To be sure, writing Power Women has given me perspective. For example, when prison inmates “strike” because of “cruel and unusual treatment” when their color televisions have been taken away or their leisure time working out in the gym has been withheld, I think of what the Romans would say.

I think of how people rotted in dungeons year after year after cruel torture, not just under Roman rule but also under European rule of the Spanish Inquisition–and many, many other periods of time. I think of how tongues were removed, hands cut off, ears and noses sliced away because people did or did not believe in some sort of religion: Christian, pagan, Jewish, Buddhist, Taoist, or animist.

In the twenty-first century, we have just seen how the Iraqis have suffered the same tortures under Sadaam Hussein in a civilized time but not a civilized place. I think of how if people were seen on the streets–not just in ancient times–they would be torn apart by the savage mobs. Today, ISIS publicly commits mass atrocities. The Red Army and the White Army of the early 1900s committed unbelievable atrocities on innocent people because they did or did not support the Czar. The Nazis, under the madman Hitler, in the 1930s and 1940s, experimented on innocent humans before sending them off to the gas chambers. Race, Color, Gender, Religion, and Politics have created grand excuses for humans to exercise their most basic and persistent dark side. No matter what extreme measures of punishment and terror, if you can imagine it, people have inflicted it on other people.

Most recently, I attended a Rotary International Conference and learned from an exchange program team that in Tanzania girls are married at a young age, sometimes nine-years-old and become mothers at age fourteen or fifteen. Because their bodies are not mature enough to pass the baby through the birth canal, the agonizing belabored birth lasts beyond 72 hours, and the child dies. The doctor on the team told us that because of the long labor and the contracted pushing, the mother’s urinary tract is often damaged. If the woman lives, she becomes incontinent, anathema to the tribe. She is forced to live on the outskirts of the tribe as an exile—just like the leper of ancient days. She is another throw away human—just another woman. Early marriage has been practiced since the ancient times. Maternal and infant mortality has–until recent times–been a fact of life.

Barbarism still exists. There are those in every society whose deranged behavior poisons the flowering of civilization. One has only to open the daily paper to read about rape, dismemberment, and murder; abandonment, kidnapping, genital mutilation, and molestation of children—right here in the most civilized and advanced society on earth. Beyond even that, terrorists in the Middle East have captured innocent people, bound and blindfolded them, drowned or burned then to death in cages, and captured their beheading on videotape distributed throughout the world.

Another form of barbarism is slavery. Traditionally thought to be society’s necessary evil, prostitution—willingly or unwillingly—flourishes in every country. It has since Paleolithic times. And, yes, slavery still exists! The slave trade, including white slavery, brings women into prostitution yearly. Prostitutes are used and then abused. Women who ply “the world’s oldest profession” are stalked and brutally murdered by serial killers who think they are providing a service to mankind. All this, in the twenty-first century.

Yet, in spite of all this, we think we are at the apex of civilization. These are “the good old days.”
April 29, May 2, October 30, 2004, Amended April 24, 2016.

The great libraries at Alexandria, Pergamum, and Ephesus held the treasures of early literacy. Science, philosophy, poetry, and math filled the scrolls and informed scholars––those who could read––or perhaps those who could pay a scribe to read for them.

Few elite women could read and write. Even fewer––if any––walked the halls of the great libraries, spread out the scrolls before them, and absorbed the knowledge locked up to ignorance.

Pharaoh Hatshepsut spoke the native languages of the neighboring countries. Like her, centuries later, Pharaoh Cleopatra VII also honed the gift of language. She was the only Ptolemy who ruled Egypt to speak Egyptian, the very language of the people they governed. Neither Hatshepsut nor Cleopatra relied on others to negotiate with viziers and emissaries to carry on diplomatic relations, trade agreements, and treaties. They trusted only themselves to say accurately what the crown required

Fifteen centuries later, Queen Elizabeth I conducted diplomacy through her first hand knowledge of language. Intrinsically these monarchs knew what Shakespeare’s witches would warn, “There are daggers in men’s smiles.”[1] Those three sovereigns could look beyond the fawning subterfuge, listen to what the advisors and lackeys whispered confidentially to each other––and reply in their own language.

Literacy, reading and writing, has power. Yet another kind of literacy also had power. Those ancients who “read” the stars could predict an eclipse and warn the people if they didn’t obey, they had power to bring down darkness across the entire land. Natural phenomena thunder, lightning, eclipses and other terrors fed peoples’ fear the gods were angry and would destroy them. The literacy of science held the people in thrall.

Science, math, religion, philosophy, history, even surgery––all were secreted in the scrolls. Anyone diligent enough, determined enough, and privileged enough could read for themselves the wisdom gained in the past. Perhaps the scholar Hypatia had entered the library of her home in Alexandria. At least she had access to her father’s library, discussions with his learned friends, and eventually communication with scholars from all over the Mediterranean who came to hear the brilliant woman speak.

In the Nineteenth Century, Virginia Woolf studied in her father’s library because she was denied entry to Cambridge. Times seemed to slide backward. However, Woolf, like Hypatia, reached the pinnacle of excellence. She was one of the foremost writers of the famous Bloomsbury group. Her works are Britain’s treasure.

Through the magic of words, native and foreign, women gained power, established their place of greatness in history, and are remembered.

***

Points to Ponder:

Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s grandeur was desecrated by a usurper. Egypt: 1507––1458 BCE

The scholar Hypatia was cut into pieces by radical Christians. Alexandria: 355––415 BCE

Pharaoh Cleopatra died in the wake of Rome after the Battle of Actium. Alexandria: 69––30 BCE

Queen Elizabeth I reigned victorious for seventy years. England: 1553-1603 CE, and

Virginia Woolf ended her tragic life when with her coat weighted with stones, she walked into the River Ouse in despair. England: 1882-1941 CE

From a Fifteenth Century BCE pharaoh to a twentieth century CE writer, each made her mark. Each was a power woman of her time, and each story deserves to be read.

Please see Cameos in the series Power Women: Lessons From the Ancient World. © P.D. Sargent 3.21.16.

[1] Shakespeare, William, Macbeth, Act III.

The ancient mantra of an “eye for an eye,” retribution for a crime, an insult, a mistake, is age-old. Ancient literature documents the punishment women suffered for adultery or rape—real or imagined—was public stoning.

The smug satisfaction of a jealous neighbor who accused the young woman, the self-righteous elders who fancied themselves “guardians of the law,” and the zealous athletes whose accurate aim with the handy stones was a source of pride, all gathered to put the accused “in her place” for her transgression.

Habibi would end her seventeen years shivering with fear, crouching on the ground to protect the soft tissue of her breast, her belly, her private parts. Soon that would not matter. There was no protection from the unrelenting pummeling of palm-sized stones.

Her nude, crouched body made a small knot, an easy target for the well-aimed stones that would knock out her teeth, puncture her eyes, end her hearing, break her knees, and mercifully crush her skull sending her into welcome unconsciousness and slow death while her perpetrator stood silently at the edge of the crowd—watching. When the stoning was over, the crowd dispersed, and the woman’s frail, battered body, oozing with blood and body fluids, was exposed to the jackals and raptors. Soon—like Jezebel, who died in 843 BCE—there would be nothing left of this innocent young woman but the bones of her defenseless hands.

The Law was fulfilled. The elders were satisfied. And the people were warned. From a thousand years before the time of Christ to the present, “the blood red fabric of tribal life” still clothes women whose people have not advanced up the ladder of civilization to see a woman as human.

© P.D. Sargent, Power Women: Lessons From the Ancient World. March 17, 2016.

Today, former First Lady Nancy Reagan died of congestive heart failure at age ninety-four. From 1981-1989, her tenure as wife of Ronald Reagan, one of the nation’s most respected Presidents, was one of quiet strength, emotional toughness, and support. Through her determination to serve him, her encouragement and influence on the President were monumental. She never sought self-aggrandizement.

Forceful behind the scenes, she was brilliant, charming, and an advisor of last resort. Comforting him during the stressful period of world conflict, attempted assassination, and at last the dreaded Alzheimers that stole his cognizance, she was always there for the President, shielding him from unnecessary criticisms and pressures that only a world leader can know. She brought confidence and peace of mind to a leader under constant stress of global threat.

A news commentator who knew her said she brought class to the office and restored respect for the White House. She added, “She was the most influential First Lady America has ever had.” A modern day Power Woman.

P.D. Sargent, Ed.D., author of Power Women: Lessons From the Ancient World