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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46064
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46064
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I would say, trust the reader, and trust your character.

Although these things may not be "discussed", they can certainly be _thought about_ by your POV character. She is doing something highly unusual, there must be (and have been) something highly unusual about her _thinking_.

What was that? Is she fearless when all other women are fearful?

A woman can be fearless (in the literal sense) and still want to behave as a traditional woman in her culture. In many cultures women accepted inequality without qualm, they believed in it themselves. They accepted that husbands sleep around, but women never did.

You shouldn't make your historical figure a paragon of early Female Equality, she clearly was not. If you want to stay true to the historical account, you need to find a coherent set of beliefs and mental traits (like not feeling fear), a driving purpose that lets her become a warrior out of necessity without challenging the role of women in her society, or even her role as a woman. She just has what is to her, a compelling reason to fight, and it is not pride, and not to prove she is the equal of any man, it is for something else: to save something or someone she loves.

If you have already made your historical figure a paragon of early Female Equality, then you have already broken with the historical record. You can continue to break with it by ignoring these later passages about "after the war" and a return to being subordinate. Personally I'd prefer the other approach, that would be a more interesting character.

Resolve the psychology. In a way, what you have is a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" challenge. Buffy (starting out) was a girly girl and wanted to be, but was also a consummate fighter in lethal combat.

Your challenge is to make a woman be a consummate _soldier_ without saddling her with a bunch of _male attributes_. Fighting, killing, courage, and self-sacrifice are not the purview of only men. You need a woman that _wants to be a woman_ in her culture, that wants to bear and raise children, that doesn't mind sharing her husband and sees a mistress as sharing the load in keeping him happy. In many such cultures the women aren't jealous because they depend on their husband's socially-enforced **honor** in his commitment to provide for his wife (or wives) and children; and they never expected the husband to be faithful. It isn't only China; check out the Old Testament; the male religious leaders were promiscuous as hell and never punished for it.

But at the same time, your character needs some driving reason to become a soldier, to protect something she holds dear (a principle or actual property or persons). And the mental traits that allow her to do what no other women do; defy the traditions she loves and fight, because she thinks those traditions will be lost if she doesn't step up. But once that war is won, she can lay down her sword, and become the traditional woman she wanted to be all along.

That is the nature of the internal struggle you need to portray, in her thoughts and to show in her actions. Yes, she fights, but when she is not fighting she does not behave as a man, she behaves as a women. Buffy wants to live the cliché pretty high school girl's life. She is denied that by the necessity of being a hero and saving the world, but she never becomes a man! Your character is similar, and needs to thread the same needle.

Original score: 4