Although really only known recently because of the Netflix series Marco Polo, Khutulun was a badass warrior who deserves to be recognized for her own merits, not the character created by Marco Polo that isn’t true to who she actually was.
She was the daughter of Kaidu, the most powerful ruler in Eastern Asia (ruling from Mongolia to Siberia to India), and also his favorite child among her 14 brothers. She loved riding horses and wrestling, and it is often said she would only marry the suitor who could defeat her in wrestling. She refused to marry, rejecting (and defeating) many, many suitors. She eventually married when people created ugly rumors that she was having an affair with her own father. The patriarchy goes way back. When her father died he named her his successor, but thanks to sexism, her male relatives made sure that did not happen, and she slipped forgotten into the annals of history.
There isn’t much more information about her out there, only the ways in which modern Western society has misconstrued her character and who she was. Instead of being a relentless warrior and a woman who defied the female construct and gender limits of her time, as she is remembered in Mongolia, she becomes in Western culture a “proud woman who finally succumbs to love”, as can be seen in the unfortunate series Marco Polo. To this day Khutulun and her memory are honored in Mongolia, with the traditional outfit of Mongolian wrestlers being open chested, and thus not a woman, in deference to her.
Fierce, strong women: may we be them, may we know them, may we raise them.