Martin took pity on him. “She has noticeable breasts.”
“Yeah.” The boy exhaled. “In the later statue, she’s a dude.”
“How is that represented?”
“The beard. And she doesn’t have”—the boy gestured at his upper body—“those.”
Martin nodded. “Other things are different, too. Her chest is broader, her proportions more traditionally masculine. So tell me this: Why do you think the representations of Hatshepsut changed over time?” The image of the pharaoh as a sphinx reappeared. “Why show her like this later in her reign? And why aren’t there more images of her as a woman?”
A hand shot up in the back of the room, the student no longer slouched over the desk. “Maybe Hatshepsut was transgender.”
“That’s an interesting thought, Sam.” Martin contemplated the matter for a moment. “Transgender people have certainly existed throughout history, although I haven’t heard any evidence in support of Hatshepsut transitioning to become a man. That said, historians can overlook things they don’t expect to find. They’re products of their era, just like the people they’re studying.”
Sam nodded, looking…not happy, but something close. Affirmed, maybe?
Whatever it was, Rose wanted to kiss Martin for it.
“Any other ideas?” Martin looked around. “Dante?”
“Did she figure out she had to dress like a man to be taken seriously?” The boy frowned. “You know, because of the way people thought about women back then?”
“Another great thought.” Martin acknowledged Dante’s comments with an approving tip of his head. “There are certainly many times and places in world history during which a convincing male appearance would have afforded women more power and authority.”
His forehead creased in thought. “One thing you’ll notice over the course of our year together, though, is that history isn’t an inevitable march toward greater freedoms for women and various marginalized groups. Rights can be granted and then removed, and then given again at some point in the future. Or not.” He swept a glance over his class. “At this point in Egyptian history, women owned their own property, worked outside the home, received equal pay for equal work, and had equal status under the law. Ancient Egyptians didn’t even prefer the wordmankind. They usedhumankind, written with both male and female figures.”
More frantic notetaking by his students.
He spoke slowly and clearly. “In its simplest terms, representing Hatshepsut with a false beard and a male form followed tradition. All pharaohs wanted to resemble Osiris, as a way of emphasizing their connection to him and their power as rulers. Also, evidence shows pharaohs were cleanly shaved, so even male rulers tied on their beards.”
A brief pause let his students catch up to him and shake out their cramping hands.
“But many representations of Hatshepsut as a woman didn’t just disappear of her own volition. They were razed after her death and replaced by images of her dead husband, who’d been pharaoh before her.”
His voice lowered even further, and even the normal shuffling of feet and papers ceased. “Throughout world history, for a variety of reasons, people have erased powerful women, both literally and figuratively, both during their lifetimes and after their deaths. In Hatshepsut’s case, her late husband’s son did it by destroying her statues. Literal erasure. Other female pharaohs remained undiscovered for centuries because archaeologists assumed they must be men. Figurative erasure. One could even argue that Hatshepsut erased herself in the later statues she commissioned, although I think the issue is more complicated than that.”
As his students scrawled once more across their notebooks, Martin bowed his head in apparent thought. Then he looked up and spoke again with quiet emphasis, conviction in every word.
“Which brings up a related point. Sometimes, powerful women throughout history have altered their appearance—in person, or in art.” Martin’s blue eyes were solemn. “They want to send a certain message. To reinforce their authority. To protect themselves or their legacy. To erase or curate some aspect of themselves to prevent being erased by others.”
She refused to look down at her clothing.
The sharp heels. The unrelieved black. The lustrous fabrics. The impeccable tailoring.
“What does curate mean?” one of the kids asked.
“If you curate something, you’re choosing what to display and considering how others will see it. You’re making sure what gets seen has the intended effect. Does that make sense?”
The girl nodded.
“Men do the same thing, of course. Appearances are important to pretty much everyone,” Martin told his students. “But my larger point is this: Powerful women—some famous, some not—have always existed in world history, just as they exist today. There were influential women in every culture, in every time.”
He closed his laptop. “In my class, I don’t save discussions of women for women’s history month, because if we don’t talk about women, we’re not addressing half the population. If you don’t know what they were doing, what rights they did or didn’t have, how they affected their culture and government and economy, you don’t know history. Period.”
After letting that declaration sit for a few seconds, he continued. “The same principle applies to other marginalized groups. History is written by those in power, but those deprived of power deserve to be seen too. For the sake of their humanity, but also because their stories are crucial in understanding world history. Our job this year is to see everyone, not just great leaders. Even leaders as great as Hatshepsut.”
In that moment, Rose definitely felt seen by Martin. Whether she enjoyed the feeling or not was less certain.
When her thirty minutes of observation ended, she slipped out of the classroom and returned to the social studies office. She typed a brief but glowing observation report and e-mailed it to Keisha and Martin. Then she pulled out a stack of grading and stared at it, green pen motionless.
