updated 8mo ago
Queens of Egypt Ruled the World
handful of women have made it to the alpha position, such as Cleopatra of Egypt, Empress Wu Zetian of China (c. AD 700) and Elizabeth I of England. Yet they are the exceptions that prove the rule.
from Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
If we want to give women as a gender – and not just in the shape of a few determined individuals – their place inside of the structures of power, we have to think harder about how and why we think as we do. If there is a cultural template, which works to disempower women, what exactly is it and where do we get it from?
from Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard
- For a millennium, rivalries between and among Byzantine noble families propelled public life, with the kind of bloody factional maneuvering that makes the Tudors look like the Waltons in comparison.
Though political power was usually a male privilege in Byzantium, a striking feature of the Byzantine tales is the prominence of women as political play... See morefrom The Misunderstood Byzantine Princess and Her Magnum Opus by Edmund White
Faith Hahn added
Despite all those unknowns, archaeologists instantly realised that the recognisable RECEI – in the dative case, meaning ‘to or for the king’ – supports what Roman writers themselves had claimed: that for two and a half centuries, up to the end of the sixth century BCE, the city of Rome had been under the control of ‘kings’. Livy, among others, tell
... See morefrom SPQR by Mary Beard
Women are often stereotyped as better manipulators and appeasers than men, and are famed for their superior ability to see things from the perspective of others. If there’s any truth in these stereotypes, then women should have made excellent politicians and empire-builders, leaving the dirty work on the battlefields to testosterone-charged but sim
... See morefrom Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
something about each of the women in this book has permitted her not only to exist, but also to obtain and wield power within spheres dominated by men.
from Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen