When Women Ruled the World Quotes

“Ancient Egypt is an anomaly as the only land that consistently called upon the rule of women to keep its regime in working order, safe from discord, and on the surest possible footing—particularly when a crisis was under way.”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt

“We need to stop perceiving feminine emotionality as weak and deceitful when it is the most constructive way forward in days of crisis.”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt

“It should come as no surprise that women need to work doubly hard to prove their right to power. They have to look to their menfolk around them who can support their claim, rather than detract from it--to their fathers and patriarchs, not to their husbands and lovers. They must clarify to a suspicious public that they are not greedy and conniving, power-hungry for their own sakes, but concerned for the success of a broad swath of society. How does one do that except by somehow downplaying their own ambition, or subsuming her power to that of a male associate, or allowing herself to be interrupted in important meetings, or apologizing more than her male counterparts, or appearing more tentative in her decision-making, or not applying for positions and promotions she might think she isn't qualified for? A woman is rarely congratulated for grasping for more, for reaching higher. Women know exactly how their ambition is perceived by the public, and they must veil their power grabs in a warm and cuddly swath of nonaggression and nonthreatening verbiage, dazzling smiles, colored hair, and a calm and steady gaze, maternal even, without holding their head too high, but not too low either. Is it any surprise that today's women don't even apply for political position of authority if they have to walk through a gauntlet of abuse dissecting their appearance, demeanor, age, weight, and sexual past white simultaneously walking a tightrope of unspoken demands for masculinization?”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt

“her final act was to throw herself into a fiery pit so that no man could exact his retribution on her. (One wonders whether the fiery pit could have been any better than whatever torture they might have meted out.)”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt

“Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Tawosret, and Cleopatra”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt

“2016 U.S. presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt

“Perhaps ancient Egyptian women were made of stronger stuff,”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt

“Sakhmet and Mut, Bastet and Isis”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt

“a culture so beautiful—with its golden masks and colossal statues, gods with crocodile heads, and hieroglyphs of whimsical complexity”
― Kara Cooney, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt