A Look at Female Power in the Past and Present
In this episode special guest is Dr. Kara Cooney, Egyptologist, and author of When Women Ruled the World. Did you know that thousands of years ago ancient Egypt allowed women to rule and they called them Kings?! Amazing as it sounds there was still a very prevalent undercurrent of patriarchy that they ruled in, one that still exists today in the majority of positions of power. Exploring female power in the past can teach us a lot about female power today and Kara explains the similarities and differences between the times. We have lived by the rules of patriarchy for a long time now, and it’s about time for a change!
About the Guest:
Dr. Kathlyn (Kara) Cooney is a professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA. Specializing in craft production, coffin studies, and economies in the ancient world, she received her Ph.D. in Egyptology from Johns Hopkins University. When Women Ruled the World, Her most recent book was published in 2018 by National Geographic Press and explored the reigns of six powerful ancient Egyptian queens and how they changed our perceptions of power.
Links:
https://nelc.ucla.edu/person/kara-cooney/
Instagram:
Book:
https://www.amazon.ca/When-Women-Ruled-World-Queens/dp/1426219776
Transcript
Welcome to the wealth and wellness podcast with
Kalee Boisvert:me Kayleigh, Bob air. I specialize in helping people to
Kalee Boisvert:achieve their financial goals. I have a love for all things
Kalee Boisvert:numbers, and I'm passionate about financial literacy. My
Kalee Boisvert:goal is to spark healthy and positive conversations around
Kalee Boisvert:wealth and investment and create a world where nobody is limited
Kalee Boisvert:by their financial situation. But wealth is just one piece of
Kalee Boisvert:the equation of living our best lives. So join me as we explore
Kalee Boisvert:both wealth and wellness topics. From your net worth to your self
Kalee Boisvert:worth. Get ready to take confident action. Hello, this is
Kalee Boisvert:Kaylee and thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the
Kalee Boisvert:wealth and wellness podcast. Very excited for today's guest
Kalee Boisvert:and today's topic. I'm all about empowering women. You know,
Kalee Boisvert:women being in control of their their money, their finances. So
Kalee Boisvert:I think this is a really neat topic. So we have special
Kalee Boisvert:guests, Dr. Kara Cooney, who is a professor of Egyptian art and
Kalee Boisvert:architecture at UCLA, specializing in craft
Kalee Boisvert:production, coffin studies and economies in the ancient world.
Kalee Boisvert:She received her PhD in Egypt homology from John Johns Hopkins
Kalee Boisvert:University, and her new book when women ruled the world was
Kalee Boisvert:published in 2018, by National Geographic press, and explores
Kalee Boisvert:the reigns of six powerful ancient Egyptian queens and how
Kalee Boisvert:they change our perceptions of power. So we're gonna go all
Kalee Boisvert:into that. I love it. I'm excited. Thank you so much for
Kalee Boisvert:being with us today. Kara. Just to get started. Is there
Kalee Boisvert:anything to add to that a little bit about your journey? And what
Kalee Boisvert:brought you to do this work?
Dr. Kara Cooney:No, no, I'm sure I'm completely different
Dr. Kara Cooney:from any of the other guests on your podcast. I hope I'm the
Dr. Kara Cooney:first Egyptologist if I'm not, I'll be disappointed.
Kalee Boisvert:So definitely the first Egyptologist,
Kalee Boisvert:absolutely. Which is exciting and new. And you're right, very
Kalee Boisvert:different. Because oftentimes, we're okay, we're very money
Kalee Boisvert:focused, or we're wellness focused. But I think this is a
Kalee Boisvert:very important piece for women to talk about. Because when
Kalee Boisvert:we're when we're talking about finances, and careers, and
Kalee Boisvert:things like that, there is still this balance of power that, you
Kalee Boisvert:know, is not completely equivalent. And I work in a very
Kalee Boisvert:male dominated industry, still only about 15% women, female
Kalee Boisvert:advisors, which is unfortunate. And so there's work to be done.
Kalee Boisvert:So it's amazing to know that going into our past, there was
Kalee Boisvert:actually a difference there.
Unknown:Yeah, a little bit, but but all under cut it too. So
Unknown:don't you worry. Okay, I'll get there.
Kalee Boisvert:So can you tell us a bit about okay, so female
Kalee Boisvert:power in the past? And how you know what that looked like then
Kalee Boisvert:in this in this book that were you talking about when women
Kalee Boisvert:ruled the world?
Unknown:Yeah, Egypt was this strange and unusual place that
Unknown:allowed women to act as nothing less than leader of state as
Unknown:king, and they called them kings. So but for people get
Unknown:upset that I'm not using the word queen. That's why the
Unknown:Egyptians called them kings. And they allowed them to rule from
Unknown:the very beginnings of their kingship to the ends of their,
Unknown:their kingship and women, powerful women really bookend
Unknown:the entire scheme, which gives you an idea that, when when, and
Unknown:here's the dirty little secret of the whole thing, when
Unknown:authoritarian power is held in the hands of one family, women
Unknown:are needed. I could have written a book that was all about how it
Unknown:was a revisionist history, claiming that women were more
Unknown:powerful than they were. Instead, I wrote a book that
Unknown:said, women are capable of ruling, and there are their
Unknown:workplaces in the past that allowed them to rule. But don't
Unknown:misunderstand that these women couldn't change the system. From
Unknown:the inside out, they ruled in the same patriarchy that we
Unknown:exist in today. And they had to play by those rules as well. So
Unknown:it from your perspective, being a woman in finance, where
Unknown:there's only what 8% female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and as
Unknown:you say, 15% financial advisors, finance is the economic power is
Unknown:one of the places where women are, are really barred from
Unknown:playing. And if you know that, and you learn from these women
Unknown:who couldn't change the patriarchy, you can you can gain
Unknown:some insight on how to find your way forward in a man's world.
Kalee Boisvert:What can you say that about these women? And like
Kalee Boisvert:was there differences to how they ruled versus how men ruled
Kalee Boisvert:like it sounds like they kind of had to follow the rule. But was
Kalee Boisvert:there some differences there?
Unknown:There are always differences. There have to be
Unknown:any woman who rules and I'm chair of my department. So I
Unknown:understand this women who rule in whatever small or large
Unknown:capacity I know that they are expected to rule differently and
Unknown:that they have to fulfill certain expectations. And if
Unknown:they don't, then they will be Hillary Clinton or Yoko Ono,
Unknown:however you want to, you want to see it because a woman who, who
Unknown:is openly ambitious and claims power that is not perceived to
Unknown:be her own, who is not playing by patriarchal rules, because
Unknown:usually quashed pretty effectively and pretty quickly.
Unknown:So if you're going to be strategic about it, then you you
Unknown:have to play by the game of being more peaceful, being more
Unknown:self denigrating, laughing more being, there's all kinds of
Unknown:things a woman just knows in her bones she has to do. And I will
Unknown:say, for these ancient women, the only reason they were chosen
Unknown:is because they didn't have armies behind them. They weren't
Unknown:trained in professions, they weren't socially embedded. And
Unknown:as such, they were the Safer Choice when say, a young king
Unknown:comes to the throne, and he's unready to rule. And you need a
Unknown:decision maker, because the kids like seven or eight, no one's
Unknown:gonna let a seven or eight year old make decisions. But do you
Unknown:have the uncle of the kid make the decisions? Or do you have
Unknown:his mother make the decisions, and the mother the Egyptians
Unknown:realize was the better choice, because the uncle might be able
Unknown:to raise an army he's embedded in society is going to be able
Unknown:to create competition against his nephew, the mother probably
Unknown:won't want to do that because she loves her boy. But say you
Unknown:choose a mother who's not directly related to this boy,
Unknown:even in that case, she's a safer bet, because she doesn't have
Unknown:access to all of the social tools that men who are embedded
Unknown:in society do. And and so she's expected to rule and then when
Unknown:when her time is done, just be quiet, sweetheart, go away.
Unknown:We're done with you now. And and you're, you're good to go. So,
Unknown:these women did roll rather as placeholders. But they were
Unknown:chosen by a male driven and male lead system, because they could
Unknown:be so effectively used as placeholders. Men were more
Unknown:difficult to use in that way, they got more powerful within
Unknown:the system, as they went up that ladder, and women often don't.
Unknown:And that's something that we need to think about. Why is
Unknown:that? How is that? Why is it so hard for a woman in a king ship
Unknown:or in a corporate space to gain a legacy to train people
Unknown:underneath her to be a leader? of many how, why does a woman
Unknown:have to compete with other woman women, why she set up to do
Unknown:that? It's a very common thing in the corporate world. In my
Unknown:university world, women are often trying to take out other
Unknown:women, but we shouldn't expect any less. That's the patriarchal
Unknown:system. We're all looking towards the guy at the top and
Unknown:trying to take each other out to get to that guy. So my opinion
Unknown:is just like racism, if you understand that racism is
Unknown:inherent to the human species, but with education and, and
Unknown:communication, and openness, we can we can transcend it. The
Unknown:same with sexism, if that's something that's inbred, that's
Unknown:arguable, but we certainly live in a patriarchal system. So
Unknown:given that it's nicer to give it a cold, hard stare, and say,
Unknown:Okay, how am I going to get over that hill? And that's the way I
Unknown:tend to do it.
Kalee Boisvert:Yeah, absolutely. That's very, like
Kalee Boisvert:very interesting and ways of looking at that and questions to
Kalee Boisvert:ask of why, why is this happening? And why does it look
Kalee Boisvert:like that? When you were saying like in those positions, and
Kalee Boisvert:they were good placeholders, then were they taken serious
Kalee Boisvert:like was that still that they were taken serious in their
Kalee Boisvert:role?
Unknown:They're taken seriously, but they're also not
Unknown:given the full range of options that a man will have. And let me
Unknown:just give you a biological example. So a man in the
Unknown:position of King, what's the king most known to have? How is
Unknown:he going to create his legacy, he's got a harem of women, whom
Unknown:he will impregnate with many different children, and one of
Unknown:those male children will be chosen as king after him. But he
Unknown:will then have a variety of princes and princesses to use,
Unknown:as his legacy. Now, biologically, was just the way
Unknown:mammals work, the female creates the baby inside of her body,
Unknown:very taxing, if you have done it, I have done it, it's a hard
Unknown:thing. It's not easy. And then all the things that come after
Unknown:and the breastfeeding, the caretaking, and the hormone
Unknown:changes, it's not an easy thing, to have a an alien take over
Unknown:your body. And to deal with that, plus, you can only have
Unknown:one a year. And the man can have 365 a year if he is if he is so
Unknown:endowed. And so in those terms, just in terms of biology, a man
Unknown:is less burdened with caretaking hormonally physically than a
Unknown:woman is whether it's having children or not in our world,
Unknown:right. So think of it in our world. So imagine that you're a
Unknown:professor like me, and and let's imagine that we humans have
Unknown:pheromones that we can't even sense or that we have social
Unknown:cues that we don't really understand. I with my door open
Unknown:and more liable to get undergraduates in my office
Unknown:weeping about their problems than my male colleagues who give
Unknown:off a strong male vibe and so they don't have to deal with all
Unknown:of that caretaking. Whereas I'm caretaking all the time. And I
Unknown:have to put up like a certain front to be able to not
Unknown:caretaker, I have to often not be in my office so that I don't
Unknown:have to take on that role. And it means that even in a
Unknown:corporate space, women are leading less creating less
Unknown:progeny, if you like, less legacy, and taking care and
Unknown:cleaning up messes more, which means that, and we're expected
Unknown:to do this, this is part of what we do. So you've got to bust it
Unknown:and work twice as hard to be able to have both to be able to
Unknown:have your legacy and, and be able to caretake and clean up
Unknown:all the crap that's happening in that corporate workspace. And if
Unknown:you want to have kids, in addition, you know, just to take
Unknown:on that private life aspect, if you do want to have a child, how
Unknown:are you going to literally farm that out as you as you work
Unknown:through the corporate world to be able to have all of these
Unknown:things it's it's very difficult to negotiate what's expected
Unknown:and, and that are an unspoken, unspoken and biases that people
Unknown:don't even know they have. And and try to find some power in
Unknown:your workplace. It's what makes women get that stereotypical
Unknown:reputation of the bitch. Because if she doesn't care, take and
Unknown:smile and stroke ego, then she is considered on feminine,
Unknown:highly problematic. Something that that is upsetting to the
Unknown:social core, and we don't talk enough about why and how that
Unknown:works. Absolutely, we
Kalee Boisvert:don't know. And then when it came to so when it
Kalee Boisvert:was women ruling the world, how is the finances looked at then
Kalee Boisvert:because I'm writing a book and I'm on this chapter right now
Kalee Boisvert:about not giving up your control. And so often women,
Kalee Boisvert:it's just like, okay, you know, my husband takes care of this,
Kalee Boisvert:my boyfriend takes care of this. And I'm like, we can't do that
Kalee Boisvert:anymore. Gotta stay engaged, stay involved. What did it look
Kalee Boisvert:like back then? Was there power for women in finances? Like, did
Kalee Boisvert:they have that that ability that
Unknown:Egyptian women did have this ability. It's funny you say
Unknown:this about finances. I had a really horrible car accident in
Unknown:1999. And I gave financial control to my partner then that
Unknown:turned out horribly, I know divorced from him. But oh my god
Unknown:and credit cards in my name I didn't know about and when I
Unknown:divorced, it was a credit card debt of hundreds of 1000s of
Unknown:dollars, that of course I was then liable for as well. So at
Unknown:least I'm in California that the half payment kind of worked for
Unknown:me, because he had to at least pay half of it. But anyway, in
Unknown:Egypt, women, this is normal women, not just queens or
Unknown:princesses. Women could bring money into a marriage, they
Unknown:could initiate a divorce, and they could take money out of a
Unknown:marriage. So they had their own independence in a way that other
Unknown:parts of the ancient world did not like Greece or Rome or
Unknown:Mesopotamia or the Levant. Women did have this economic power. It
Unknown:didn't equal that of men. However, because they couldn't
Unknown:enter professions, and patriarchal societies, until
Unknown:recently, did not allow women to enter professions unless they
Unknown:gave up their sexuality entirely. Which is why you see
Unknown:an abbess in charge of all kinds of finance. Why did they let a
Unknown:nun do this? Well, she doesn't have children. She doesn't have
Unknown:a legacy. She's not going to complicate things. Okay, well
Unknown:let her take over all of the money. You could say Elizabeth,
Unknown:the first Queen Elizabeth. The first is this similar example
Unknown:and these Egyptian women. Women like Hatshepsut, you know, she
Unknown:doesn't have a son as a legacy. She wouldn't be there. If she'd
Unknown:had a son, she's ruling with her nephew. But she would have been
Unknown:as much a part of ruling Egypt's economy as he would have. And
Unknown:until he came of age, she would have ruled at all and made all
Unknown:the decisions about what went where, having said that, and
Unknown:this is a really interesting point for hardship suit, female
Unknown:King of the 18th dynasty before her reign, the nobles of Egypt
Unknown:had nice things, you know, tunes, chapels, statues,
Unknown:reasonably nice things during her reign. They have the nicest
Unknown:things you could possibly imagine. They have beautiful
Unknown:tomb chapels and statues and all kinds of things. They were
Unknown:spending money. There were more of these nobles than ever
Unknown:before. It means that Hatshepsut in many ways had to give to get
Unknown:she had to pay people off. How do we pay people off? It's never
Unknown:like, I'm gonna give you this, you're gonna give me that. It's
Unknown:like, oh, I will make you the great overseer of the robes, you
Unknown:know, and you will receive this salary and then you will be
Unknown:beholden to me. She makes all of these different positions within
Unknown:her kingship. And they're, they're useful to her but that
Unknown:means that she's letting tons of cash however you want to
Unknown:understand that for the ancient world out of Her treasuries, and
Unknown:the Egyptian court, or the king ship is diminished for
Unknown:generations thereafter. So I think it's expected that for
Unknown:women to gain power, they also have to maybe distribute a
Unknown:little bit more of that than would be expected. It's
Unknown:something to look at, right? It's something to think about
Unknown:when you're in your corporate workspace or you're, you're
Unknown:trying to bust in, in some profession here or there. What
Unknown:do people expect you to give them? How much do they expect
Unknown:you to share? How much do they think they have helped you
Unknown:achieve? And that they get a cut of in some way? These these are
Unknown:interesting things to see in the ancient record and then to
Unknown:connect to the modern day.
Kalee Boisvert:Yeah, well, even in like direct, like financial
Kalee Boisvert:life, like I have a chapter about loving your money too. And
Kalee Boisvert:I said, as women it's like, we think it's greedy or selfish to
Kalee Boisvert:say I love money. I want abundance. And we think we have
Kalee Boisvert:to give it all away. So often women are just, it comes in and
Kalee Boisvert:it's like, okay, I'll give it to my children. I'll give it to
Kalee Boisvert:other people. And there's nothing left. So it's so funny
Kalee Boisvert:to think that that that was like something very ongoing and it's
Kalee Boisvert:so ingrained then maybe that's connected
Unknown:to caretaking. Yes, connected with caretaking.
Unknown:Right. So we have all of these stereotypes of the woman who
Unknown:spends too much on clothing, shoes, handbags, plastic
Unknown:surgery. It's interesting how much of that those handbags and
Unknown:shoes are considered gifts from the man everyone wants a handbag
Unknown:from their man or a diamond ring from their man, then it's okay.
Unknown:Because he's marking her as his property in a patriarchal world.
Unknown:She buys it for herself, then it's like, Oh, my God, think of
Unknown:the good that you could have done with that money. I mean, I
Unknown:actually happen to agree with that. And I think these handbags
Unknown:are stupid, but that's just me. Right? If you want the handbag,
Unknown:then you should be able to buy it for yourself. But it's it's
Unknown:part of that caretaking? It really is. It's and it also
Unknown:reminds me of Do you know anything about micro loans? I
Unknown:think so yes, this is a really interesting anthropological
Unknown:rabbit hole for you to go down. Because there are micro loans
Unknown:given to women and traditional cultures. And they generally by
Unknown:and large, do not give them to men. These are like small loans
Unknown:of 50 bucks, where you can buy a cow, take the milk, make it into
Unknown:cheese, create a small business, take care of your family, right?
Unknown:If they give men those micro loans, they have found on in
Unknown:general that the men take it to the bar and create social
Unknown:capital, which works very well for them buying drinks for all
Unknown:the guys creating gift debt. And they'll be able to you know, but
Unknown:it's not going to help the family. It's not money put into
Unknown:caretaking. Whereas when they give it to the women, the women
Unknown:make very different decisions embedded within the patriarchal
Unknown:society as they are unable to have professions. They make
Unknown:different decisions. It's why women are also drawn to all of
Unknown:these pyramid schemes that we see in the world today. Because
Unknown:they're stuck at home, they can't get out. And so they ended
Unknown:up selling bad leggings or whatever some of these other
Unknown:schemes are.
Kalee Boisvert:Yeah, okay. Interesting. I love it. These
Kalee Boisvert:are all very interesting points and to see how it played out in
Kalee Boisvert:the history versus now. What What would you think could be
Kalee Boisvert:different now like with what's going on in the world? I mean,
Kalee Boisvert:we're we have a war happening right now with leaders. And I
Kalee Boisvert:say, in my mind, I believe if more women were in the position
Kalee Boisvert:of power, this wouldn't be happening at all. I agree. What
Kalee Boisvert:can we say to that then? And how like, was there differences in
Kalee Boisvert:in violence and actual, you know, war and things like that,
Kalee Boisvert:historically, when women ruled?
Unknown:Yeah, women of the ancient world had to do what men
Unknown:did. So the first woman I talk about in the book, when women
Unknown:will the world is a is the only woman who didn't become a female
Unknown:king in the lineup, but she's very good as a king, and her
Unknown:name is Mary Kay. And she is a queen of the first dynasty. And
Unknown:she rolled on behalf of her young son, who then when he grew
Unknown:up, took over and buried her as a king in the in the royal
Unknown:cemetery. This woman when her son was thrown in throne
Unknown:crowned, she ended up engaging in the same human sacrifice that
Unknown:had occurred in her father's reign. And that would occur when
Unknown:her son died after so the first dynasty is known for human
Unknown:sacrifice. When the king dies, not a couple of people and not
Unknown:enemies of state, that people have the court, wives of the
Unknown:king, sons of the King brothers of the king, these people would
Unknown:be sacrificed. And we don't even know exactly how poisoned maybe
Unknown:some sort of blunt force trauma, it's not clear, but hundreds of
Unknown:bodies around the body of the king and they were purposefully
Unknown:buried all at one time. So you could look at some women and
Unknown:say, women ruled differently and make that blanket statement. In
Unknown:some ways. I'll agree with you within the context of a
Unknown:patriarchy. However, women do what they need to do if they're
Unknown:occupying the position of a man is the decision holder that a
Unknown:man would have the place that him And what happens, if it is
Unknown:expected that blood be spilled, she will do it and marinate when
Unknown:she puts her son on the throne or she watches her son be put on
Unknown:the throne by all of these priests. And it is expected that
Unknown:this human sacrifice take place, we can assume that she made the
Unknown:decision about who lived and who died. And it's a very
Unknown:interesting thing that she decided that more males would be
Unknown:sacrificed. And it's a defensive strategic strategy, right? To
Unknown:make sure that not too many males were around of her son's
Unknown:age of her son stature to take his power away. So she's the
Unknown:best offense for her was a good defense. And she she made the
Unknown:decision not to kill as many wives for her for the burial of
Unknown:her former husband, but her dead husband, but instead to kill
Unknown:more of the males that could potentially compete with her
Unknown:son. So her being a woman didn't make her any more Pacific. It
Unknown:didn't make her any calmer. She had to do what she had to do. I
Unknown:will say, though, that the expectations of a woman and the
Unknown:way a woman is embedded in society generally do make a
Unknown:woman less violent than a man, I agree with you. I think that if
Unknown:there was a woman, President of Russia, well, first of all, I
Unknown:don't think it would be as as drastically authoritarian as it
Unknown:is. And secondly, I don't think that you would do something so
Unknown:boneheaded ly stupid is just decide to invade another place
Unknown:and take it like this is mine. It's just such bullying,
Unknown:playground behavior, right. And I also like to think as a
Unknown:historian looking at things over a very long duration of time, my
Unknown:history goes back 5000 years, I like to think that we are now
Unknown:existing in a late stage patriarchy, patriarchy is
Unknown:failing, and it's failing before our eyes. I'd also like to
Unknown:remind your listeners that patriarchy is very young, in the
Unknown:long term scheme of things. 10,000 years old, at best, were
Unknown:where we are in the United States, maybe four or 500 years
Unknown:old, you know, in most very young, this idea of farming and
Unknown:hoarding resources and social inequality and, and violent
Unknown:invasions and things like that. Not that you didn't have islands
Unknown:before. But this this kind of patriarchal hoarding, and seeing
Unknown:a forest of value only when it's cut down and made into lumber.
Unknown:This is, this is rather new, and it's not something that's
Unknown:sustainable anymore. I think we all feel it. It's interesting
Unknown:that it's something that unites both right and left, both right
Unknown:and left, look at the world around us and go, Oh, my God, we
Unknown:are all of us perched on the edge of a cliff, ready to jump
Unknown:into, we don't know what Now, some people on the hard right
Unknown:will say, Well, we have to go back, we have to go back to what
Unknown:we had before. And they'll be like, no, no, we're not, we're
Unknown:just not going to go there. We're just gonna go back as if
Unknown:that's possible, right? And most of society is like, no, no, no,
Unknown:we have almost 8 billion people on the planet, something's
Unknown:happening, people are deciding not to get married not to have
Unknown:babies. In Los Angeles, where I live, the amount of people
Unknown:opting out of society entirely, as homeless junkies is
Unknown:extraordinary. Or they're just like, you know, I'm just not
Unknown:going to do anything. It's amazing to see and disturbing.
Unknown:But you can see society changing very quickly around you. And to
Unknown:see all of those things is it's, it just makes one realize that
Unknown:we are on the edge of something very big. And what can Egypt
Unknown:teach us from this, I mean, Egypt teaches us that human
Unknown:beings, if they can just recreate it and do it all again,
Unknown:they will, they'll they'll have the downward slide. And then
Unknown:they'll build it all back up, again, another downward slide,
Unknown:build it all back up again. And they'll do that again and again.
Unknown:But we're reaching a point where the earth isn't going to sustain
Unknown:that kind of smashing and grabbing that kind of male
Unknown:against male violence. And people are seeing it very
Unknown:clearly for what it is the social inequalities, the race
Unknown:inequalities, that gender inequalities, and people are
Unknown:pissed off, and, and opting out in their ways creating their own
Unknown:black markets, if you will, their own their own side.
Unknown:hustles. But there's a lot of anger, I guess, people have to
Unknown:be worth $300 billion, like Jeff Bezos, before we realized that
Unknown:we have kings in our myths, too.
Kalee Boisvert:Yeah. Yeah, that yeah, where the money is, the
Kalee Boisvert:power is as well now, that's where it resides, which is
Kalee Boisvert:interesting. So what can we say that like, can we take like, it
Kalee Boisvert:sounds like, okay, there were women rulers, but oftentimes,
Kalee Boisvert:they were following by the rules and almost like, the strategy
Kalee Boisvert:was, you know, to stay there and to appease the men, it was, you
Kalee Boisvert:know, follow the rules and do it this way. So can we can we learn
Kalee Boisvert:from the rulers of the past these women or is it you know,
Kalee Boisvert:can we learn what not to do or what we can do because you're
Kalee Boisvert:right there is that what did you call it that Hillary Clinton
Kalee Boisvert:where it was, you know, she was evil and a terrible person. And
Kalee Boisvert:so it's just like, you can't win that and it's, you know, you go
Kalee Boisvert:under the radar and you follow the sort of Male kind of
Kalee Boisvert:expectation or you stand out from the crowd and you get booed
Kalee Boisvert:just as much and, and yeah, call up like that your your mean and
Kalee Boisvert:looked at like as a man or something like that and bossy or
Kalee Boisvert:whatever they want to call you. So what is it? What can we
Kalee Boisvert:learn? Or what can we do now,
Unknown:with Egyptian women can teach us how a patriarchal
Unknown:society works. And we can learn that way. Egypt is so useful to
Unknown:me as you look at Egypt, and you're like, Oh, my God, look at
Unknown:those weird crowns. There's some silly oh my god, look at those
Unknown:weird gods, we would never do that. And then the more you
Unknown:study them more I study them. The more I write about them, the
Unknown:more I realize we're just like them. But Egypt allows us to see
Unknown:rule that's over the top, you know, I am a God King. And we
Unknown:don't see it in our own society because they're dressed like us.
Unknown:They're they use our own ciphers. I'm sure it was the
Unknown:same in Egypt, too. And even when you know, these guys have
Unknown:private islands and jets and yachts that are like, you can't
Unknown:even believe it, right? We still don't really see the power right
Unknown:in front of our eyes. And the reason I use Egypt is because as
Unknown:my main comparison for studying the world around me today, is
Unknown:because it's so obvious the social inequalities, the
Unknown:inequities, the the grab, and you know, the power plays. And I
Unknown:think we need to see more of that in our world today. Did we
Unknown:did the Egyptians, the women teach us anything? I mean, they
Unknown:they teach us what it's like to get pushed back down, they teach
Unknown:us what back lashes, they teach us that as soon as we think
Unknown:we've made it, that we have another year of the woman,
Unknown:they're going to push us back down again, they teach us that
Unknown:having a female body is probably the biggest liability, and it's
Unknown:something we will never change. Because if we want to have
Unknown:children, this is something we have to go along with. If you
Unknown:cannot transcend your breasts and your ovaries, it's not going
Unknown:to happen. You can deny them. But is that what makes you happy
Unknown:is that when you're on your deathbed, and you're dying,
Unknown:you're gonna be like, Oh, I built a corporation, you're
Unknown:gonna be like, I'm my children, which is and I think the man
Unknown:would feel the same way. Right? What makes you happy? And on
Unknown:your deathbed. That's what I always think about it. Like,
Unknown:what do I want on my deathbed? What am I going to be working
Unknown:towards? I wrote a lot about this. You mentioned when women
Unknown:ruled the world, but I wrote a book recently called the good
Unknown:kings, which deals with all of these feminists tropes. Money
Unknown:Power, how this works, but through a hard patriarchal lens,
Unknown:looking at kingship, and my last chapter is like, well, what the
Unknown:hell do we do now? We're stuck in this patriarchal system. It's
Unknown:the water in which we swim, we can hardly see anything else.
Unknown:How are we supposed to overcome this? How are we supposed to
Unknown:find our way forward, and it is happening all around us, we just
Unknown:we need to look at those things. We need to look at women out
Unknown:earning college degrees, women acting as breadwinners of their
Unknown:family, women acting as caretakers. And as breadwinners,
Unknown:we need to see how people are opting out of binary gender
Unknown:entirely. And we have a whole transgender movement that is we
Unknown:also see at the same time the the vociferous and very brutal
Unknown:pushback in states like Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, we could go
Unknown:on Georgia, right. And we see the racism very clearly, around
Unknown:us as well. So I suppose what what I would say is that, we
Unknown:need to realize that just because we're modern, and we
Unknown:have televisions and iPads, and mics, you know, like, I'm
Unknown:talking to you with the headphones, whatever, space
Unknown:spaceships and satellites that were just animals on this
Unknown:planet, and we need to get along with this planet. And I think
Unknown:the last chapter of my book, I'm like, Okay, how do we smash the
Unknown:patriarchy? How does that even work? What is it? And so these
Unknown:women teach us what patriarchy is teach us how it keeps you in
Unknown:your place. And it's it teaches us that it takes a very long
Unknown:time to undo patterns of seeing and ways of being, you know,
Unknown:like, I'm 50 years old. And, and, you know, 30 years ago, I
Unknown:would just be some old gross lady, and now we see women
Unknown:maintaining a sexual hotness into their crone years. And I
Unknown:intend to try to do that, as well, right? By showing wrinkles
Unknown:and being normal and not plastic surgery in it for a man and
Unknown:getting the boob job and all of that, but, but embracing a
Unknown:different kind of feminine attraction and trying to not go
Unknown:silent and unseen. as I age, there's all kinds of things that
Unknown:I could talk about that the patriarchy totally messes with
Unknown:our brains about, and how if we see it, clearly, we use a place
Unknown:like Egypt to see it. We're like, Oh, crap, it's everywhere.
Unknown:It's all around us. And that we're just as ancient as we ever
Unknown:were. So how are we going to make something really, really
Unknown:new? And really different that works for all this? I think we
Unknown:can all agree that society right now looks pretty bad.
Kalee Boisvert:Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. Well thank you so
Kalee Boisvert:much. I love this conversation. I could talk this kind of stuff
Kalee Boisvert:all day long. I know very much like the focus of my book, which
Kalee Boisvert:is really about women and money and, and trying to exactly
Kalee Boisvert:understand that and how can we change this? And just yeah in
Kalee Boisvert:ourselves like how can we really be happy and satisfied then as
Kalee Boisvert:women in our careers in our financial lives and with family
Kalee Boisvert:and all that to resolve this pressure? So, love this
Kalee Boisvert:conversation? If anyone wants to read further, what's the best
Kalee Boisvert:way for them to I guess, reach out to you or find your books or
Kalee Boisvert:anything like that?
Unknown:Yeah, if you Google my name Kara with a que Cooney with
Unknown:a C, you'll find my website pretty easily. Okay, and you can
Unknown:go from there. I have a podcast called afterlives with Kara
Unknown:Cooney, and I make the ancient world relevant. And we look at
Unknown:the past and I'm like, Oh, my God, this is still happening
Unknown:today and look at this craziness. And we, we look at
Unknown:where we came from, to try to understand where we are. And I'm
Unknown:on substack. And I'm also on Facebook and Twitter. I find
Unknown:myself posting there less and, and trying to control a little
Unknown:bit more of my content now that what's his face is by Twitter,
Unknown:you know where to go, right? Elon Musk, and so, you know, all
Unknown:these billionaires, all these kings, just taking more and
Unknown:more. It's very annoying. And so I like to go to those platforms
Unknown:that are a little smaller, more Mom and Pop, and try to say more
Unknown:there.
Kalee Boisvert:Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And I can
Kalee Boisvert:include some of that in the show notes as well. Oh, yeah. Great.
Kalee Boisvert:Thank you so much. That was awesome. I love this
Kalee Boisvert:conversation.
Unknown:Thank you so much, Kaylee. It was fun.
Kalee Boisvert:It's good. It's empowering as women talking
Kalee Boisvert:about this because it's like, Okay, we got work to do and we
Kalee Boisvert:know it now. And let's be aware, and let's do something about it.
Kalee Boisvert:Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Thank you everyone
Kalee Boisvert:for listening into this episode, and I will catch you on next
Kalee Boisvert:week's episode. Good bye for now.
Kalee Boisvert:I hope you found value in this episode. And because I'm such a
Kalee Boisvert:proponent of taking confident action, I want to pose a
Kalee Boisvert:question to you the listener. What is one action that you feel
Kalee Boisvert:inspired to take after listening to today's episode? If you enjoy
Kalee Boisvert:listening, please subscribe and share with your friends and
Kalee Boisvert:family. Thank you so much and I will catch you next time.