganah in Jerusalem. Because of her diminutive height of 4 ft 7 in (1.40 m),[2] she was trained as a scout and sniper.[3] Of this experience, she said, "I never killed anybody, but I know how to throw hand grenades and shoot."[4] In 1948, Westheimer was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during the 1947–1949 Palestine war, and it was several months before she was able to walk again.[5][6]

The Cutest Sniper ever!!!

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

There are PLENTY of historical figures to honor and respect in every aspect of combat, be it physical, strategic, political, or simple civil disobedience.

At the risk of putting words in the OP's mouth, I think the point was to emphasize that women in actual combat, doing actual fighting and killing, is something that has happened historically. Just in case you run across anyone who objects to warrior women in games as being unrealistic.

A couple of the people you mentioned are admirable, but none are what you would call warriors except in the most metaphorical sense.

[avr]

A bunch of female duelists here.

There's been any number of females identified as warriors from their burial goods. In at least one case it was assumed that the warrior found was a man due to those goods, only to be found to be female by later checks. Assumptions about the gender of warriors can make you look stupid.

[Crayon]

I don't think the Trung sisters or the Order of the Hatchet have been mentioned yet..

[Crayon]

Consulting the Ars Magica supplement 'Lords of Men' lists the following examples:
- Margaret of Beverly
- Eleanor of Aquitaine
- Sikelgaita of Sicily
- Petronilla of Leicester
- Matilda of Tuscany

Also much later, but Charlotte Stanley Countess of Derby might qualify as well.

[DRD1812]

Quixote wrote:

How about the Night Witches? The all-women Russian pilots during WWII? If you look them up, there're enough crazy stories about them to start a whole mythology.

That one I knew. Thanks, Sabaton! :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7NSUFDHFgg

[Diego Valdez]

Removed some posts. The thread is a request for woman warriors throughout history, not a request for debate about whether woman warriors are realistic.

[Mightypion]

Historically, women fighting was rare, but also relatively common.

First: Female martial leadership:
In a number of cases, such as Boudicas Britain and the Trung sisters Vietnam, the cultures they came from where more sex-egalitarian then the invading superpower (Rome in Boudicas case, China in the Trung sisters), in this cases, women had more cause to resist then men, and this motivation advantadge was sufficient for them to gain leadership positions in the resistance. Can definitly be adapted into a plot point for many adventures, particularly if the big bad is reknowed for misogyny (devil invasion?).

Somewhat closer to my home, we have Catherine the Great of Russia (who never fought in a battle, but knew quite a couple of things about military history and strategy), as well as Elizabeth of Russia (whose armies would have crushed Frederick the great had she not died) in addition to Olga of Kiev. All three of these did not command battles (one can argue that Olga did, but it was more of a well planned massacre then a battle), but were highly effective leaders. All three of them also had above average interests in logistics, preparation and in their troops wellware, compared to the norms of their times.

Why were these successfull? One common theme between them is that they knew they would be underestimated, and, in particular in Olgas case, abused this underestimation to goad their adversaries into very unwise actions. None of them had fantasies about charging enemies personally, which made them focus on what wins a war, planning, Maskirovka, strategy, logistics, picking the right appointments. This by the way is sage advice for both males and females.

Second: Females fighting on the frontline:
There is a common saying in warfare that it is better to be at hand with 10 soldiers, then to be absent with 1000. Likewise, it is better to defend your city from f.e. a tatar raid with a militia partly/mostly made up by women then to have no militia at all (because your Knyaz, in his infinite wisdom, got most of the males making up the regular army killed because he pursued "fleeing" mongols). Women particpating in combat in defense of their homes is frequent, and goes through the ages.
Rather famously, the great general Pyrhhus of Epirus was killed by an unnamed woman who threw a rather large stone at him while he was not wearing a helmet, during an Epirote sack of her city.

Coming back to the earlier Vietnamese example, a Vietnamese saying can be translated as "When war comes to the doorstep, the woman goes to war". Vietminh had plenty of females in it.

Anti-Napoleonic resistance in Spain also had several female leaders/figureheads/icons, one of whom operated a cannon in battle.

Mongols were in some cases quite sex egalitarian for their time(partly because their prefered method of fighting, ride on a horse, shoot arrows then charge home at some point, is a way of fighting where male superiority in terms of combat is much less strongly expressed then it would be when you are doing shieldwall to shieldwall), and while female mongol horse archers were rare, some clans had a few. This changed in the Yuan dynasty as it became increasingly sinicised, although it should be said that Mongols never adopted feet binding or other forms of extreme misogynie.

Medieval Poland, female nobles hunted quite a bit, were often reasonably skilled with javelins, and were also expected to violently protect their families interests/assets in the absence of her brothers/husbands/clans etc. Poland had a famously broad definition of "noble" so there were quite a number of these.

There was also a Thai example, the name escapes me right now, but in a Thai Khmer clash, A Thai female noble donned the armor of her I believe brother (who died of a disease) in order to maintain her families position (not showing up to muster was a quick way to lose noble status), was killed, together with her elephant in battle after fighting bravely, the Khmer discovered she was female and returned her to the Thai army to be honorably buried. It should be noted that riding elephants is a pretty good way to thoroughly overcome human male to female strength differences :).

The Alexiad also features the Normano-Sicilian Woman Sikhelgaita, who did reportedly fight in the frontlines and was, in the eyes of the Anna Komenena, a byzantine author quite opposed to Normans, quite strikingly attractive.

If you are looking at women who willingly participate in combat away from their home areas, historically speaking these will typically be nobles and already have a leadership position of sorts.

More mythically, if you actually look at the German "Niebelungenlied", it amongst other things features Brunhild, who, prior to her being wed and losing her superpowers, was probably the 2nd or 3rd strongest combatant in this very expansive cast of characters, and who also ties up her husband with her belt and nails him (not through the flesh) to a wall on their wedding night. It should be noted that noone in medieval germany was scandalized by this.

Third: On "Realism".
Societies which prefered female combatants over male ones have not proven to be competetive to their peers. Thats basically the mythical Amazons and the Dahomey Amazons. There were some matriarchic polities in South East Asia, but these had male militaries.
Want to make Amazons plausible? Simple, have their nation actually be sex egalitarian when it comes to violence, but with males and females fighting in seperate units.

Societies which prefered additional female combatants over not having additional combatants are pretty frequent, chances are high you live in one, and so did your ancestors.
However, even the notably egalitarian Soviet Union, which mobilized roughly 28 million troops for WW2, had a 27:1 ratio of male to female throughout its armed forces, with the vast majority of its female personel being nurses, drivers and communication specialists. As such, realism would indicate that the majority of a fictional polities military forces, assuming this polity has gender dimorphism comparable to humans in reality, would be male.

Societies which completely outlaw female combatants no exceptions well, they are also somewhat rare and not that competetive.

tldr: Women warriors in defense of their homes/families was/is/will be pretty common. Women warriors going out adventuring much less so, but precedent exists. If your women warrior comes from a culture of Norman/Viking/Mongol level of adventuresness, and has a noble or mercentile background, sure, go ahead.