146. How Ancient Female Warriors Shape Our Future

“Women have had an impact in world history throughout the ages. We just haven't been told those stories. So one of my missions in life is to bring these stories to life, both through fiction and through nonfiction.”

Dive into “How Ancient Female Warriors Shape Our Future”, an episode for How To Write The Future podcast, where host Beth Barany shares stories of female warriors throughout history, challenging myths and revealing their crucial roles shaped civilization. And how knowing these stories can help us shape our futures.

Content/Trigger Warning: Mention of sexual assault

RESOURCES

Books mentioned in this episode:

— Encyclopedia of Amazons: Women Warriors from Antiquity To The Modern Era by **Jessica Amanda Salmonson

— Women Warriors: A History by David E. Jones

— Women Warriors and Unexpected History by Pamela D. Toler

— Warrior Women: An Archeologist's Search For History's Hidden Heroines by Janine Davis Kimball, PhD with Mona Behan

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• SHOW CO-PRODUCTION + NOTES by Kerry-Ann McDade

c. 2025 BETH BARANY

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Transcript

146. How Ancient Female Warriors Shape Our Future

[00:00] Introduction to the Podcast

Hey everyone. Beth Barany here with How to Write the Future Podcast. I am a creativity coach, book editor, book coach and novelist. I write science, fiction and fantasy. 

I run this podcast because I like to talk about issues and topics and ideas that can help us as writers shape the future, shape our futures. There is more than one future. We each have a road in front of us that will be created as we create it and collectively as humanity. There are many futures, 

[00:36] The Importance of Historical Narratives

One of the best ways to understand who we could be and what we could become as humans is to look at our past. Now, often when people look at the past, they only see the bad things and they only see what has been taught in school. But actually there's so much more about human history that is still hidden.

And I have to tell you that it's been a big question of mine my entire life: how come we don't know the full history of our say of our family's past? How come we don't have all the stories of the different people that made up the past? History is not just by people who conquered or kings.

And in fact, half of humanity is female. So let's include women and their impact in the past. 

[01:24] Women Warriors in History

Today I wanna talk about women warriors in history, specifically, based on these three books that I have that I'm gonna talk about in a minute. 

And I just wanna say that the power of storytelling, the power of media to shape our minds and our hearts when we're children is huge.

No one can deny that. So we wanna give children images and stories about who they could be, and we do that by drawing from the past and drawing from mythology and fairytales and folklore and from the stories people write. 

Now, when I was a kid, I read folklore and fairytales like crazy. I loved them so much, but always, it was a boy going on an adventure, rescuing some girl sometimes, and sometimes just facing off against monsters and things.

And I really was disappointed about that. I thought, wait, where's the girls going on adventures? I wanted to have adventures. How come I didn't see that in stories? And maybe because I was brought up inside of a feminist family with a feminist legacy-- a feminist legacy that goes back several generations all the way as far as I know, back to my great, great grandmother. I was like, how come the stories, these folk tales that feel so old and ancient and passed down through the generations, how come there's no girls going on adventures? So that was my big question as a kid that really drove me as a creative writer eventually. And why I've written Henrietta the Dragon Slayer series, my Janey McCallister mystery Sci-Fi investigator series, and why I am so interested and excited when I first discovered that there are these books out here about women warriors. 

So I'm gonna talk about them and also, so I'm gonna share a little bit about them.

[03:14] Book Review: Encyclopedia of Amazons

The first book I'm gonna talk about is the Encyclopedia of Amazons: Women Warriors from Antiquity To The Modern Era. 

Now this book was published in 1991 I bought a used copy because it's out of print now. And it is a fabulous, historical oriented book. And it says here that "This book is a comprehensive compendium of often little known heroic female combatants through the ages whose lives and exploits are as remarkable as those of history’s widely known heroes. With more than 1000 entries, this meticulously researched work focuses on Amazons, martial nuns, meanedes, warrior queens, pirates, guerillas, avenging goddesses." 

Okay, there it moves over into storyland. 

"And other unconventional women whose lives were spent in valorous combat. Excluding spies, assassins, and criminals, entries range throughout world culture to include ancient mythology, religion, literature, Native American folklore, Middle Eastern history, Wild West lore and stories of World War II resistance fighters."

Okay, so she brings in story and fact.

"A uniquely original vision of women's heroism and history, the Encyclopedia of Amazons should forever dispel the myth of women as weak and helpless or as passive participants in world history. "

That is my biggest point. 

"Women have had an impact in world history throughout the ages. We just haven't been told those stories." So one of my missions in life is to bring these stories to life, both through fiction and through nonfiction. 

I have to say that I did read this entire book. It's organized alphabetically and I really I enjoyed it and I think I'd like to read it again.

One of the things that's happened as I read these encyclopedias is I really wished for narrative, for story for each of them. 

Alright, let me talk about the second one. 

[05:27] Book Review: Women Warriors by David E. Jones

It's called Women Warriors: A History. It's by David E. Jones.

"Cultural anthropologist, David E. Jones takes the reader back through history and around the world to uncover a clear pattern of women as warriors. Women Warriors is the most comprehensive account of the female martial heritage available and a fascinating comment on the nature of gender, on the power of the warrior image and on the images source and history."

Now, this book was published in, and I have notes, I wrote notes all over the margins, published in 1997. One of the things that I learned in these books is that in the British Isles before the Romans got there, or actually the Romans must have gotten there by then because they recorded Celtic history and then they destroyed the Celtic cultures. There was fight schools for women, and I saw that referenced in another book I have on Celtic Women.

"When researching celtic military customs in ancient Britain, I read of the two major martial arts schools of the time, both run by women warriors." 

Now, if that's not the start of a story, I don't know what is.

So I like that he puts things into historical context. This book is organized by region, by geography, and it's global, which I really appreciate: Arabia, Asia, India, British Isles Africa, Latin America, Egypt, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, North America. And he has a summary chapter, the female martial heritage. 

[06:59] Woman as Hunter

In the last few years, I heard a report that I will cite in the notes that archeologists have revised their, analysis of grave sites where they thought male warriors were buried and they realized that half of the archeological record is actually showing that 50% of the people that they thought were men who were the hunters were actually women.

There are women who, like myself, who are interested in the hunt, who are interested in the adventure. And I would say probably 50% of the women out there in the world are interested in being hunters and warriors. Just not all men are interested in being hunters. Probably about 50% of the men are also interested in hunting, that kind of thing.

Alright, one last, book I wanna talk about today. 

[07:51] Book Review: Women Warriors by Pamela D. Toler

It's called Women Warriors and Unexpected History by Pamela D. Toler, and I have the hardback for this.

Let's find the summary of this book. Let's see:

"Who says women don't go to war? From Vikings and African queens to cross-dressing military doctors and World War II Russian fighter pilots, these are the stories of women for whom battle was not a metaphor."

I really enjoyed this book. It's told from a historian's perspective. There were no flights of fancy in here, only reference to the historical record, which I really respect, and I found that the writing style is very different than with the other two. 

So here's a little bit more about this book, about Pamela Toler's book. 

"The Woman Warrior is always cast as an anomaly. Joan of Arc, not GI Jane, but women, it turns out have long gone to war. In this fascinating and lively world history, Pamela Toler not only introduces us to women who took up arms, but also shows why they did it and what happened when they stepped out of their traditional female roles to take on other identities. These are the stories of women who fought because they wanted to, because they had to, or because they could.

Among the warriors you'll meet are these: Tomyris, ruler of the Matai who killed Cyrus, the Great of Persia when he sought to invade her lands. The West African ruler Amina of Hausa, who led her warriors in a campaign of territorial expansion for more than 30 years.

Boudica, who led the Celtic Tribes of Britain into a massive rebellion against the Roman Empire to avenge the rapes of her daughters; the Truang Sisters Chung Track and Truang Nhi, who led an untrained army of 80,000 troops to drive the Chinese emperor out of Vietnam.

The Joshi Gun, 30 combat trained Japanese women who fought against the forces of the Maji Empire in the late 19th century. Lakshmi Ba Rani ab Jonsi, who was regarded as the bravest and best military leader in the 1857 Indian Mutiny against British rule, Maria, Butch Eva, who commanded Russia's first all female battalion, the first women's battalion of death during World War II.

Buffalo Calf Road Woman, the Cheyenne warrior who knocked General Custer off his horse at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Juan De a Mestiza warrior who fought in at least 16 major battles against colonizers of Latin America and who is a national hero in Bolivia and Argentina today, NAZA Rova, who served for 10 years in a Russian cavalry unit, disguised as a man, and was the first woman to receive the Russian Cross of St. George. By considering the ways in which their presence has been erased from history, Toler reveals that women have always fought, not in spite of being women, but because they are women."  

[10:50] Book Review: Warrior Women by Janine Davis Kimball

I also wanna talk about this book, Warrior Women: An Archeologist's Search For History's Hidden Heroines by Janine Davis Kimball, PhD with Mona Behan. Behan.

This book. Wow. I was so impressed. This is the story of an archeological dig in what is now we're talking, let's see. Yes. Kazakhstan, a remote region, hundreds of miles southeast of Moscow, and halfway to Mongolia. So here is where this archeologist uncovered evidence for a culture that women seemed to have three roles.

And this is based on the archeological record. According to her interpretation, they were either, hearth, they took care of the hearth-- food, cooking, probably children; Warriors. There's evidence of women being buried with accoutrement of war and horse care. And the third role was shaman, someone who, healed and visioned.

I really was impressed with this book, very engaging. And also there is a documentary about herresearch, I believe about 10 years after this book came out. And this book was published in 2002, copyright 2002.

[12:13] Conclusion and Call to Action

So this is my episode today on women warriors. Women have been warriors and fighters throughout history and hunters as well. And, from what we know of the archeological evidence.

So all this to say, history holds way more complexity and way more interesting stories that has generally been revealed in the textbooks that are offered to us as children. Thankfully, there are a lot more stories out there about interesting people in history and about women warriors.

So my dream is to create stories about these real women and create fictionalized stories so we can actually experience them. Just the way we experience a novel. It's one thing to read a historical entry in a book. It's a whole other thing to create a story around them and create a lived experience.

So that's one of my dreams. 

[13:05] This is my sandbox + Invitation to connect

I really love having this podcast as a place a sandbox to explore ideas and share them with you, and also improve my skills and the video department, as well as the audio. And it's also my way to interact with you, so I would love to hear your thoughts on women warriors in history. 

And is there any particular woman warrior that you would love to know more about?

I didn't go into any detail today because there are so many to talk about, which is really wonderful. In the future, maybe I will.

I also wanna let you know that I am someone who cares deeply about the craft of fiction. And I love working with writers who care as well, and who wanna get their stories out in the world and need support, and especially, I'm really great at the one-on-one support as well as being a teacher and coming into writing organizations and teaching hands-on workshops that produce value right away.

If you are interested in connecting with me about my one-on-one work with writers, or coming into your group organization to teach, please contact me. All the details about this or at my website, Beth Barany dot com, how to contact me, the kinds of, programs I offer writers, and the one-on-one coaching and consulting that I do.

All right. That's it for this week, everyone. Write long and prosper.