When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt
Written and Narrated By: Kara Cooney
Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
Well… I liked it, but I can see how they haaaaaated it over on Audible :(
Ya know, the minute I heard “Hillary Clinton” I knew there’d be people spitting absolute nails SOMEwhere about When Women Ruled the World. The first SEVERAL reviews over on Audible described the book as one long feminist rant.
Uhm, well… so what? Isn’t that kinda the world we’ve been living in, isn’t that how women rulers SHOULD be viewed? Cuz, ya gotta admit: TOTAL aberration, correct?
Another thing the reviews said was that the six queens weren’t really spoken of and that their failings were conveniently thrust upon men. Uhm (again), did we listen to the same book?
Look, I get it. Hillary was a very divisive individual, very much a lightning rod, so I can understand toes curling at the drop of her name. And I must admit that I, too, kinda rolled my eyes when I heard her name dropped mainly cuz I knew that pretty much everything that followed in the audiobook would be name-tainted.
GET OVER IT and listen to a pretty good book, okay?
If, however, you haaaaate feminism (steer clear of a book ABOUT women, why doncha?), and if you haaaaaaate Hillary, might I suggest you avoid this book like the plague? Cuz Kara Cooney does indeed, dabble in feminism concepts, and she does indeed dabble in contemporary political commentary.
There, let’s move on.
I can’t even tell you which 6 queens are discussed cuz only 3 are written down in the Publisher’s Summary (which, considering the scope of the book, is oddly shoooooort). They are: Hateshepsut, Nefirtiti, and Cleopatra. Which is too bad because those last two? I could spell THOSE, thanks very much. I won’t even TRY to name the other three because my horrific ignorance would show.
I thought it was a fairly enjoyable book, and as an owner of two mighty fine X chromosomes, it was reeeeeally nice to hear about strong women who had a chance to rule. Just don’t expect that they ruled a long time, as they most certainly did not.
Be prepared for tales of woe and incest, tales of upheaval, drought, floods, famine, intrigue galore. Hey! What’s not to love about all that? And Cooney does a really good job with narrating her own book, as soooome authors do NOT do at times. She has a nice and smooth voice, feels strongly about her subjects, and is, again, fearless about adding commentary and her own thoughts.
Most people really haaaaated the Epilogue too (so steeeeer cleeeeear if you’re touchy about strong women advocating for strong women). I thought it was interesting, especially as Cooney doesn’t advocate for women to become more like men, which was refreshing. Rather, her take is that women should embrace their temperaments, embraced a more nuanced style of leadership (And one thing I thought was totally fascinating was how one Queen’s statues show her as a woman with the mantle of male leadership, but the longer her reign went on, the more masculine she became in artistic depictions of her).
C’mon! The audiobook is barely over 9 hours long! Certainly ya can manage giving women THAT much of your time?
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