Queen Elizabeth I and the Persistence of Patriarchy

Abstract

Right from the start, people working in the area of Women's Studies have recognized that the restoration of women to their place in history could not be accomplished by focussing attention upon exceptional women (Kay, 1976).1 There are several good and obvious reasons why this is so, but I shall mention only one: exceptional women are not representative women, and for many such women one condition of being both exceptional and female may be that the values and practices of the male society in which they function may be accepted by them, transformed and internalized, and followed, so that they become, in effect, 'honorary males'. Now, there are probably as many styles of being an honorary male as there are reasons for becoming one, but the effect ls always the same: one image that pops into my mind is of Gertrude Stein, sitting in her salon, smoking little cigars and talking with the men. No post-prandial custom or practice is upset there-not really-it's just that Gertrude is talking with the men after dinner the way that men talk with men over cigars after dinner. The point is that while the ritual is temporarily modified, it is not permanently altered by her participation.