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The Warrior Woman
Recent evidence suggests that women were a much larger presence on the battlefields of feudal Japan. In the story of Tomoe Gozen, we find a cipher for those women.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston houses a beautiful woodblock print by Katsukawa Shunkô II depicting an onna-bugeisha in full flow. Rendered in vivid red, green, and blue, it shows Tomoe Gozen almost dancing in the long grass, adorned with blades, and surrounded by ghostly hands and faces as if she is orbited by demons.
Media like Mulan (1998 and 2020) might evoke this kind of image of the warrior woman, but does so while simultaneously cementing the concept of warfare as an exclusively male pursuit. Both modern media and historical texts often attempt to wipe women from the battlefield, claiming figures of female soldiery — be it Mulan, Joan of Arc, or Boudicca — are little more than unique and bizarre outliers at odds with the overwhelmingly male mainstream of war.
This is certainly played out in the history of feudal Japan. However, it was not unusual for women of the samurai class to receive martial training. While their lessons were focussed on harnessing the domestic power they might wield as the wives and daughters of prominent samurai, when battle came to their doorstep it was expected…
