"Any woman born in the samurai status group was a 'female samurai' even if she never picked up a weapon, just as any man born into that status group was a samurai, no matter how wimpy/untrained/etc. he may have been," Sean O'Reilly, a professor of Japan studies at Akita International University, told Live Science in an email.It's unclear how often female samurai fought in battle, however. Women who fought in battle are sometimes called "onna-musha," which translates to "women warriors.""I must say, as an historian, that onnamusha -- female warriors -- were probably not as frequent or as militarily significant...