We are actively seeking resources for this page. If you come across any stories about women taking a martial role in history, please email Jen Allen and she'll make sure they get included here. Thanks!!
Women also have a history of settling their scores by the sword. Duelists would strip to the waist, removing the restricting corset, tuck the hem of their skirts into the waistband, and have at each other. This photo is dated 1886.
For more information about women warriors, check out:
All the Women of the Bible; Edith Deen
Amazons and Military Maids; by Julie Wheelwright; Pandora of HarperCollins; London; 1989; ISBN# 0-04-440494-8
Bold in her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages; ed Jo Stanley; HarperCollins; London; 1995; ISBN# 0-04-440892-7
The Byzantine Empire; Robert Browning
Byzantine Empresses; Charles Diehl
Byzantine Military Unrest; Walter Emil Kaegi, Jr.
Catherine the Great; Henri Troyat
Cleopatra; Lucy Hughes-Hallett; Harper & Row; New York; 1990; ISBN# 0-06-016216-3
Dio Cassius' Roman History; Dio Casssius; Vol VIII
Eleanor of Aquitaine; by Curtis Howe Walker; Lancer Books; New York; 1950
The Encyclopedia of Amazons; Jessica Amanda Salmonson; Paragon House, New York; 1991; ISBN# 1-55778-420-5
The Forgotten Queens of Islam; Fatima Mernissi; transl Mary Jo Lakeland; Polity Press; Cambridge; 1993; ISBN# 0-7456-1419-1
Great Catherine; Carolly Erickson
Herstory: Women Who Changed the World; Ruth Ashby and Deborah Gore Ohrn; Viking of Penguin Group; New York; 1995; ISBN# 0-670-85434-4
In Search of the Woman Warrior, by Richard Lane & Jay Wurts; Element Books, Boston, MA, 1998; ISBN# 1-86204-313-2
No Longer Be Silent; Cheryl Anne Brown
Palmyra and It's Empire: Zenobia's Revolt Against Rome; Richard Stoneman; University of Michigan Press; Ann Arbor; 1994; ISBN# 0-472-10387-3
The Rani of Jhansi: A Study of Female Heroism in India; Joyce Lebra-Chapman
Unruly Women of Paris; Gay L. Gullickson; Cornell University Press; Ithaca and London; 1996; ISBN# 0-8014-3228-6
The Warrior Queens; Antonia Fraser; Vintage Books of Random House; New York; 1988; ISBN# 0-679-72816-3
Woman Warriors: A History; by David E. Jones; Brassey's; London; 1997; ISBN# 1-57488-106-X
Women as a Force in History; Mary R. Beard; MacMillan Company; Persea Books; New York; 1987; ISBN# 0-89255-113-5
The Woman's History of the World; Rosalind Miles; Salem House; Topsfield MA; 1989; ISBN# 0-88162-348-2