This is a really silly story.
There is absolutely no evidence this woman was fighting in combat.
She was killed by a military weapon. How do the authors think women died when cities were sacked and the inhabitants killed? The soldiers used the weapons they had with them. As Eowyn said in LOTR, “Those who have no swords can still die on them.”
For a woman to engage in hand to hand combat effectively would have been FAR more difficult than for a woman to engage in today’s military combat. It would have been the rough equivalent of putting a woman into the NFL line. She wouldn’t have lasted very long.
The “female war leader” referenced did not engage in actual combat. She walked the walls of a fortress under siege to keep her fighters’ spirits up. Very brave and all, but I suspect she would have been the first to agree that it was very different from leading a heavy cavalry charge or standing in a battle line. It took great courage, but not the physical strength and stamina required by combat.
Sort of like Patton, Eisenhower, Washington, and any other contemporary General, methinks! You are grasping at straws. What good would it do to have your men dying on the front lines but leave the gates of the castle open?