Elizabeth Wilson: Author of "The Queen Who Would Be King," interviewed
How did you become interested in Hatshepsut?
I live right near the Metropolitan Museum in New York—it's only two blocks away—and they have long owned an enormous collection of materials from Hatshepsut's reign. They have a Hatshepsut gallery, and I was familiar with this gallery and vaguely familiar with her because of that. But like so many people, my view of her was still the popular one: that she was this incredible shrew, she was just a power-mad virago who also had this torrid affair with her minister. So when I heard there was this big exhibition about her, I thought, well that'll make a good story—sex and lies in the Valley of the Kings. And then when I actually started to do some research into the more modern sources on her, I found out that this whole view of her that developed, mainly in the early 20th century and probably into the 1950s and '60s, was probably so erroneous. That was really what I thought would make an interesting article, that here is that woman from history who has been done so wrong, and now we realize that she may have been acting for really noble reasons. It's yet another instance in which we are reminded that history is a matter of opinion.
Can you think of similar instances of powerful women unfairly maligned by history?
Lucrezia Borgia—for so long she was this horrible Renaissance creature who was poisoning her husband and all that, and now we realize that she was really a rather sweet child, quite an innocent actually. Marie Antoinette, who apparently never said "let them eat cake."
Why do you think they get defamed like that? Is it misogyny, or just that people want intrigue and sex?
I asked the scholars about this, and to some extent it was men from a pre-feminist generation who were writing about these women, and any woman who stepped out of the subordinate role was a little scary and potentially suspicious. So I think that was part of it. But one of the other scholars said, also, those earlier historians wanted to tell a good story, and there was maybe a bit of Hollywood in them. So much of the early histories really are a lot more fun to read—how accurate they are is another thing. We all love a good story, that is certainly human nature. That was also the case with Cleopatra—she didn't look a thing like Elizabeth Taylor, she was really rather plain, but I can hardly see the word "Cleopatra" without thinking of Elizabeth Taylor and her iridescent eye shadow. And also the fact that Hatshepsut adopted this male appearance, that made a bad situation worse in a lot of people's eyes, because it seemed that she was denying her femininity, and these were conservative or conventional men who were writing her history, and they found that distasteful.
They had had women rulers though—Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria. Some historians have said that Elizabeth I was thought of as a king in a woman's body rather than just a queen.
There's a quote in which Queen Elizabeth talks about that—"I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king." And there was the example of Queen Victoria. Not every one of the early scholars thought Hatshepsut was out of line, because they had had Queen Victoria, so the idea of a female ruler was all right. Although Queen Victoria didn't dress up like a man....
Read entire article at Smithsonian Magazine
I live right near the Metropolitan Museum in New York—it's only two blocks away—and they have long owned an enormous collection of materials from Hatshepsut's reign. They have a Hatshepsut gallery, and I was familiar with this gallery and vaguely familiar with her because of that. But like so many people, my view of her was still the popular one: that she was this incredible shrew, she was just a power-mad virago who also had this torrid affair with her minister. So when I heard there was this big exhibition about her, I thought, well that'll make a good story—sex and lies in the Valley of the Kings. And then when I actually started to do some research into the more modern sources on her, I found out that this whole view of her that developed, mainly in the early 20th century and probably into the 1950s and '60s, was probably so erroneous. That was really what I thought would make an interesting article, that here is that woman from history who has been done so wrong, and now we realize that she may have been acting for really noble reasons. It's yet another instance in which we are reminded that history is a matter of opinion.
Can you think of similar instances of powerful women unfairly maligned by history?
Lucrezia Borgia—for so long she was this horrible Renaissance creature who was poisoning her husband and all that, and now we realize that she was really a rather sweet child, quite an innocent actually. Marie Antoinette, who apparently never said "let them eat cake."
Why do you think they get defamed like that? Is it misogyny, or just that people want intrigue and sex?
I asked the scholars about this, and to some extent it was men from a pre-feminist generation who were writing about these women, and any woman who stepped out of the subordinate role was a little scary and potentially suspicious. So I think that was part of it. But one of the other scholars said, also, those earlier historians wanted to tell a good story, and there was maybe a bit of Hollywood in them. So much of the early histories really are a lot more fun to read—how accurate they are is another thing. We all love a good story, that is certainly human nature. That was also the case with Cleopatra—she didn't look a thing like Elizabeth Taylor, she was really rather plain, but I can hardly see the word "Cleopatra" without thinking of Elizabeth Taylor and her iridescent eye shadow. And also the fact that Hatshepsut adopted this male appearance, that made a bad situation worse in a lot of people's eyes, because it seemed that she was denying her femininity, and these were conservative or conventional men who were writing her history, and they found that distasteful.
They had had women rulers though—Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria. Some historians have said that Elizabeth I was thought of as a king in a woman's body rather than just a queen.
There's a quote in which Queen Elizabeth talks about that—"I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king." And there was the example of Queen Victoria. Not every one of the early scholars thought Hatshepsut was out of line, because they had had Queen Victoria, so the idea of a female ruler was all right. Although Queen Victoria didn't dress up like a man....