The Lioness Roared Book

This book focuses on English queens throughout history and describes the extra challenges that they endured in order to create themselves as a ruling monarch, brought on because of their gender and the conflicting gender norms of their time periods. Empress Matilda is the first to be examined, who was the daughter of Henry I in the 1100s, whose birthright was stolen by her uncle Stephen when her father died. She waged a civil war for the throne and nearly succeeded, but just when she was about to be crowned the city of London staged a revolt and threw her out. The author describes her issues as 1) she had an unpopular husband that the English didn't want near the throne, and 2) when in power she acted like her father would have done, that is as an uncompromising and authoritative leader. If a man acts this way he is considered strong and powerful, however, coming from a woman the people were repulsed, saying that it was behavior unbecoming a woman. She fell victim to the original double standard, that certain behavior is acceptable for a man, but if a woman does it she is demonized.
The other chapters focus on Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII and predecessor to Elizabeth I, whom Beem gives credit to for paving the way for acceptance of female kingship, which her sister took full advantage of. Next is Queen Anne, who ruled alone in the 1700s and whose husband set the precedent for the prince consort role, a man married to the queen but having no regal authority. The last chapter is about Victoria at the beginning of her reign, who through refusing to politicize her bedchamber set a precedent that only the queen regnant, or female king, was able to rise about the gender norms of her day. All others, including a queen's attendants, should be restricted by the Victorian ideal of separate and unequal spheres for men and women.
This was a very interesting book. It argues that a reigning queen was both a king and a queen at the same time, and not necessarily a paragon of feminism as we may prefer. A queen, or female king, was above the distinctions of gender, but could still use gendered expectations of behavior in interactions with the male government. Elizabeth and Mary used the ideology that they were wives to their country for example, as well as playing up their expected ignorance of "manly matters" of state to disarm and manipulate, making it a roundabout way to exert direct power but in the end most of the time achieving the desired result.