Something herstorians (sic) trot out regularly (illustrating thereby their own intense lack of fitness to comment) are the examples of royalty Vietnams Trung sisters, Queen Teuta of Illyria, Elizabeth I of England and female political chiefs Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi, for example.
How valid are examples like those? Not too very. They do show something about the intense devotion a female chief can inspire in her male followers, true. And thats about it.
Royal and politically highly placed women are above the ruck and muck, you see; so elevated that romance and sex even where these women dont fall under what we might well call the mom factor, mens natural devotion and obedience to mother figures are more or less unthinkable to the rank and file. Such women are, in the nature of their positions, not integrated, even in the rare cases where theyre not past the age to inspire romantic leanings in others. That said, both the Trungs and Teuta are examples of feminists ignoring the rest of the story where convenient; they may know about and cite to these women, noting in particular Teutas defiance of Rome. They wont usually tell anyone that the Trungs were defeated and committed suicide, or that Teutas fate was defeat in war followed by dismemberment of her kingdom, along with a hefty punitive tribute to Rome.
