You want the females to be badass. I understand that. I accept it.

I don't know WHY you want this, although I have my suspicions - strong older sister figure, dominant mother, single parent upbringing, whatever, that's none of my business.

However, I'm afraid that your desires are interfering with your interpretation of the evidence. You see, while Lanfear was clearly as powerful as any channeler - and here I mean powerful in terms of effective strength - there really exists no evidence to place Graendal in the same bracket. In fact, we know that Graendal was at least two levels below Lanfear in strength.

Furthermore, every instance of her outperforming other channelers in a One Power confrontation is based on her possessing an angreal. In fact, there is a strong case to be made that RJ gave her the angreal precisely because he wanted to keep her around until the end, and needed a way to boost her competitiveness in One Power confrontations.

Any way, there is no evidence that Graendal is as powerful as the most powerful males, and in fact, she herself provides a number of hints that it would in fact NOT be advisable for her to clash directly with top class male channelers.

Be that as it may. I merely present my interpretation of the facts -which is based on incomplete information, just like yours.