Has there ever been a female dictator (aka dictatrix)? What about female monarch know as tryrants?
Umm…Catherine the Great?
No, Catherine was rather enlightened for her time.
Empress Anna Ivanovna, though, might qualify.
sigh, I only wish I had a dictatrix.
Imelda Marcos exercised quite a lot of political power on the Philippines, and did not really distinguish herself as a good democrat. But she remained in the shade of her husband, President Ferdinand Marcos.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is a controversial figure as well, although doesn’t really qualify as a dictator.
How would the OP distinguish between an female ruler and a female tyrant? Being a succesful female ruler in undemocratic times usually meant she had to resort to an undemocratic style of governing. And does she need wield power alone, or is she allowed to act in tandem with her lover/husband/father/son?
Would Elisabeth the Great of England qualify?
Is it about a subtle use of power (think Livia, the wife of Emperor August) of should she wield power openly?
How about Hapshetsut?
Chinese History you can find:
Wu Zetian &
Ci Xi
I think both more than qualify. Nasty pieces of work
I can think of an ex-boss of mine. . . :rolleyes:
I shoulda had th’ balls to throw a coup. I would have run the company waaaay smoother. . .
Tripler
Gives a whole new meaning to ‘hostile takeover’.
If heads of regional governments count, then the Countess Erzsébet Báthory (Elizabeth Bathory) of Csejte almost certainly qualifies, having personally tortured and killed hundreds of her subjects.
Empress Dowager Cixi of China might qualify.
Like Indira Gandhi, maybe?
“Bloody” Mary I of England. It was for relegious reasons, but she did have enough Protestants executed to give her the nickname. Her numbers were relatives small for modern times, but pretty shocking for the 16th century.
I wouldn’t say that Mary was a dictator. Not a democratic monarch, by any means, but she operated within the scope of the English constitution, with Parliament as the law-maker. If I recall my history of that period correctly, she implemented her policy of return to Rome by legislative changes, agreed upon by Parliament. The executions were done according to law as it then existed, and through the medium of courts, not by executive fiat. (I’m not disputing that the laws were draconian and interfered with freedom of religion in the modern sense; just that they were not unilateral actions on Mary’s part, which I think is key to the term “dictator.”)
She might be a candidate - I’m trying to remember - did she suspend the Congress? I seem to recall drastic infringements on individual rights, but can’t remember if she did them through Congress.
Don’t confuse the name of her party (“Congress”) with the actual political body, Parliament. She did indeed declare a state of “Emergency”, following a court ruling against the Congress party, which suspended parliament, overthrew civil rights, and transferred most power directly to her decree. Read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry for a fictionalised, but very convincing and moving, account of this.
whoops - my mistake - thanks for the correction.
just skimmed the wiki article. sounds like a dictator to me, although she argued she was still acting under constitutional authority.