5 ms·

Or Gloria Steinem, or Sandra Day O’Connor, or Imelda Marcos, or any of a number of women who were outside of the authors apparent Eastern European bubble.

kragen 5y ago
Gloria Steinem and Sandra Day O'Connor couldn't have their enemies arrested, much less assassinated. Gandhi, Meir, Ceausescu, and sometimes Thatcher could and did. Not sure about Marcos.
- tomrod 5y ago
  Her husband implemented martial law for many years. Yes, absolutely this happened.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Yes, and also he probably had Aquino assassinated (one of the last in more than 50 years of Marcos political assassinations), but I don't know what Imelda's personal level of authority was in that situation; I think of her more as a kept woman and PR spokesperson than a power broker --- though there are some credible accusations of having one of her political opponents arrested. Indira Gandhi, by contrast, instituted a "state of emergency" herself (almost the same thing as martial law), even if it wasn't for as long as Marcos, and Golda Meir led Israel in its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and in the Yom Kippur War.
buran77 5y ago
I think the author is more in a Euro-US-centric bubble rather than Eastern European. Adding the rest of Europe or the US would make no difference to the conclusion as it's unlikely any other woman would have fit the bill. Your first 2 examples are certainly not the kind of power referred to here. The reason Elena Ceausescu gets this distinction is because it is widely believed that she was the real decision maker in the dictator couple, contrary to how it worked in many other such cases of couples with absolute power. And I'd venture to say that for that time period at least Romania had a far bigger geo-political significance for Europe and the Western world than the Philippines did for the same or for Asia.

kragen 5y ago

Gloria Steinem and Sandra Day O'Connor couldn't have their enemies arrested, much less assassinated. Gandhi, Meir, Ceausescu, and sometimes Thatcher could and did. Not sure about Marcos.

tomrod 5y ago
Her husband implemented martial law for many years. Yes, absolutely this happened.
- kragen 5y ago
  Yes, and also he probably had Aquino assassinated (one of the last in more than 50 years of Marcos political assassinations), but I don't know what Imelda's personal level of authority was in that situation; I think of her more as a kept woman and PR spokesperson than a power broker --- though there are some credible accusations of having one of her political opponents arrested. Indira Gandhi, by contrast, instituted a "state of emergency" herself (almost the same thing as martial law), even if it wasn't for as long as Marcos, and Golda Meir led Israel in its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and in the Yom Kippur War.

buran77 5y ago

I think the author is more in a Euro-US-centric bubble rather than Eastern European. Adding the rest of Europe or the US would make no difference to the conclusion as it's unlikely any other woman would have fit the bill. Your first 2 examples are certainly not the kind of power referred to here. The reason Elena Ceausescu gets this distinction is because it is widely believed that she was the real decision maker in the dictator couple, contrary to how it worked in many other such cases of couples with absolute power. And I'd venture to say that for that time period at least Romania had a far bigger geo-political significance for Europe and the Western world than the Philippines did for the same or for Asia.