The following tale demonstrates the true genius and courage of women:

Emperor Conrad III, having besieged Guelph, duke of Bavaria, would not come down to milder terms, no matter what vile and cowardly satisfactions were offered him, than merely to allow the gentlewomen who were besieged with the duke to go out, their honor safe, on foot, with what they could carry away on them. 

They, great-heartedly, decided to load their husbands, their children, and the duke himself on their shoulders.  The Emperor took such great pleasure in the nobility of their courage that he wept with delight and wholly subdued the bitter and deadly hatred which he had borne against this duke, and from that time forward treated him and his humanely.

                                                            —Michel de Montaigne