Renaissance individualism briefly allowed women to wield military and political power.

Evidence

Throughout the reign the weight and authority of Parliament had been steadily growing. … If the Commons pushed their proposals to a division the whole basis of her constitutional authority would be under fire. — Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking…, 928 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Guicciardini’s assertion that two things are absolutely necessary for the life of a State: arms and religion. Guicciardini’s formula can be translated by various other, less drastic formulae: force and consent; coercion and persuasion; State and Church; political society and civil society; politics and morality (Croce’s ethical political history); law and freedom; order and self-discipline; or (with an implicit judgement of somewhat libertarian flavour) violence and fraud. In any case, in the political conception of the Renaissance, religion was consent and the Church was civil society, the hegemonic apparatus of the ruling group. For the latter did not have its own apparatus, i.e. did not have its own cultural and intellectual organisation, but regarded the universal ecclesiastical organisation as being that. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2187 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: In Renaissance politics religion was civil society, the hegemonic apparatus of the ruling group. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2187; Elizabeth’s diplomacy and political adaptations shaped the power balance in Parliament. — Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking…, 928; The suffragette movement was the first historical case of women organizing specifically as women. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 279

Broader Connections

• Elizabeth’s diplomacy and political adaptations shaped the power balance in Parliament. #exemplifies (0.85) — Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking…, 928
• In Renaissance politics religion was civil society, the hegemonic apparatus of the ruling group. #qualifies (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2187