Sex, politics, and power | Rachel Liddell | TEDxMiddlebury

So last year I served

as the student government
association president,

and I'm pretty proud of that
because I worked really heard

to get that position.

I spent weeks planning
and executing a campaign,

handing out flyers, canvassing the
student body, and putting up posters.

It was all around pretty ruthless
self-promotion.

There was one poster in particular
that I really loved.

It featured a series of pictures of me
making funny faces,

you can laugh...that's the point of it

and I was making these silly faces
and I loved it

because I thought it made me
really approachable,

fun-loving, like someone
you might wanna have dinner with.

And since I'm always a bit nervous

that people think I'm a little uptight,

this was the perfect poster for me.

So I put it up in Proctor and I left it

hoping that everyone would like it
just as much as I did.

But when I came back the next day,

I noticed something different:

Someone had made
an addition to this poster.

You see that picture
at the bottom, in the center,

where my mouth is open?

So I didn't really think that much
of this picture, because

like, I open my mouth all the time

I'm gonna do it a couple of times
in the course of the next 20 minutes.

Please brace yourself
if you find that offensive...

And so I didn't really
worry about this picture,

but someone saw it

and they thought to themselves,
you know, :"I'm inspired!"

And they drew a penis in my mouth ...

I'm glad that you think it's funny...

I took down the poster, I put it in
my backpack, I went home,

I grumbled, saw all my friends,

and I called my dad.
And I remember telling him, :

"I should have expected this,

I should have anticipated it. This
was bound to happen,

I deserve this, I'm putting so much
information about myself

out into the world, I'm bound to get
some negative feedback."

And at the same time I felt
so personally attacked,

this this 'dickish' doodler
actually hated me.

He hated my guts...or she, I guess.

And I felt like this was about me
as an individual,

but over time, after serving
for a full year

as a student government
association president,

and after paying a little bit more
attention

to our national political atmosphere,
I've noticed that there's a pattern here:

I'm not alone, my situation
isn't unique or even special.

We have this tendency to sexualize women,

to turn them into sexual objects,
and we do it especially,

or maybe incredibly, to powerful women,

to women in positions of power.

And this phenomenon isn't new,
it's not fair, it's not okay.

Cleopatra is often called
the 'Queen of Kings',

which I think is kind of
a fabulous title...

I'm hoping to have some business cards
made that say that ...

And she was a pretty cool lady,

she was one of the most powerful women

in the ancient world,

and she was pharaoh in Egypt.

But the beginning of her
political career

started off a little bit rocky.

you know...take hope if you're suffering
from a similar situation...

She was married to this guy

who wasn't doing a very good job
ruling Egypt.

He was also her brother, which was normal
at the time.

Part of the problem that
he was running into

was that he was a pre-teen,

and he just wasn't doing
a very good job ruling.

Egypt was facing a lot of trouble
during this era:

famine, drought, political unrest,

the rise of the Roman Empire.

So Cleopatra takes charge.

she puts her face on the coins
instead of his,

you know, the gist.

And her brother Ptolomy doesn't like this

and he exiles her.

and she's sitting and exile,

trying to figure out how she's going
to get back on the throne,

so she's pays Caesar a visit.

Now, Caesar is the head
of the Roman Empire

and they form an alliance.

It's part political, part romantic.

She gives him some ships and some grain
and a son named Caesarion,

and in turn he helps her
regain her throne.

He defeats Ptolomy's armies

and, suspiciously, her brother drowns,

she becomes the pharaoh of Egypt.

So this works out
really well for a while,

but as you probably know,

Caesar was assassinated.

So it's kind of a short-lived victory,

and Cleopatra has to figure out
what she's going to do next.

She chooses not to align herself

with the legal era of the Roman Empire,

hoping that at some point,

her son will sit on the throne of that
Empire.

So she decides to form an alliance
with Mark Antony.

Again, it's a little bit romantic,
a little bit political,

but Mark Antony is on the losing
side of history;

he loses battle after battle,

and eventually retreats all the way
back up to Alexandria.

Cleopatra and Mark Antony reunite,

and at the end of the day,

they are both dead by their own hands.

Now, you're maybe thinking
to yourself:

"I think she's missing part of this story,

like the part where Cleopatra
goes and visits Caesar

rapped in a rug

and where she pops out of the rug

and she's so hot."

You know that part ?

Well, a lot of historians
don't thinks that's true.

Another part you might
think that I'm missing

is Shakespeare's version of the death
of Cleopatra,

that she dies in a sort of

Romeo and Juliet Part Two version

of the suicide pact.

She dies by a snake bite, an asp,
on her breast.

And some historians do think

that a snake bite is
what killed Cleopatra,

but it was probably on her arm.

The idea of a snake on her breast,

I think, is just really dramatic.

It's definitely sexual,

it definitely recalls the idea
of the fall, of sin,

you know, it's kind of poetic,

and it doesn't do her any favors.

A lot of artists have picked up
on this theme.

This is a painting by Jean Jacques Rixens.

It depicts the death of Cleopatra.

You'll notice that she is naked.

So, that's something!

She's completely naked,

completely inert,

she's just a body for us to look at
and ogle,

she's no longer the powerful woman

who she was historically.

She's merely an object for our gaze.

And don't go thinking that you are
above this,

because you're not.

We do this all the time;

we talk about Cleopatra as this
hot vixen.

Remember this movie
with Elisabeth Taylor?

It's a little bit old for us,

but you may want to watch it

for the sake of...fun,

and she is kind of exposed

for a lot of the movie.

Taylor plays Cleopatra

as in a very sensual way.

And even today, maybe last week,

if you wanted to dress up as Cleopatra
for Halloween,

you could have picked this costume.

You know, bared you midriff

and you legs, worn stiletto heels,

and I'm not sayng that baring you body

is fundamentally, or unequivocally
disempowering,

there's definitely an empowering way
to do it,

but when all of the images

of powerful women from history

look like this,

it's hard to kind of come up

with other permutations.

Cleopatra is not the only person

to be a favorite subject for
Halloween,

Halloween costumes.

This is me, as a 10-year-old,

I think, around there,

I dressed up as Elisabeth I for Halloween.

My mother made me this costume,

out of a table cloth.

I think that she imbued this specific
costume

with a lot of her power and ambition,

and intelligence,

I'm choking up..

and intelligence, because I felt

so cool in this costume.

I felt like a million bucks,

like the Queen of England.

'cause I was, obviously!

But as I grew older, I started to notice

some other kinds of narratives
about Elizabeth I,

maybe you've noticed them too.

I read this book :

"The Virgin's Lover" !

What ? What does that mean?

I don't know!

It's picking up on this concept

that Elizabeth I was the virgin queen,

the mother of the realm,

but we don't really believe her, do we?

We assume that she wasn't that,

that there's some sexiness

that's a part of her,

and we like reading that onto her.

And in fact, as a young woman,

when she was newly queen,

she was seen that way,

not exactly as sexy, you know,

This is Elizabethan England,

but definitely as an available young
women,

as somebody awaiting marriage.

This is a painting,
or early portrait of her,

and she's not even
the focus of this painting,

am I right ?

The focus on these 3 goddesses:

Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite.

Hera's arm,

Hera, by the way, is
the goddess of marriage,

she thrusts her arm into the sky,

drawing your eye,

and then the naked body of Aphrodite,

it's hard to look away from that!

the focus of this painting

is the allegories the these goddesses
represent,

not Elizabeth as an individual.

But Elizabeth doesn't want to be

this kind of queen.

She doesn't want to be a partner in rule,

she wants to rule.

So she starts to portray herself

as the virgin queen,

the mother of the realm,

and her portraiture changes during
this period.

you'll see in this portrait,

she is the focus, shes takes up space,

these broad shoulders of her dress,

her bodice almost functions like armor.

She has a crown on her head

and one behind her

emphasizing her role as a ruler.

This is a powerful woman, an individual.

And in order to obtain this identity,

she had to desexualize herself.