The two key military skills for steppe herding peoples were horsemanship and archery. Generally, barring disability, steppe women could ride, and ride well. They also appear to have been free to learn archery and to hunt, and often did so. The essential military equipment was a horse and archery gear. Thus, many women had both military skills and military equipment, and could fight if necessary. As Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (John of Plano Carpini) noted of Mongol women:

Girls and women ride and gallop as skillfully as men. We even saw them carrying quivers and bows, and the women can ride horses for as long as the men

This was certainly not unique to the Mongols - it was common for steppe peoples from antiquity to the replacement of the bow by the gun in warfare. Whether women would fight on in dire emergency, or whether they could or would fight voluntarily, is something that one would expect to vary with culture, and perhaps the social background of individual women. Again, the Mongols were not unique in allowing women to fight. There was a long history of some steppe women choosing to fight (judging by "warrior" burials of women, including of women with apparent battle wounds) more than a thousand years old by the time Mongol women fought in Genghisid armies.

Women continued to fight on occasion in later centuries as well. Women accompanied Timur the Lame's armies, and fought on occasion (much more often, they remained in camp, prepared to defend it).

There were other states and empires in which women fought in significant numbers on occasion (e.g., Japan), and even some with regular military units of women (e.g., Dahomey). However, the steppe peoples were unusual in how widespread military skills and military equipment were among women. This was simply due to horsemanship being a nearly universal skill on the steppe, and archery being an important skill for tasks such as hunting. Their military skills had (usually) not been learned with intent to fight as a soldier, but were everyday skills for life on the steppe. Where military skills were not so universal, far fewer women had the skills, military equipment, and opportunity to serve as a soldier, or to fight effectively in case of emergency.