The Royal Purple: about women and power
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Types of Power
“Do not quote laws to those of us with swords.” -Pompey When I first started thinking about women and power, I started thinking about power in general. What does having power mean? How do people exercise power? French and Raven defined the ways in which people exercise power back in the 1950s & 1960s: Royalty…
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What am I even doing here?
God only knows. I started The Royal Purple in a fit during the pandemic because I was cranky that there weren’t more portrayals of women in power. Like, real women who had held power doing actual things with their power, hopefully for good. (In reality, it wasn’t always for good. It never is.) But the…
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Germaine de Staël and Jane Austen
I have been reading about Germaine de Staël to write more about her on this website. She often seems to be characterized as not a proper woman – certainly Napoleon hated her because she was an intellectual who dared to influence current events. And in Mistress to an Age, Christopher Herold points out that Fanny…
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Catherine of Aragon on In Our Time
This week on the free/not in Britain version of In Our Time, they covered Catherine of Aragon. They always get a panel of experts to talk at length about their subject; this was no different. Recommended listening.
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Clodia Pulcher
Please note that most of this comes from A Rome of One’s Own. Who the hell is Clodia Pulcher, you might be asking yourself. She is not a commonplace name. And I don’t know how much backstory to give you. In part, because I don’t know how to gauge what you know, dear reader. Forgive…
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Louise of Savoy
It’s easy to get frustrated when you try to learn more about women in power. They are so often only referenced in relation to men. Cleopatra only shows up in the historical record when she’s interacting with Julius Caesar or Marc Antony. My favorite Eleanor of Aquitaine book is just as much about Henry II…
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Sugarcoating Medieval Misogyny
Alice Evans writes a great newsletter about women, equality, and the differences around the world. Right before Christmas, she published an issue on just how unequal medieval Europe was for women. The stats she draws on are quite startling: And those are just the easily quotable statistics. I haven’t posted here for the last three…
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Women and Power
Our images of power are masculine in nature, and it goes all the way back to Homer, where Telemachus is telling Penelope to be quiet. Because speaking in public is, by definition, a male thing.Women are allowed voices only when they are victims or martyrs. If they dare to speak up, to take power, they…
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Women, doing it for themselves
Part eleven of our series on Maria Theresa. In our last post, Maria Theresa had put together an alliance with France, via Madame de Pompadour. Russia, ruled by Empress Elizabeth, was also cranky with Prussia and Frederick’s blatant sexism. So this chapter in our story begins with Austria and Russia signing a treaty. The trick is…
Got any book recommendations?