The Queen and Feminism

[Portofino]

I was just watching a programme on 4OD about the coronation (bless my VPN connection). It has made me think about where the Queen stands in the arguments about the Patriarchy. After all she is Head of the nation and Queen of the Commonwealth.

Her husband had his attempts to have their children take HIS name thwarted by Parliament and in all honesty has carried out a subservient role for most of their married life - at least in public.

On the other hand, she is said to be a traditionalist who based her (way of carrying out her) role on that of her much loved father.

So here we have a woman who has THE top job. She is revered around the world, but is she still a "victim" of the Patriarchy?

She is only in the top job because there were no male siblings. So it is patriachal. No merit involved, just a missing Y chromosome.

it might be officially the top job, but the real power lies in the hands of parliament, so really the monarch's gender is irrelevant.

Agree with the others - she didn't get the top job because of being awesome (though I think she is) - she got it because there weren't any eligible men, which is a bit crap.

You want a good example of an amazing (feminist) Queen? Catherine the Great. Simon Sebag Montefiore wrote a very interesting biography of her.

Succssion for the Russian tsars was a bit different - it wasn't just passed to the eldest male, but whoever was the most vicious/best survivor. Peter the Great became tsar as his brother was very sickly (both were coronated at the same time, but their throne had a small "room" in the back, which historians think their sister sat in and told them what to do). The crown then passed to his niece, Elizaveta. I think it was her nephew who took over, but she thought he was a wet blanket, so she found a wife for him who she thought would be a good leader, and traced down Catherine, who was Austrian. Catherine married him, was miserable, and then effected a coup, took over the crown, chased her husband to St Petersburg, where he spent all his time playing with his rat army, and she took over Russia. Good work.

I don't have time for a more detailed response but for me my feminism is part of my desire for a meritocratic system where class and economic privilege are removed as much as possible so the gender of the monarch to me is a side issue.

Thanks for that piece of Russian history, Croissant. That was fascinating. I'm off to google Catherine the Great now! It sounds really interesting!

I think the gender of the Queen is a bit irrelevant - like Margaret Thatcher she may be a woman in a position of power but she's anti-feminist as far as I can see. She has zero impact on women's issues. She possibly could if she wished but she clearly doesn't. And I'm with Tondelayo too.

alex this is the book. It's about her and Potemkin, but all in all she was quite brilliant, particularly if you consider the time and place. She corresponded with all the Enlightenment thinkers (but politely ignored all their talk of ending absolute monarchies), reformed and modernised Russia and was generally quite amazing.
Though, later on in her reign, she and her lover Potemkin were contacted by some upstart saying that he would be happy to take a leadership position in the army, and they turned him down, thinking he was a bit of an idiot. His name was Napoleon Bonaparte. Bad move ...

Most likely Her Majesty the Queen feels that she has to stay outside politics and outside social controversies also. Part of representing everyone is that she doesn't take sides, which does make her an enigma, but look at Prince Charles with his backward-looking ideas. People just laugh.

I read somewhere that there hasn't been a British monarch in the top half of the class since Charles II (and his report would be "Could do much more, but won't apply himself") but she's conscientious and she's had the same job for a long time. A prime minister could do well to listen to her. Well, that was from someone who wanted to find good things to say.

I read a biography once upon a time, and got the impression that she was very strong minded and HAS influenced matters. I certainly didn't get any feel that she was some kind of in-bred half wit. Whatever, she has worked BLOODY hard for a very a long time.

I also got the feeling that she is someone who has dedicated herself to her job, and wasn't that hot in the mothering stakes, deferring family matters to Philip.

This is very much along the lines of - hmm feminism - what about Loose Women then?

The queen is simply not that relevant to feminism and there's not really a lot to say about her.

Not a lot to say? Sing it!

I came across an endearingly sweet but naive blog, which claimed it was "super neat" for feminism, that coins of Commonwealth countries show an image of the Queen's head on them.

Although she does not have power she does have influence. However she's not allowed to be political on ANY issue, which is perhaps why she doesn't do anything about women's rights (..?)

And which side would she be on?

"The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights', with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety."

(That's Victoria, if you didn't know.)

Haha, Queen Victoria still insisted on everyone doing exactly what she told them. I'm sure she would have been pretty pissed off if they'd disobeyed her because she was a woman...