[quote=""fljustice""]I think the reason is probably closer to CW's analysis of readers, publishers and markets staying in a rut. From Antonia Frasier's
The Warrior Queens we have over a dozen female rulers who personally led armies from the well known Boudica, Zenobia, and Isabella; to the lesser known Tomyris of the Massagetae, who defeated and killed Cyrus the Great; the Vietnamese sisters Trung Trac and Trung Nhe, who led the first uprising of their country against the Chinese in AD 59. Queen Jinga of Angola led her people against the Portuguese in the 17th C; Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi, led her men against the British in 1858, etc.
And those are just the Warrior Queens. Start looking at possible subjects because of their madness (Juana), lust (Catherine the Great), manipulation (Catherine de Medici) or all three (pick almost any Roman Empress) and the possibilities are almost endless for fascinating women of power. The
Theodosian women (about whom I write) ruled over the Roman Empire during the critical time in late 4th early 5th C as the West disintegrated and the East laid the foundation form Byzantium; making decisions that affected Europe for centuries.
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This is all true. However, I go back to something I posted earlier (in this same thread, I think), which is that,
generally speaking, native English-language readers gravitate towards the cultures and histories which are most familiar, which would be British/English (and to a lesser degree, French). So, for women in power, that takes you back to Eleanor, Elizabeth I, and a handful of others. Publishers stay in the rut with these because they know that stepping out of it will be a harder sell. I will use myself as an example; I consider myself a fairly eclectic reader, and yet, if I have to choose between a book about an English queen and a book about a queen or powerful equivalent from another culture (especially non-European), I will choose the English queen almost every time.
So, it's a vicious cycle, I guess.
