Great But Underrated Female Rulers

There goes a saying that “every ancient civilization has had at least one great female ruler” and looking back on our history, that statement reigns true. Despite this, we’ve seen over and over again examples of women being criticized, demonized or even erased from history simply for the fact that they were women. That, of course, isn’t to say that women were the only ones to get erased, the only ones to cause such an uproar in the ‘natural’ way of things. Far from that, Geta Severen was a Roman Emperor who showed his Senate that he was unwilling to share power and tried to split his empire solely between him and his brother, Carcalla. Because of this, he was then murdered by his decentors and most of his references and records from Roman history were erased. The key word in that sentence being most, as if he had been completely stricken from their recorded history, I wouldn’t be using him as an example. But notice in Geta’s case the reasons for his erasure. He was power hungry, he went against what the Roman’s believed. He wasn’t a woman. We see time and time again women and other marginalized groups being overlooked and deemed unnatural, their own accomplishments being taken and passed as someone else's. But why? Why are these actions so common throughout our history?

The ancient Egyptians are said to have been the first to practice historical revisions, which is probably true due to the fact that they’re one of the first civilizations to keep tangible historical records. While this revolutionary fact may be interesting, it creates many problems, especially for historians. When it comes to piecing together an ancient societies history, it doesn’t help that effort when said society has omitted important sections, so important that it happened to be an entire pharoah’s 20 year rule. Queen Hatshepsut ruled Egypt from 1473 - 1458 BCE. After the death of her husband and half-brother, Thutmose II, she was left widowed at the age of 30. Left with a daughter and an infant step son, she acted as regent until her step sons eventual taking of the throne. For her 20 year rule, it’s said that it was one of the most prosperous times for Egypt, where instead of focusing on a military campaign, Hatshepsut focused instead on stabilizing her economy, trading with outside nations, and building extravagant temples and obelisks. Things went well for Egypt under Hatshepsut, so much so that she’s often regarded as one of the best pharaohs their civilization ever saw. It’s unknown exactly who tried to erase her and her legacy from history, and whether it was one successor or multiple. Some historians say it was her son, Thutmose III, who wanted his lineage to succeed directly from Thutmose I, Thutmose II, and finally to him, Thutmose III, without having a woman disrupt the timeline. Others say it was Thutmose III’s son, Amenhotep II, who called for her to be stricken, since his connection to the royal family and claim to the throne was weak, being born to a royal father and a concubine mother. And on yet another side of the debate, there are those who argue that it was Thutmose III who ordered for her erasure to legitimize Amenhotep II’s eventual rule. It should also be noted that Amenhotep was known for trying to take credit for many of the accomplishments Hatshepsut achieved during her rule. Knowing this, it’s clear to see that while there were no explicit laws preventing women from being pharaohs at the time, this being especially highlighted that Hatshepsut wasn’t the first, with there being as many as 5 and as few as 3 other women previously holding the position, her predecessors seemed to have a problem with it.

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Skipping ahead in time to the Tang dynasty of ancient China. Empress Wu Zetian, the second out of the five empresses China ever had, came into power through a series of manipulative and political power moves that even rival some of the horrible acts of backstabbing and treason that were already happening with previous emperor’s at the time. Empress Wu was born into a very wealthy family, where her father actively encouraged her to learn to read, write and learn politics, something very uncommon for women to do at the time. She was then hand picked by Emperor Taizong to be one of his concubines at the age of 14. She often spoke of Chinese history with him, showing the Emperor and many other powerful political figures just how much she knew and how incredibly smart she was. This attracted many people to her, including the emperor's own son, Gaozong. While Taizong was still alive, Wu and Gaozong had an affair, cementing Wu into the royal family. After Taizong’s death, Gaozong became emperor, and Wu Zetian became his official consort. Despite already having a wife, Gaozong heavily favored Wu, which caused intense jealousy in his first wife. Wu eventually gave birth to a daughter, who died at a very young age. There is evidence to suggest that her daughter was strangled to death, which Wu then blamed Empress Wang, Gaozong’s first wife, for. This caused many problems, especially for Empress Wang, who was seen by witnesses by the child’s room before being found dead. With the lack of an alibi and the inability to clear her name, Wang soon found herself being replaced by Wu, as Gaozong considered Wang’s childlessness a perfect reason to dispose of her. As customary legends will in general depict Wu as a power hungry women with no consideration for who she hurt or what she did, the most mainstream hypothesis is that Wu executed her very own kid so as to frame Wang. Different ways of thinking contend that Wang without a doubt murdered the kid out of envy and contempt toward Wu since Wang had no offspring of her own. The third contention is that the child died because of suffocation or crib death, taking into account that the ventilation frameworks of the time were non-existent or of low quality. Absence of ventilation joined with utilizing coal as a warming technique could prompt development of exhaust that would prompt carbon monoxide poisoning. Regardless of what caused the demise of the child, Wu accused Wang for it and Wang was expelled from her situation as Empress. The narrative of Wu's murder of her daughter and the confining of Wang to gain control is the most notorious and regularly rehashed story of her life, yet there is no way of knowing whether it occurred as the historians recorded it. At the hour of the homicide, it was Wu's assertion against Wang's, and later historians chose to agree with Wang against Wu; however this doesn't mean they picked the correct side.

Any historian who has composed on Wu has pursued the story set somewhere around the later Chinese antiquarians beyond a shadow of a doubt, yet these students of history had their own plan which did not include applauding a woman who ruled like a man. The historians consistently depict Wu as heartless, scheming, conspiring, and murderous, and she may have been these things, she may have even killed her girl to gain the royal position, yet any of these cases should just be acknowledged after considering their source.

Just by looking at these two cases, many things seem to repeat when it comes to how historians regarded each of these rulers.