Women in Power and Other Scary Things
National Geographic Explorer, 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 the 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? And, when we do acknowledge it, 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.””
Female rulers have existed throughout human history, but as Dr. Cooney is quick to point out, they are rarely welcomed with open arms. “In every single case it’s a 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 when there wasn’t a man in place to rule, and she was incredibly successful during her reign, eventually handing 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.”
Cleopatra used a combination of sexuality and finances to build allies within the Roman Empire; Nefertiti brought together a fractured Egypt; and one woman even commanded the title of King. There is no shortage of women in history––find out just how powerful they were on March 13 and 14 in Kara Cooney: When Women Ruled the World from National Geographic Live and Arts Commons Presents.
Thank you to ConocoPhillips Canada for sponsoring our National Geographic Live series.
