What They Made of It

In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir wrote that one is not born, but rather becomes, woman. She meant that society builds the role; it is not given by birth. In What They Made of It, Risto follows four women who became something else — rulers — in societies that had never designed the throne for them. Hatshepsut, who put on the false beard of the pharaohs and built one of the most beautiful temples in ancient Egypt. Wu Zetian, who crowned herself emperor of China in 690 — the only woman to do so in five thousand years — and reformed an examination system that lasted twelve hundred years. Catherine the Great, who overthrew her own husband at thirty-three and brought Russian culture into Europe, while quietly extending the chains of the serfs whose freedom she had told Voltaire she admired. And Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, who at fifty became the first woman in the world elected head of state by direct popular vote. None of them was born to it. Each of them made it.