The Greatest Women in World History...

[Cynovolans]

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?

I just noticed this post, but Egyptians didn't have a word for virgin. Could you give an example of what you say is an Egyptian "virgin birth" story?

 

[Ajidica]

I don't really have an example. I think Plot mentioned once that virgin births were fairly common in Near East mythology and that he gave an Egyptian example.

I could be completely wrong, but my post wasn't going for factual accuracy.

 

[Cynovolans]

I don't really have an example. I think Plot mentioned once that virgin births were fairly common in Near East mythology and that he gave an Egyptian example.

I could be completely wrong, but my post wasn't going for factual accuracy.

I know some Egyptian myths had weird(I mean really weird!) circumstances around the birth of deities but I haven't heard one that mentioned a virgin birth.

 

[NovaKart]

Well Osiris was put back together when Isis gathered up his body parts and if I remember right they couldn't find the penis and had to make it out of mud, maybe I'm mixing things up a bit. Anyway that's pretty weird.

 

[GamezRule]

Didn't Aphrodite spring up from sea foam caused by the castration of Cronus?

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Didn't Aphrodite spring up from sea foam caused by the castration of Cronus?

Uranus actually.

 

[Midnight-Blue766]

Mitochondrial Eve.

Otherwise, I would say Queen Victoria or Elizabeth.

 

[Tee Kay]

What's with the focus on queens and empresses?

 

[ParkCungHee]

And English ones at that.

 

[Dachs]

And English ones at that.

a-hem

 

[Masada]

Sino-centrist.

 

[Tee Kay]

I just noticed this post, but Egyptians didn't have a word for virgin.

Now you made my mind goes to where I don't want it to go.

 

[History_Buff]

What's with the focus on queens and empresses?

Powerful people tend to have greater impacts on the world. When one talks about Great in a historical sense, typically that is what one means.

 

[Cynovolans]

Now you made my mind goes to where I don't want it to go.

It's nothing like it sounds like.

 

[Tee Kay]

Powerful people tend to have greater impacts on the world. When one talks about Great in a historical sense, typically that is what one means.

The problem is, with many of them, their actual influence on history is so much smaller than their perceived influence in the popular imagination. Queen-V-who-must-not-be-named is the perfect example, but there are others: the Trung sisters, and to a lesser extent Cleopatra VII, Wu Zetian and Hatshepsut.

There are queens or empresses who were truly powerful and influential, but it is important to remember that not all of them were. The names in this thread are almost exclusively royalty with the exception of the Soong sisters, Joan of Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, and a few better known scientists. I'd say people like Susan B. Anthony or arguably had more influence on history than, say, Hatshepsut.

 

[Dachs]

I'd say people like Susan B. Anthony or arguably had more influence on history than, say, Hatshepsut.

Susan B. Anthony didn't even have that much impact on the American suffrage movement, dude

what's worse: name-dropping major female political leaders who at least had the obvious relevance of "sending thousands of people to die" and suchlike, or name-dropping popularized figures of the various campaigns for women's rights who geared their entire movement away from iconic leaders anyway

 

[Tee Kay]

Fair point.

I hate this sort of thread.

 

[Masada]

Merkel in absolute terms runs the largest in terms of GDP state that a women has ever run.

The names in this thread are almost exclusively royalty with the exception of the Soong sisters, Joan of Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, and a few better known scientists.

Eh, Trung Sisters weren't royals by birth.

 

[Dachs]

the Song sisters might as well have been royalty, though

Meiling in particular was basically an empress

 

[Masada]

the trung sisters made themselves royalty does that count?