The Greatest Women in World History...

[Civciv5]

Who is/are the greatest women/woman in the history of the world?

 

[G-Max]

The hooker to whom I lost my virginity.

Second place is Joan of Arc. Not many illiterate 16-year-old girls can single-handedly turn the tide of a war, and ultimately be canonized as saints. She and Alexander the Great would have made a cute couple...

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: Moved to World History (and RD removed).

 

[Lord Baal]

The hooker to whom I lost my virginity.

This cracked me up way more than it should have.

I'll pre-empt Dachs and say Eirene, for the sole reason of making him jealous.

Also, add my usual gripea about these "greatest" threads; how does one quantify "greatness?" What makes a person great? How can one make an objective judgement about an obviously subjective question? Etc..

 

[aronnax]

Lindsey Davenport. She has good ground-strokes.

 

[dIZZyBlIZZy]

Well, military wise, G-Max is spot on about Joan of Arc, but I think, from a contemporary standpoint, Wilma Rudolph was an important woman in history. Though many would disagree because they don't see athletics as a cultural influence (or some other reason maybe).

 

[Masada]

Soong Sisters. Trung Sisters are also kinda cool.

 

[Ajidica]

Zenobia of Palmyra or the Empress Zoe come to mind.

EDIT: And Oprah, possibly one of the most powerful people in America.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

As far as greatest, it's difficult to say. I'm going to go the easy, uninformed route and say Elizabeth I. But I don't know.

 

[G-Max]

Zenobia of Palmyra

Didn't the Palmyrene Empire have a lifespan of like ten years, of which she only ruled during the latter few? Yeah, that's... really impressive. I mean, Hilary Clinton has a more impressive track record than that.

 

[History_Buff]

Catherine the Great? It's right in the name

 

[Ajidica]

Didn't the Palmyrene Empire have a lifespan of like ten years, of which she only ruled during the latter few? Yeah, that's... really impressive. I mean, Hilary Clinton has a more impressive track record than that.

Yes. However, the Palmyran Empire and the Gallic Empire managed to destablalize the Roman Empire enough to prevent the Empire for handling the Sassanids early enough and were the Crisis of the Third Century which exacerbated the Roman instability.
Just because she lost to the Romans quickly doesn't mean she didn't have a huge impact, however unintended it might have been.

Catherine the Great?

Perhaps, but dieing crushed beneath a horse or of syphalis isn't the best way to go.

 

[dIZZyBlIZZy]

Perhaps, but dieing crushed beneath a horse or of syphalis isn't the best way to go.

http://www.snopes.com/risque/animals/catherine.asp

Sometimes urban myth gets in the way of history.

 

[aronnax]

As far as greatest, it's difficult to say. I'm going to go the easy, uninformed route and say Elizabeth I. But I don't know.

Maybe one day we can take two steps back and realise that she ain't that great. If Elizabeth was a man, nobody would be pouring praises like this.

Did no one get my Lindsey Davenport reference?

 

[Dachs]

Eirene Sarantapechaina - quality female ruler of an empire with a properly Byzantine ruthless streak who made top-notch religious policy.

Sòng Qìnglíng - "One loved money, one loved power, one loved China." She's the one that loved China.

Yekaterina Velikaya - best imperialist in Russian history, bar none. Even Stalin and Aleksandr I had nothing on her.

So...um...yeah, they've all already been said, but one was out of spite, one wasn't actually named (she comes with a matched set of sisters) and one was mentioned but it was mostly about trite urban myths. I thought about mentioning some womens' rights crusaders or Emma Goldman or something but I wouldn't have been honest because they tended to be either unlikable or uninteresting or both, regardless of their impact.

Also, the previously mentioned Zoe was objectively one of the worst rulers in the history of the Byzantine Empire, male or female, and arguably the primary reason for the country's long, slow, and definitely not inexorable decline into oblivion. Which is funny cause Eirene was one of the main reasons the empire started to get back on its feet a few centuries earlier.

 

[Ajidica]

Also, the previously mentioned Zoe was objectively one of the worst rulers in the history of the Byzantine Empire,

Of course. However, it would be hard to deny that she had a massive impact on Byzantine history.

Although Norwich had a relatively poor view of Irene, how influential was Eudocia, the wife of Arcadius? I remember that she played a large role as de facto Emperor due to Arcadius's relative incompetance.

 

[Dachs]

After the failure of Gainas' bid for power in 400, Eudoxia was theoretically running the show with a camarilla of officials including the comes sacrarum largitionum Ioannes. Ioannes was ostensibly her lover, but rumors like that are always spread about women in power (doesn't mean they're not true, but it does mean that they're scurrilous and tropetastic and less likely to have been true). This was probably the weakest government of any in the Arkadian Era. Eudoxia never exerted the sort of power that, say, Stilicho had in the West (and that's saying something, because Stilicho never dominated the government in the West either) and mostly acted as sort of a primus inter pares of the various groups trying to control the Emperor. When she died in 404, a proper strongman, one Anthemios, ascended to dominance and started fixing all the dumb crap that had been going on during the periods of Gainas' and Eudoxia's ascendancy.

 

[NBAfan]

Mary has probably had the biggest impact on the world. Just think how different the world would be without Christianity or Islam. How many other woman are there that have been honored as much throughout the last 20 centuries?

 

[Dachs]

Yeah, I'm not touching that.

 

[Ajidica]

Mary has probably had the biggest impact on the world. Just think how different the world would be without Christianity or Islam.

So the teenage bride of a Jewish carpenter who got knocked up by a Mystical Man in the Sky (who, in a wierd case of time travel and alternate realities, also happens to be the Cosmic Jewish Zombie she gave birth to, but not completely), demonstrating an unexcusable lack of imagination by the early Church who were forced to crib the 'virgin birth' story that was old hat for the Egyptians, is the most important woman in the history of the World?
What ever happened to Esther's title for 'Epic Woman'? She actualy freed the entire Jewish people from extermination at the hands of Haman rather then getting knocked up out of wedlock and standing by the side of the road as her son was executed for being a thief. If Esther was there she probably would have tricked Pontius Pilate into exterminating the Sanhedrin, saving Jesus, and pull the nails out of Jesus all by herself.

How many other woman are there that have been honored as much throughout the last 20 centuries?

Never heard of Cleopatra or Nefertiti? Perhaps Dido or Helen of Troy?