A Long History of Women Warriors
Female soldiers are far from a rare phenomenon
In a culture where women could not serve in most US military combat roles until 2019, we tend to not always think of women historically in the context of being “real” soldiers. Sure, nearly 350,000 American women served in uniform in World War II, and it was the first time all branches of the military accepted women, but they served primarily in support roles.
These women took on non-combat roles in order to free up more men to fight. They continued to work clerical jobs as they did during World War I, but they also drove vehicles, repaired airplanes, worked in laboratories and cryptology, served as radio and telephone operators, rigged parachutes, test-flew planes and even trained their male counterparts in air combat tactics. — USO.org
Even so, American women have always fought for their country in unofficial capacities (or disguised as men), and around the globe, female soldiers have probably been around as long as there have been wars. We have records of women warriors dating back to the 17th century BCE and there is certainly ample evidence of women fighters from a wide variety of cultures. A new way of determining the sex of ancient bones is revealing that many graves once assumed to contain male warriors actually hold women.
