A Feminist Lesson From the 1500's

I just watched the movie "Mary Queen of Scots" and I had a few takeaways. While I learned a lot about the Queens and royalty at the time (the late 1500's) my main take away was the amount of female power. If you haven't seen the movie or know about this time in history, here is the short story... Mary is the Queen of Scotland and Elizabeth is the Queen of England, except some people think Mary should be the Queen of England too (including Mary) because Elizabeth was born from her father (King Henry the 8th)'s second marriage. The movie is about the fight for power and the hardships these women face. They both take a different approach to rule their land, and both are amazing examples of women in power.

Elizabeth never married and was known as the virgin queen. She did this to secure her power. Queen Elizabeth's character said multiple times how she was more man than women. While yes, that isn't the best feminist message, it is amazing to see how a woman can be a strong as a man (duh) and rule in such a powerful way. Queen Elizabeth was quoted saying "I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too." She knew that she was just as powerful as a king and showed her people that truth.

Right across the water from Elizabeth was another queen ruling. Mary Queen of Scots was in power at the same time as Queen Elizabeth. That's right ladies... there were two queens at the same time! While Mary did marry and have a child (King James VI and I), she ruled similar to Elizabeth, with girl power!

This is a pretty basic history lesson, so what? Why is this so important? I think we need to apply it to today, to 2019 when the feminist movement is growing in power and importance. As a 19-year-old girl, I want to see a female president in the US, more female lawyers, and overall equality between men and women. Keep in mind the definition of feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes."

While this movie had two amazing and strong female leads, men still had power over them. Mary's third husband basically forced her to marry him right after her second husband died. This was the start of her downfall, all due to a man. Now I'm not saying men are the enemy, lack of equality if the real enemy here. The fact that she was forced to marry him even though she was queen is insane to me. I kept on asking my mom "why can they do that? she's the queen!" and the only reason we could think of was that he was a man and he had certain powers over her. Elizabeth's council of advisors was also all men. While there was a woman sitting in the throne, there were still men urging her to make certain decisions. While I know we have come a long way in the 400 plus years, it is crazy to see that we haven't made more of a change. Elizabeth and Mary should have been the catalyst for this feminist movement, and yet 400 years later we are nowhere near as advanced as we should be.

I think my main take away from this movie is the importance of women supporting women. We all have one thing in common, a uterus. This makes us one big girl gang and we should all be sticking up for one another. Why are we working so hard to bring other women down when the only way we can truly get equality is to bring each other up? Elizabeth was the one that signed Mary's death warrant. Some sources did say that Elizabeth cried afterward, saying she never meant for it to actually happen, but this can't be confirmed. Either way, Elizabeth killed the only other women who knew what she was going through. These women shared more than just the fact that they had a uterus, they shared the experience of being queen. Instead of leaning on one another to grow stronger and create even stronger empires, they pulled each other down. Now I know times were different and the term feminist wasn't used until the late 1800s, but it is important to learn from them.

While I am not sure if this movie made the women appear more feminist than they truly were, nothing changes the fact that there were to queens in power in Europe at the same time. If this happened in the 1500's we can make it happen again. We can have female leaders because news flash England and Scotland thrived under the female rule. Take this history lesson as a conceptual one, women can do anything!

I hope you guys feel empowered as I did after watching this movie and learning about these two incredibly strong female leaders. I can't wait to see girls rule the world one day. So get off your computer (i'm about to) and go change the world! I believe in you ♡

xoxo,

Gracie

P.S. "no copyright infringement is intended"