Gender in speculative fiction
The first known female superhero is writer-artist Fletcher Hanks's minor character Fantomah, an ageless, ancient Egyptian woman in the modern day who could transform into a skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil; she debuted in 1940 in Fiction Houses "Jungle Comics".
Batwoman
Batwoman is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. In all of the character's incarnations, she is a wealthy heiress who becomes inspired by the superhero Batman and chooses, like him, to put her wealth and resources towards a campaign to fight crime as a masked vigilante in her home of Gotham City. The identity of Batwoman is shared by two heroines in mainstream DC publications; both women are named Katherine Kane, with the original Batwoman commonly referred to by her nickname Kathy and the modern incarnation going by the name Kate.