Ancient Female Rulers: Tang Empress Wu Zetian Pharaoh Cleopatra

Ancient Female Rulers
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Ancient Female Rulers
Comparative Analysis of Empress Wu and Pharaoh Cleopatra
The importance of leadership is increasing because of its purposes, function and benefits to the states, tribes, organizations or groups. Therefore, the role of women is also very significant as women have been playing an active part from ancient to modern times. In order to analyze the role of women, this essay is going to discuss the ancient female rulers “Empress Wu Zetian and Pharaoh Cleopatra” by developing a comparative analysis so that the characteristics of their leadership style can be highlighted effectively. The two very prominent and powerful women of their time “Empress Wu Zetian and Pharaoh Cleopatra” are known for their leadership. Empress Wu Zetian was known to be an intellectual, bold and powerful woman from the Tang dynasty which became a reason for her to be recognized as “Tang Empress Wu Zetian”. The tenure of Empress was from 624 to 705 (Pritchard, 2014). While the last Pharaoh of Egypt “Cleopatra” who was also known as the “Queen of Nile” and also had the authority of a Goddess and lived from 69 to 30B.C.E.
The significant difference is that Empress made her position among rulers through her own hard work and influential qualities and became the only female ruler in Chinese history in 3000 years. More impressively, she was one of the most effective leaders of “Tang dynasty”, often referred to as the “Chinese Golden Age”, and has supported it for the post-mortem generation. As far as leadership style is concerned, both Empress and Cleopatra took benefit from “traditional power tools and movements” in the role of gender. The Empress is remembered as a “brutal ruler” because she is said to have killed her husband, “Emperor Gaozong, Emperor Wang, her brother, mother, and countless officials” (Krivokapić, 2014)). On the contrary, Pharaoh Cleopatra was born in a monarchy as part of Greek Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt after the death of “Alexander the Great”. By the decision of her father Ptolemy XII, she assumed the position of ruler and did not give up this authority until she committed suicide several years later. Cleopatra had taken strict measures to ensure her sustainability. After the assassination of her ally Caesar, Cleopatra instructed the last remaining brother Ptolemy XIV and her sister Arsinoe to be executed. Therefore, these murders and conspiracy reputations confirm that women of both Chinese and Egyptian cultures had to use “traditional power tools” to rule the empire (Krivokapić, 2014)). This seems to suggest that only those who are w...