Throughout the history of humankind, women have been facing the necessity to fight for their rights, namely, the right to be seen as equal human beings and receive related opportunities. While the problem of sex-based oppression has doubtlessly been the source of continuous suffering and oppression of the women belonging to the lower and middle class, the position of female monarchs could arguably be seen as more favorable. Namely, given the opportunities that the royal power provided, one might argue that women belonging to the royal family could enjoy greater freedom. However, the threat of demonization and objectification was not completely erased from the specified setting, either. Namely, women in the position of royal power in the Early modern Era were regarded either goddesses or monsters based on the strategy that they chose to rule the land, yet these women were rarely seen as equal to their male counterparts.
Addressing the issue of female members of the royalty, one might presume that women ruling a country were not considered monsters and, instead, lauded as the members of the superior caste, yet the nature of the specified mindset was far from egalitarian. The nature of the specified attitude was not rooted in the idea that women were equal to men but, instead, rested on the premise that the royal family was above the mere mortals (Abate 18).
The idea above can be supported by the fact that the source of the royal power in most of Europe at the time was considered to be divine and could not be possibly debated. Consequently, even the rule of women was seen as the manifestation of the divine power and will, which suggested that the decisions and resolutions of female rulers were not for debate as well as the ones provided by male ones (Levin 57). Overall, the fact that female rulers were seen on par with goddesses in Europe at the time should not be attributed to the advanced points of view on the issue of equality but, instead, should be seen as the direct effect of misguided beliefs.
Arguably, the progress made over centuries has affected how women belonging to the royalty were perceived by general audiences. Namely, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment defined the tendency toward a more liberal perception of the gender issue. With the discoveries that the Scientific Revolution gave to humankind, as well as the progressive ideas and the related philosophies that the Enlightenment entailed, the concept of gender roles and the perception of sexes shifted significantly toward a more liberal one (Abate 22). Multiple discoveries in the domain of biology and physiology along with the focus on the promotion of equality within society, have shaped the attitudes toward female monarchs respectively (Levin 61). However, the general premise of women in power still being inferior to their male counterparts and, thus, their subjection to objectification, persisted.
As a result, whether these women were seen as goddesses or monsters does not have a tangible weight in the argument of whether they were seen as people in the first place. The choice of whether to demonize or idolize women of the royal family depended largely on whether the women in question used rigid policies or were more lenient toward their subordinates (Abate 51). Nonetheless, the women in question where not seen as equal to men; instead, they were either put on a pedestal as objects to admire or, on the contrary, demonized.
Works Cited
Abate, Corinne S., editor. Privacy, Domesticity, and Women in Early Modern England. Routledge, 2017.
Levin, Carole. “’I Trust I May Not Trust Thee’: Queens and Royal Women’s Visions of the World in King John.” The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespeare’s Queens. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 55-68.