Herstory

Women have come a long way since the beginning of time. From ancient times till the 1940s very few women ever had power those that did include Cleopatra and Nefertiti, Queens of Ancient Egypt, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Ancient Egypt was one of the first nations to have a woman as the ruler, dating back to the 15^th century B.C. For the last 3,500 years there has been very few women rulers until the last fifty or so years. The Ancient queens of Egypt led their great empire to be prosperous as did the queens of England. These women rulers are a rare thing in the history books of the world so few have climbed the ranks to be in such a position, partly because of how the human society has evolved over thousands of years. As the first humans became their global domination they were hunters and gathers. In this system the women would do everything but hunt. The women would take care of the children; gather fruits and nuts to eat, and make what little clothing they had. They made the system work by working so hard and making sure that the men could go out and hunt. This system didn’t change very much for thousands of years. As humans started to settle down and form ancient cities the women’s work became what it is known as today, “household work.” They continued to stay home take care of the kids, tend any small crops they had, make clothing, cook the food and anything else that the family needed to run smoothly as it could in ancient times. Going to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, women still had the household work while the men went to work as blacksmiths, butchers, wheelwrights, shoemakers and what not. The men still had almost all the power except for the Throne of England. Queen Elizabeth is the most influential women in making it possible for women to leave the house behind and take on their own work to support themselves. No matter how obvious it was to the people during her reign, the way society functioned was changed for good, it may take another six hundred years but women will start to take their place alongside and even above men in the 1900s. The first time that they were given a chance was during WWII. All the men were off to war and the women took their jobs producing products to be sent over seas to be used by men. Not only did they help the war effort but they also saved the economy. By having such a large need for supplies, industries were needed to be at max efficiency and the women took the challenge and showed the world not only what America was capable of but also what women everywhere were capable of. Sadly once the war was won and the men returned home the women weren’t back to the household work for some time again. Since then women have fought for and gained every right a man has and are using them to their full potential. One women that has tired to go every farther is Hilary Clinton. In the 2008 election she went against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. She was a strong candidate and had a great chance of wining, but after signs Obama winning she had an emotional moment. She tried for the American people and for us to have the best future we can have. Sadly that isn’t what a population wants to see. Hillary Clinton was emotional, but that’s not the reason for her losing the Democratic nomination. It was the fact that the emotion meant she was human and was just like every other American. If she was human then she was likely to make mistakes just like all human. It wasn’t the fact that she cried and was too womanly to be President it was the fact that the people want a more “perfect” person. They believed that if she showed any emotion that could be a weakness than she couldn’t be President of the United States of America. And they were wrong. I’m not saying she should be President but I’m saying that just because a person is emotional doesn’t mean that they can’t lead. There are so many aspects of leadership that can come together to become a great leader and maybe being emotional is one of them but the people are to afraid and stubborn to change how they see the world, so a women may only become President of America if she is as tuff enough to stand up for herself but nice enough to be a lady, because the people won’t have a manly women as President that would be just as bad as an emotional women. It’s a hard world out there it doesn’t always makes sense but nothing ever does make sense in the real world.