Women Achieved Enormous Power in Ancient Egypt. What They Did With It Is a Warning for Today
Ancient Egypt’s female feline goddess had two sides. As Bastet, she could nurture and protect; as Sakhmet she had a propensity to brutally attack and maim without control. But in both forms, she had one raison d’être: to protect and nurture the patriarchy.
Such was the case for strong Egyptian goddesses in general, and for the real female leaders of that time. They weren’t in it for themselves, to help a sisterhood rise up, to change the playing field for all women. They used their great and mercurial power to help the men around them – to protect them with their ferocity, to shield them from harm, to keep the same system going.
I study women and power in the ancient world, having just written a book about six queens from ancient Egypt. Their stories reveal a troubling and difficult aspect of female power in history, and one worth keeping in mind today. Though a high number of women in positions of power is often seen as a marker of progress in governments and corporations, history shows that what matters is not how many women rise to that level but what they do once they get there.