Dr. Kara Cooney: When Women Ruled the World
Time to read: under 2 minutes
Egyptologist, archaeologist, associate professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Language and Cultures at UCLA, Dr. Kara Cooney has spent her academic career exploring the history of female power. Looking as far back as our hunter gatherer roots, to early agricultural society, to ancient Egypt and now modern day, Dr. Cooney brings one question to the forefront. Why are we as human beings so hostile to female power? Why do we think we’re not? Or why do we think it’s ok?
“We like to tell the stories of women who got it all wrong. It’s a nice cautionary tale, but we don’t like to tell the stories of the women who got it all right.”
Throughout human history, female rulers have existed, but as Dr. Cooney would be quick to point out, they are rarely welcomed with open arms. “In every single case it’s crisis that brings them to the throne, it’s a lack of men, they’re there as placeholders or stopgaps, and they usually have a bad end,” says Cooney. “In each case, the woman is swept aside, in each case the woman has no genetic legacy, and in each case her ambition is judged as self-serving and dangerous.”
There are many examples of this throughout history, but the one that has become particularly close to Cooney’s heart is the ancient Egyptian queen Hatshepsut. She was a woman who rose to power in a time where there wasn’t a man in place to rule (her father and husband both died within a short time of each other, and her infant son was too young to rule) and although she was incredibly successful during her rein, she eventually handed rule over to her nephew. Once she was out of power however, she was virtually annihilated from the historical record.
“We are now facing this question for the first time, I would argue,” says Cooney. “Women on a grassroots level, not at the very top, are breadwinners in numbers that are competing with men. And they are earning college degrees in numbers that beat men, so in the generations to come we will have to discuss, not a matriarchy, but a situation where women can start to compete with men for actual power for the first time in human history.”
Arts Commons Presents and National Geographic Live present a personal conversation and Q&A with Dr. Kara Cooney at 11:00AM on Wednesday, May 13, as part of the Nat Geo Live: Backstage series. (Note that you must have a Facebook account to participate in the Q&A.) The recording of the event will be available afterwards on National Geographic Live’s Facebook page (open and available to anyone, even if you do not have a Facebook account.)
