For thousands of years, men have written history, so it seems to me that most of what we've read is from the male point of view.
Stacy SchiffRead
Cleopatra had one great advantage. She lived at a time when female sovereigns were not anomalies. And when women enjoyed rights they would not again enjoy for another 2,000 years. You could call them early feminists, if I may use a dirty word.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights Cleopatra's unique position as a female ruler during a time when women held significant rights, which would not be seen for millennia.
Stacy Schiff’s quote emphasizes the advantage Cleopatra had in a historical context, where female rulers were not uncommon and women had rights that would later be suppressed for centuries. It suggests that Cleopatra can be viewed as an early feminist figure due to her prominent role and the rights enjoyed by women during her era, contrasting sharply with subsequent historical periods where women’s rights were significantly curtailed.
Themes
CleopatraFeminismFemale LeadersWomen'S RightsHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a women's rights seminar discussing the importance of historical figures, one might quote this to illustrate early female empowerment.
More from Stacy Schiff
All quotes →And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.
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It has always been preferable to attribute a woman's success to her beauty rather than to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life.
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Power has for so long been a male construct that it distorted the shape of the first women who tried it on, only to find themselves in a sort of straitjacket.
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Women enjoyed rights in Egypt they would not again enjoy for more than 2,000 years. They owned ships, ran vineyards, filed lawsuits, practiced medicine. Their husbands supported them after divorce. Their power was unprecedented.
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A woman can never be too rich or too thin, but until very, very recently, she could be too powerful, for which - if she wasn't smart enough to camouflage herself - she generally paid the price.
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