Ah yes, the inevitable modern western lens reinterpretation of pre-16th century history widely known for weaving myth into historical record.
Tomoe was the most famous of these figures and she was practically entirely mythical.
Being pedantic, none of these women were samurai anyway. That was a hereditary male title and had land ownership to go with it.
Sure, wives of samurai for example often did have some training to defend themselves, especially with naginatas which were long pole blades that were safe and relatively easy to use, but no, not a single trained female fighter (i'm taking away the 'samurai' distinction and just saying fighters in general to be fair) would have been 'among the fiercest' in a list with male fighters.
In truth if you created a list of the one hundred greatest samurais/warriors/fighters in Japan not a single woman would be on the list.
We don't have to go back through the shrouding veil of history to imagine how good female fighters were vs male contemporaries.
Afterall, the best female and male fighters in history literally exist right now; in MMA. Modern sports science and an amalgamation of global training styles have created the best fighters there has ever been in human history.
And top female fighters are far below even middling male fighters in speed, hand eye coordination, durability and power, even at equal weight classes. And this is despite equal access to training and a great social acceptability of female fighters.
It's just not close. The top 100 modern fighters would all be men as well. And the next 100 would all be their male opponents etc etc. A list of the best fighters in ancient times would have been even *more* skewed towards men, since it would have been life or death situations of necessity, instead of optional sporting career paths.
But maybe you think it's an exaggeration on my part to say that not a single female would make a top 100 fighters/warriors list in either modern or ancient times?
Hardly. Just compare measurable records in athletics. Compare 100 meter sprint times for example, female vs male. Top female sprint time is 10.49 seconds:
https://www.alltime-athletics.com/w_100ok.htm
That time wouldn't even make this male list:
https://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_100ok.htm
Literally even the 4032nd fastest man on that list is faster the *fastest* woman ever. That is a massive divide.
And that's just in speed. In strength, the gap is even worse:
https://www.openpowerlifting.org/rankings/by-total that's a list of the top power lifting records, and that includes male and female lifters. It ranks them by their total on the big three lifts (squat + bench + deadlift numbers all added up).
And as you can see if you have the patience to scroll down far enough, the top female power lifter (Sarah Rainbow) doesn't even crack the list until the 8959th spot. Sheesh...she barely makes the top 9000th in a power lifting list.
So no, women aren't some underestimated physical beings that are competitive with men if they just put their minds to it and overcome social constructs. They aren't physically competitive with men at all. Sexual dimorphism between men and women is massive and is as real a fact as gravity.
