History Main / TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'': Among the 113 past rulers of Lucis were a few [[TheHighQueen High Queens]], and the ''[[UpdatedRerelease Royal Edition]]'' reveals that Crepera Lucis Caelum fit this trope. Her father and brother were killed by [[AnimalisticAbomination daemons]], and Lucis felt that a woman was unfit to rule. Crepera thus spurned the public eye, took to the shadows, and single-handedly led Lucis through crisis. In post-mortem, [[RedBaron she is known]] as [[{{Ninja}} the Rogue]].

'''Little Girl:''' They're for you.

* ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'': Elsa represses her feelings and isolates herself from others because she is next in line to the throne...and she is ''absolutely terrified'' of screwing up. Unlike other queens, she has the additional burden that anxiety makes her PowerIncontinence worse...and her [[AnIcePerson magical abilities]] are potentially deadly. [[SurvivalMantra "Conceal, don't feel".]] Unfortunately, after one argument with Anna, she snaps and outs her powers by accident which causes her mask to whittle down. In the end, she completely abandons it and becomes a benevolent queen who entertains her people with her powers and has fun skating with them as well.

* Take very literally with Princess Melia of the High Entia from ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'', since she had to show a different side to the High Entia she has to wear a mask to hide her Half-Homs face.

Thus, in order to be taken seriously as a leader, the female ruler is forced to repress her "feminine" (i.e. comprative physical weakness, compassion, emotional side) parts of herself, and even be more [[IronLady stoic, tough]] and "manly" than the men around her just to overcome the incorrect perception that femininity is by nature [[StayInTheKitchen passive/submissive]] and therefore unsuitable for any position of authority.

* Queen Isabel of Castile (of "Isabella and Ferdinand" fame). After a struggle to claim the throne, she reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, unburdened her kingdom of the enormous debt her half-brother, King Henry IV, had left behind, and sent Columbus to the New World. Her marriage to Ferdinand created the basis of the de facto unification of Spain. She often led troops while pregnant in course of the Reconquista. Three of her descendants proved that this was InTheBlood.
** Her daughter, Catherine of Aragon. Her first marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, ended abruptly with his death, leaving her in a dangerous political position. She became the first European woman to act as ambassador (and an effective one at that) to a foreign court. It wasn't permanent; she had written to her father, asking him to recall his current ambassador and send a new one, and he chose her to act in the interim. Her marriage to Arthur's younger brother, Henry VIII, fixed that problem for several years. She often ran England while he was away fighting the French, promoting education for women and defeating the Scottish troops in a battle she personally directed with the Earl of Surrey.[[note]] It was the last battle in which the monarch of a British kingdom died, as the Scottish King James IV died of his battle wounds that day, a major victory for England over Scotland in their then-interminable feuding.[[/note]] Henry, who hadn't had any successes at that scale, was a bit grouchy about that one. After he threw her over for Anne Boleyn, however, Catherine took on the Queenly Mask rather than let her detractors see how much she was suffering, and continued to insist that she was the rightful Queen Consort. Even though she was kept apart from her only living child, UsefulNotes/MaryTudor, and eventually developed a cancer that would kill her, she remained loyal to England until her last breath.
** One of her granddaughters, Isabella of Portugal. She was the regent of Spain because of the constant travels of [[KissingCousins her]] [[PerfectlyArrangedMarriage husband]], UsefulNotes/CharlesV, through Europe. Her actions were decisive in the defence of the coasts of the peninsula and of North Africa, which were infested by piracy. This allowed the flow of precious metals and turned Spain into one of the chief sources of the imperial treasury. She ensured that Spain remained independent of the empire's expensive military policies and thus relatively prosperous during her lifetime.[[note]] However, after her death, Castile became integrated into Charles's empire and suffered from high inflation. The enormous budget deficit accumulated and inflation during her husband's later reign resulted in declaring bankruptcy during the reign of their son Philip II.[[/note]] She also defended the royal power in order to ensure the monarch's authority, as a response towards the previous rebellions against Charles for his foreign relationships. After her death, her only surviving son, Phillip II, used her claim to the Portuguese throne to establish the Iberian Union.

For most of mankind's history, leadership and authority are associated with men. [[FalseDichotomy After all]], a leader -- especially the supreme ruler of a nation -- are expected to be strong (to defend their borders), ambitious (to expand and improve their territory) and aloof (so that they won't be swayed from their long-term goals by a moment of impulse), [[CommonKnowledge all of which are often considered masculine qualities]]. So when a woman finds herself in a position of power, expect her subjects to be less than enthused by the idea -- [[DoubleStandard a volatile, emotionally-driven, HystericalWoman in charge of other? Why, that would spell the end to the entire nation!]]

* Manhwa/TheRemarriedEmpress: Navier Trovi is a prime example. As an empress with influence on the emperor, she has many duties. She investigates rumours, does a lot of budget paperwork, hosts diplomats, deals with trade affairs, and sponsors promising students as charity work. And she does all of this work while hiding her discontent over her possessive husband's infidelity and a host of humiliating incidents just to fulfill her duty. Her now ex-husband, Sovieshu, seems to believe her a heartless person, but it is made apparent that while being a ConsummateProfessional, she does have feelings and can be hurt, which her current husband, Heinly, observes at many points.

* Manhwa/TheRemarriedEmpress: Navier Trovi is a prime example. As an empress with influence on the emperor, she has many duties. She investigates rumours, does a lot of budget paperwork, hosts diplomats, deals with trade affairs, and sponsors promising students as charity work. And she does all of this work while hiding her discontent over her possessive husband's infidelity and a host of humiliating incidents just to fulfill her duty. Her now ex-husband, Sovieshu, seems to believe her a heartless person, but it is made apparent that while being a ConsummateProfessional, she does have feelings and can be hurt, which her current husband, Heinly, observes at many points

* ''Webcomic/{{Nefarious}}'': [[http://nefariouslair.com/comic/it-came-from-the-wa-verse-p-24/ Princess Foxglove]] tries her best to make sure Kyuutopia is economically prosperous, however, that requires her to cut deals with big corporations and supervillains that cause massive financial inequality and give her a ZeroPercentApprovalRating.
* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': Once queen Sonorie reveals that she has sponsored a ''cult'' (of academic atheists), her already dubious court insists on choosing an heir other than from her immediate family, while her treacherous general redoubles his efforts to oust her. Never mind the fact that this multi-national university cult is responsible for most of the continent's advances in technology, they're on the brink of extinction with the withdrawal of their main sponsor, and that Sonorie is on the verge of winning the bloody war that her country is engulfed in.

* Queens UsefulNotes/ElizabethI of England[[note]] who wore quite literally a Queenly mask, painting her face white as she got older to emphasise the cult of youthful virginity that grew around her[[/note]] and [[UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria Victoria]] of the United Kingdom[[note]] although Victoria only became this for 40 years as a DeterminedWidow after twenty years of marriage and counsel from her beloved Prince Consort, Albert[[/note]].

* Queen Isabel of Castile (of "Isabella and Ferdinand" fame). After a struggle to claim the throne, she reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, unburdened her kingdom of the enormous debt her half-brother, King Henry IV, had left behind, and sent Columbus to the New World. Her marriage to Ferdinand created the basis of the de facto unification of Spain. She often led troops while pregnant in course of the Reconquista. Two of her direct descendants proved that this was InTheBlood.

** One of her granddaughters, Isabella of Portugal. She was the regent of Spain because of the constant travels of [[KissingCousins her]] [[PerfectlyArrangedMarriage husband]], UsefulNotes/CharlesV, through Europe. Her actions were decisive in the defence of the coasts of the peninsula and of North Africa, which were infested by piracy. This allowed the flow of precious metals and turned Spain into one of the chief sources of the imperial treasury. She ensured that Spain remained independent of the empire's expensive military policies and thus relatively prosperous during her lifetime.[[note]] However, Castile became integrated into Charles's empire and suffered from high inflation after her death. The enormous budget deficit accumulated and inflation during her husband's later reign resulted in declaring bankruptcy during the reign of their son Philip II.[[/note]] She also defended the royal power in order to ensure the monarch's authority, as a response towards the previous rebellions against Charles for his foreign relationships. After her death, her only surviving son, Phillip II, used her claim to the Portuguese throne to establish the Iberian Union.

* UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa of Austria fits this trope perfectly. She had great difficulty in establishing the claim of her husband, Francis of Habsburg-Lorraine, as [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire Holy Roman Emperor]]; was betrayed and made war on by her nominal subject Frederick II of UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}; reorganised Austria's ramshackle military, commerce, agriculture and education; and though she was devoted to her husband, his philandering made her bitterly unhappy; and her son Joseph II's progressive religious policies troubled her deeply. She was also a major Badass - she once gave birth, then rushed off to command her troops in battle with the baby in her arm[[note]] (though admittedly she lost that battle)[[/note]]. Fittingly, she was one of Isabella's descendants.

** One of her granddaughters, Isabella of Portugal. She was the regent of Spain because of the constant travels, UsefulNotes/CharlesV through Europe. Her actions were decisive in the defence of the coasts of the peninsula and of North Africa, which were infested by piracy. This allowed the flow of precious metals and turned Spain into one of the chief sources of the imperial treasury. She ensured that Spain remained independent of the empire's expensive military policies and thus relatively prosperous during her lifetime.[[note]] However, Castile became integrated into Charles's empire and suffered from high inflation after her death. The enormous budget deficit accumulated and inflation during her husband's later reign resulted in declaring bankruptcy during the reign of their son Philip II.[[/note]] She also defended the royal power in order to ensure the monarch's authority, as a response towards the previous rebellions against Charles for his foreign relationships. After her death, her only surviving son, Phillip II, used her claim to the Portuguese throne to establish the Iberian Union.

** Her daughter, Catherine of Aragon. Her first marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, ended abruptly with his death, leaving her in a dangerous political position. She became the first European woman to act as ambassador (and an effective one at that) to a foreign court. It wasn't permanent; she had written to her fathe, asking him to recall his current ambassador and send a new one, and he chose her to act in the interim. Her marriage to Arthur's younger brother, Henry VIII, fixed that problem for several years. She often ran England while he was away fighting the French, promoting education for women and defeating the Scottish troops in a battle she personally directed with the Earl of Surrey.[[note]] It was the last battle in which the monarch of a British kingdom died, as the Scottish King James IV died of his battle wounds that day, a major victory for England over Scotland in their then-interminable feuding.[[/note]] Henry, who hadn't had any successes at that scale, was a bit grouchy about that one. After he threw her over for Anne Boleyn, however, Catherine took on the Queenly Mask rather than let her detractors see how much she was suffering, and continued to insist that she was the rightful Queen Consort. Even though she was kept apart from her only living child, UsefulNotes/MaryTudor, and eventually developed a cancer that would kill her, she remained loyal to England until her last breath.

** One of her granddaughters, Isabella of Portugal. She the regent of Spain because of the constant travels, UsefulNotes/CharlesV through Europe. Her actions were decisive in the defence of the coasts of the peninsula and of North Africa, which were infested by piracy. This allowed the flow of precious metals and turned Spain into one of the chief sources of the imperial treasury. She ensured that Spain remained independent of the empire's expensive military policies and thus relatively prosperous during her lifetime.[[note]] However, Castile became integrated into Charles's empire and suffered from high inflation after her death. The enormous budget deficit accumulated and inflation during her husband's later reign resulted in declaring bankruptcy during the reign of their son Philip II.[[/note]] She also defended the royal power in order to gain ensure the monarch's authority, as a response towards the previous rebellions against Charles for his foreign relationships. After her death, her only surviving son, Phillip II, used her claim to the Portuguese throne to establish the Iberian Union.

* UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa of Austria fits this trope perfectly. She had great difficulty in establishing the claim of her husband, Francis of Habsburg-Lorraine, as [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire Holy Roman Emperor]]; was betrayed and made war on by her nominal subject Frederick II of UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}; reorganised Austria's ramshackle military, commerce, agriculture and education; and though she was devoted to her husband, his philandering made her bitterly unhappy; and her son Joseph II's progressive religious policies troubled her deeply. She was also a major Badass - she once gave birth, then rushed off to command her troops in battle with the baby in her arm[[note]] (though admittedly she lost that battle)[[/note]]. Fittingly, she was one of Isabella's ancestors.

* UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa of Austria fits this trope perfectly. She had great difficulty in establishing the claim of her husband, Francis of Habsburg-Lorraine, as [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire Holy Roman Emperor]]; was betrayed and made war on by her nominal subject Frederick II of UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}; reorganised Austria's ramshackle military, commerce, agriculture and education; and though she was devoted to her husband, his philandering made her bitterly unhappy; and her son JosephII's progressive religious policies troubled her deeply. She was also a major Badass - she once gave birth, then rushed off to command her troops in battle with the baby in her arm[[note]] (though admittedly she lost that battle)[[/note]]. Fittingly, she was one of Isabella's ancestors.

For most of mankind's history, leadership and authority are associated with men. [[FalseDichotomy After all]], a leader -- especially the supreme ruler of a nation -- are expected to be strong (to defend their borders), ambitious (to expand and improve their territory) and aloof (so that they won't be swayed from their long-term goals by a moment of impulse), [[CommonKnowledge
all of which are often considered masculine qualities. So when a woman finds herself in a position of power, expect her subjects to be less than enthused by the idea -- [[DoubleStandard a volatile, emotionally-driven, HystericalWoman in charge of other? Why, that would spell the end to the entire nation!]]

** Her daughter, Catherine of Aragon. Her first marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, ended abruptly with his death, leaving her in a dangerous political position. She became the first European woman to act as ambassador (and an effective one at that) to a foreign court. It wasn't permanent; she had written to her fathe, asking him to recall his current ambassador and send a new one, and he chose her to act in the interim. Her marriage to Arthur's younger brother, Henry VIII, fixed that problem for several years. She often ran England while he was away fighting the French, promoting education for women and defeating the Scottish troops in a battle she personally directed with the Earl of Surrey.[[note]] It was the last battle in which the monarch of a British kingdom died, as the Scottish King James IV died of his battle wounds that day, a major victory for England over Scotland in their then-interminable feuding.[[/note]] Henry, who hadn't had any successes at that scale, was a bit grouchy about that one. After he threw her over for Anne Boleyn, however, Catherine took on the Queenly Mask rather than let her detractors see how much she was suffering, and continued to insist that she was the rightful Queen Consort. Even though she was kept apart from her only living child, Useful Notes/MaryTudor, and eventually developed a cancer that would kill her, she remained loyal to England until her last breath.
** One of her granddaughters, Isabella of Portugal. She the regent of Spain because of the constant travels, Useful Notes/CharlesV through Europe. Her actions were decisive in the defence of the coasts of the peninsula and of North Africa, which were infested by piracy. This allowed the flow of precious metals and turned Spain into one of the chief sources of the imperial treasury. She ensured that Spain remained independent of the empire's expensive military policies and thus relatively prosperous during her lifetime.[[note]] However, Castile became integrated into Charles's empire and suffered from high inflation after her death. The enormous budget deficit accumulated and inflation during her husband's later reign resulted in declaring bankruptcy during the reign of their son Philip II.[[/note]] She also defended the royal power in order to gain ensure the monarch's authority, as a response towards the previous rebellions against Charles for his foreign relationships. After her death, her only surviving son, Phillip II, used her claim to the Portuguese throne to establish the Iberian Union.

* UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa of Austria fits this trope perfectly. She had great difficulty in establishing the claim of her husband, Francis of Habsburg-Lorraine, as [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire Holy Roman Emperor]]; was betrayed and made war on by her nominal subject Frederick II of UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}; reorganised Austria's ramshackle military, commerce, agriculture and education; and though she was devoted to her husband, his philandering made her bitterly unhappy; and her son UsefulNotes/JosephII's progressive religious policies troubled her deeply. She was also a major Badass - she once gave birth, then rushed off to command her troops in battle with the baby in her arm[[note]] (though admittedly she lost that battle)[[/note]]. Fittingly, she was one of Isabella's ancestors.

For most of mankind's history, leadership and authority are associated with men. After all, a leader -- especially the supreme ruler of a nation -- are expected to be strong (to defend their borders), ambitious (to expand and improve their territory) and aloof (so that they won't be swayed from their long-term goals by a moment of impulse), all of which are often considered masculine qualities. So when a woman finds herself in a position of power, expect her subjects to be less than enthused by the idea -- [[DoubleStandard a volatile, emotionally-driven, HystericalWoman in charge of other? Why, that would spell the end to the entire nation!]]

Thus, in order to be taken seriously as a leader, the female ruler is forced to repress her "feminine" (i.e. emotional, compassionate) parts of herself, and even be more [[IronLady stoic, tough]] and "manly" than the men around her just to overcome the perception that femininity is by nature [[StayInTheKitchen passive/submissive]] and therefore unsuitable for any position of authority.

While it is possible for this trope to apply to male rulers (if the man in question [[InTouchWithHisFeminineSide lacks the traditional masculine qualities]], or if the work is set in a LadyLand and the man is forced to be more "feminine" to be accepted), what makes this an AlwaysFemale trope is the still commonly held view that leadership is an inherently masculine role, and the point of the trope is that the character suffers emotionally because they're forced to divest themselves of their society's gender norms just to be taken seriously as a monarch.

%%* The titular character in ''Series/QueenSeondeok.''

* Queens UsefulNotes/ElizabethI of England and [[UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria Victoria]] of the United Kingdom[[note]] although Victoria only became this for forty years as a DeterminedWidow after twenty years of marriage and counsel from her beloved Prince Consort, Albert[[/note]].
--> "...I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field...." (Elizabeth to the troops at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_to_the_Troops_at_Tilbury Tilbury]] as the Spanish Armada approached.)
** UsefulNotes/ElizabethI wore quite literally a Queenly mask, painting her face white and bedecking herself with jewels as she got older, to emphasise the cult of youthful virginity that grew around her.
** Elizabeth II, as mentioned in the entry about the film ''The Queen'' above, has quite a bit of this trope in her story, too.

* UsefulNotes/MariaTheresa of Austria fits this trope perfectly -- she had great difficulty in establishing the claim of her husband, Francis of Habsburg-Lorraine, as [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire Holy Roman Emperor]]; she was betrayed and made war on by her nominal subject Frederick II of UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}; and though she was devoted to her husband, his philandering made her bitterly unhappy; and her son UsefulNotes/JosephII's progressive policies troubled her deeply. She was also a major Badass. She once gave birth then rushed off, to command her troops in battle with the baby in her arm (though admittedly she lost that battle).
* Queen Isabel of Castile (Isabella, of "Isabella and Ferdinand" fame), who, besides sending Columbus to the New World, often led troops while pregnant, in course of the Reconquista. Fittingly, she was one of Maria Theresa's ancestors.
** Her daughter, Catherine of Aragon, proved that this was InTheBlood. Her first marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, ended abruptly with her young husband's death, leaving her in a dangerous political position. Her marriage to Arthur's younger brother Henry VIII fixed that problem, and for several years they were actually quite happy together; she often ran England while he was away fighting the French, even defeating the Scottish troops in a battle she personally directed. After Henry threw her over for Anne Boleyn, however, she took on the Queenly Mask rather than let her detractors see how much she was suffering, and continued to insist that she was the rightful Queen Consort. Even though she was kept apart from her only living child and eventually developed a cancer that would kill her, she remained loyal to Henry and to England until her last breath.
* UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat ''had'' to be this at the beginning of her reign, because her claim for the Russian throne was dubious at best - she wasn't Romanov or even Russian at all, leading many to basically ask, "Seriously, what the hell?" But when her position was somewhat stronger, she [[ReallyGetsAround relaxed a bit]].
* Empress Elisabeth of Austria (''Sissi'') has to fall into this category. She was shy and introverted by nature, and excruciatingly ill at ease among the stifling formality of Hapsburg court life after she married Emperor Franz Joseph. However, she was viewed as a fairy tale princess and beloved by the common people of Austria and Hungary.
* Hawaii's last queen, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Liliuokalani Queen Liliuokalani]]. Her husband cheated on her ''numerous'' times... and she had the misfortune of reigning just as {{Eagleland}} was taking over Hawaii.
* The Celtic queen Boudicea. Her husband was killed, she was beaten, and her two daughters were raped by Roman invaders. She did not choose to take that sitting down and declared war on them. She was ultimately defeated but did so much damage that ''to this day'' excavators in London still find what's been deemed the "Boudicca's Destruction Horizon" so she certainly didn't go down without a fight.[[labelnote:note]]It's less heroic than that in reality. The Romans were the underdog in the war against her, not the other way around. Boudica was defeated even though she held massive numerical advantage over the Romans. The Roman Governor Paulinus' already small army was made even smaller when one legion refused to answer his call to arms and another got routed while trying to reach him. In total, Paulinus had only 10,000 men to his name against Boudicca's 230,000 (per Romans accounts). Emperor Nero found the situation so hopeless that he considered abandoning Britain altogether. In spite of these overwhelming odds, Paulinus chose to fight on his own terms rather than run, eventually picking a bottleneck location where Boudica's superior number was ineffective and attacking her entire army head-on. The poorly-equipped Iceni warriors were no match for the heavily-armored Romans and died in droves. The battle might not have ended in total disaster had it not been for one giant blunder on Boudica's part. She had set up some wagons behind her army to let their families witness a triumphant victory over the Romans, only for those wagons to end up preventing ''her'' army from escaping when the battle went south for them instead. Unable to retreat, the panicked Iceni got absolutely massacred. Her rebellion fell apart soon after this CrackDefeat.[[/labelnote]]

** Egwene al'Vere kind of fits this, too. Or at least she used to. Sure, she's no queen, she's "just" the leader of the resident WitchSpecies who put her on the Amyrlin Seat as a puppet and nothing more. She had to really take charge and prove them wrong.

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'': Sheryl tries, really tries to be a strong SupportingLeader of her and Akira's slum gang despite being forced into it by him at first. Sometimes Sheryl shows DissonantSerenity and earns praise for being a GuileHero as cunning as her EvilMentor Viola, but her emotional instability as a scared teenaged girl in over her head sees her just as often break down or lash out. This is largely dependent on how confident Sheryl feels about Akira's backing, since she’s terrified of being abandon by him, and depends on her private time cuddling with him to maintain her morale, under the excuse of maintaining their FakeRelationship. Composure lesions from Viola see her becoming less dependent on this, which unnerves Akira until they settle on bathing together.

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'': Sheryl tries, really tries to be a strong SupportingLeader of her and Akira’s slum gang despite being forced into it by him at first. Sometimes Sheryl shows DissonantSerenity and earns praise for being a GuileHero as cunning as her EvilMentor Viola, but her emotional instability as a scared teenaged girl in over her head sees her just as often break down or lash out. This is largely dependent on how confident Sheryl feels about Akira’s backing, since she’s terrified of being abandon by him, and depends on her private time cuddling with him to maintain her morale, under the excuse of maintaining their FakeRelationship. Composure lessions from Viola see her becoming less dependant on this, which unnerves Akira until they settle on bathing together.

For most of mankind's history, leadership and authority are associated with men. After all, a leader -- especially the supreme ruler of a nation -- are expected to be strong (to defend their borders), ambitious (to expand and improve their territory) and aloof (so that they won't be swayed from their long-term goals by a moment of impulse), all of which are often considered masculine qualities. So when a woman finds herself in a position of power, expect her subjects to be less than enthused by the idea -- [[DoubleStandards a volatile, emotionally-driven, HystericalWoman in charge of other? Why, that would spell the end to the entire nation!]]

For most of mankind's history, leadership and authority are associated with men. After all, a leader -- especially the supreme ruler of a nation -- are expected to be strong (to defend their borders), ambitious (to expand and improve their territory) and aloof (so that they won't be swayed from their long-term goals by a moment of impulse), all of which are often considered masculine qualities. [[DoubleStandards So when a woman finds herself in a position of power, expect her subjects to be less than enthused by the idea -- a volatile, emotionally-driven, HystericalWoman in charge of other? Why, that would spell the end to the entire nation!]]

For most of mankind's history, leadership and authority are associated with men. After all, a leader -- especially the supreme ruler of a nation -- are expected to be strong (to defend their borders), ambitious (to expand and improve their territory) and aloof (so that they won't be swayed from their long-term goals by a moment of impulse), all of which are often considered masculine qualities. So when a woman finds herself in a position of power, expect her subjects to be less than enthused by the idea -- a volatile, emotionally-driven, HystericalWoman in charge of other? Why, that would spell the end to the entire nation!

* Another male example is Shi Ryuuki in ''LightNovel/SaiunkokuMonogatari.'' As summed up by Shouka in the first season finale: