On women fighting on the steppes: my impression is a few female heads on horse archers would be OK, and I hope they make it in. There are female warrior traditions around the world but they tend to range from extremely rare to plain mythical IIRC.

Its generally bad demographics to put your baby-makers in the battle line (although in a desperate last-ditch-struggle or street battle they'd sometimes pitch in, then as now). Maybe it was a social mechanism to thin out available noblewomen who might otherrwise marry below their station? Like nuns in medieval society.

On old tucker being better...well hmmm. Its a bit of a generalisation. Maybe there were some ancient oranges that were better than some modern oranges? There, thats a nice bland counter-generalisation.