Do Women Rule Differently? Lessons from the Ancient Egyptian Patriarchy

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Women of Violence: Warriors, Aggressors, and Perpetrators of Violence" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Historians often make blanket assumptions that female kings of Egypt ruled differently from men. Hatshepsut is often said to have been a pacifist, not leading her country into invasions abroad. Cleopatra’s rule has been characterized as drama-seeking, manipulative, not to mention hormonally imbalanced in the writings of countless Classicists and historians. Nefertiti is remembered as nothing more than a pretty face, but if recent Egyptological investigations are correct, she was much more than that. But did (and do) women really rule differently from men? Is it sexist to even ask this question? And what should we expect from these rulers who are only placeholders and stopgaps in an authoritarian, patriarchal system like ancient Egypt?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Women of Violence: Warriors, Aggressors, and Perpetrators of Violence

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24747