It's time for another weekly Samurai Fact!

This week's fact... Boys VS Girls.

While it is often used as an umbrella term, the word "samurai" is masculine, meant only for the male warriors of feudal Japan. However, there is such a thing as female samurai too. They are known as "Onna-bugeisha". It's similar yet different to ninja; because while "ninja" is the umbrella term, "shinobi" is meant for male ninjas and "kunoichi" is meant for females, but both words mean the same thing. The term "Onna-bugeisha" translates into female warrior/martial-artist.

Back in the day, males and females often faced different tasks and missions, which is probably why they were categorized with different titles that mean the same thing. Samurai were meant to go out to different parts of Japan and fight on the front-lines. Onna-bugeisha were typically meant to stay behind and defend the homeland as well as their personal homes and families. They could also be employed if a region or community had a lack of male warriors. As such, there were also plenty of exceptions where Onna-bugeisha would also be used in front-line battles and would perform any duties that a Samurai would be expected to do.