Ramona Quimby! Beverly Cleary started writing her books in the forties, I believe. I think Ramona made her debut in the early books about Beezus and Henry Huggins. Ramona was no shrinking violet, t hat’s for damned sure.
(She wasn’t a romantic heroine though, so would she still count?)
No. She was too young to worry about her relationships with men or society’s gender-role expectations. A pre- or post-feminist Ramona would have much the same childhood.
Irene Adler, from the Sherlock Holmes story “A Scandal in Bohemia”. She blackmails the King of Bohemia (with whom she once had an affair) just to prove to him that she has the upper hand, foils Holmes’ attempt to recover the incriminating evidence, and then goes on to marry (presumably happily) someone else entirely.
I looked for such a mention, too, primarily in the Hayes’ Offices’ Don’ts and Be Carefuls List" Perhaps the general admonitions against brutality might have been considered to forbid women fighting, but the page cited also says the moviemakers cheerfully ignored the “D and BC List” since there was no enforcement mechanism. So I can’t find a cite for it. I’m still poking around for it, but if you wish to look askance at my previous post, I am not in a position to blame you.