Latest / Authentic Living / History, Female Leadership and Happiness with Wendelijn van der Leest

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History, Female Leadership and Happiness with Wendelijn van der Leest · Authentic Living

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Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
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things that really matter in our lives.
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And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
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Hi, everyone.
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It's Roxanne Durach.
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Thanks for tuning in again this week.
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Today, I have an amazing a woman that I spent some time with in Rome at the wind conference,
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and she was on the main stage, talking about female leadership.
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Her name is Wendellan.
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Badellis Wendellan.
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Thanks so much for coming on today.
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Thank you so much for having me a joy to see and hear you again.
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So when when did it caught my attention because As you know, I talk a lot about, female
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leadership and diversity, and inclusion in the workplace, but she talked She's a historian and
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a female leadership expert based in the Netherlands.
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And what captivated me when she spoke was you know, the history about, not just female
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leadership, but really as societies, what we're looking for in reference to the definition of
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happiness and what what makes us as a society.
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What all the basic things we always talk about?
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And That's why I thought I would love the opportunity for, Wendellin to come in and talk
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today with all of my my, amazing, amazing listeners.
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So why don't tell me a little bit about what's what wants what got you interested in in
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studying history?
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That's a great place to start.
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Yeah.
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What actually got me into history, when I was twelve, And I told this, when we were in Rome,
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I said this I said this in my lecture as well.
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When I was 12, I heard the story told on TV on TV that in our lifetimes, we all inhale a
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molecule of everyone who has ever lived on planet Earth before.
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And I thought that was mesmerizing, and I thought of all the great men that had gone
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before.
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And I thought of Tooten Cameroon, and I thought of Martin Luther King, and I don't know exactly
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why a twelve year old, but these two men stood out to me.
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And I do understand why, certainly, because I just had learned about Martin Luther King, and
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he was, yeah, he I was mesmerized.
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And over the years history was a fascination to me.
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But over the years, I also started to realize that although I loved history and it was what
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drove me to studying history, that very quickly into my 1st year, I realized there is actually
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almost no focus on women's issues or women's history or actually to think of it as a women's
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history that it's such a strange division that we have sort of we what we call history is
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almost only a male perspective.
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So although what drove me into studying history was sincere intrigue and interest, what drove
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me to the topic of phenyl history, and I have to say in the beginning, not even only female
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history, but minority history in general.
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What drove me there was that I thought this is just not possible we're living in the 2
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thousands, and we are still viewing history from a really, really male perspective And that
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is because in my case, as an I'm an historian, but I'm also an ancient historian, and my
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research and my work at the University of Utrecht has always been for the chair of
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ancient history.
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I'm mainly a Roman historian who is Dorian, although I also have my titles in mainstream
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contemporary history, which is on for a topic like leadership, a perfect combination, I have
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to say.
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But what's really really drove me to studying the Roman women and leadership in the Roman
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period was because the sources were in back then, and throughout history, actually made by
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man written by man for a male audience mostly because of all the limitations, socially, and,
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legally for women.
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But it has also been transmitted throughout the centuries by men, and it has been studied by
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men.
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So of course, it's really logical.
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That our perspective on the place of women in history, certainly that long ago, was really
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male dominated, and I just love the exhilarating perspective of sort of hopping on
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this new wave of searchers that were starting to emerge in the beginning of the 2000s, to
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study female history.
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And certainly in the in the Roman era, I thought it was amazing when I started to learn
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a little bit more about the roles and societal, roles women could have in the Roman era 2000
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years ago, I was really, really flabbergasted, I have to say, and that was when I scratched
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the surface, that was what drove me into studying, women and, yeah, actually also led me
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into doing the research that I did, which was focused on the visual representation of women
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in the public spaces of Roman cities, which was, of course, which were the most honorable
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places to be visually present.
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So, yeah, that's
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a good one.
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Prior to prior 2000 is what you're saying is that the history of Roman Times did not really
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focus on female, the female leaders that were there.
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And in the 2000, there was more of a focus on the female leaders and putting up their statues
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in significant places throughout Rome.
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Is that is that what I heard you say?
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Yeah.
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What what happens is when we when we look at how women's studies have been developing
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women's studies, so not only the historical perspective, is that from around 1975, we see
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researchers emerging who are studying women, but mostly in literature.
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And it it is not until the 2000 that within academics, we started to realize that
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literature is just not the place to look for these women to get a well rounded view on them
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because mostly they were, not portrayed in ancient literature because of the fact that in
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ancient times, it were mostly men who were writing and the few women that we're writing
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were just not copied throughout the centuries because we still have that literature because
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of the monks in in in Christian, monasteries who were copying these ancient texts, and they
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Of course, within Christianity, it was not, seen as really honorable for women to have that
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sort of stage.
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So a lot of the women in literature were actually excluded, from the sources.
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Throughout the centuries.
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So what is what has been transmitted has been really edited.
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On the other hand, what started to happen in the early 2000s within the historical field and
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research was that archaeology became much more important to study minority histories.
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And and for example, my research focused on statues of women and inscriptions of women,
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buildings, the buildings that women build within their societies, and these are sources
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that are still there.
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They have not been edited like tech could be edited throughout the centuries.
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So So was the the excavation of some of these statues, or did they always exist, but the text
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does to substantiate who they were and what they did.
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That that was lost in the translation into Christianity from, olden times?
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No.
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It was even more.
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You have when you look at the sources that we have, from the Roman era.
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You have, on the one hand, the literary sources.
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So stuff that Roman authors wrote but also for instance, the law, those are really literary
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sources.
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We we have them as books nowadays nowadays.
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And on the other hand, you have the archaeological sources.
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And the literary sources have have been transmitted over the centuries via these monks
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in in in in monasteries because that they were not We don't have the originals because it was
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really, the material on which was written was not sustainable enough to sort of, yeah,
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survived all these entries.
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So they were copied all these texts.
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But what you can't imagine is that on the other hand, these statues and these buildings, they
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were just there.
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They were simply there.
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They were only not being studied, by by the historians until, like, 30 years ago or 25
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years ago.
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So that's why we see there's it's a little bit more objective as a resource.
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To study.
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And that's why I also, as an historian, it was a bit odd not to focus on texts because it's
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what we do normally.
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But to focus on the material sources that we have.
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The evening that that had been, you know, it's funny, right, like you said, with how much
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religion has paid, you know, a space in history.
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And, you know, when you go back to archaeological, sources, like, you know, when I
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was in university and study archaeology, the the facts, they did the ruins and
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Yeah.
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You know, the bones that were, you know, like, the reality is they're they're it's being
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excavated and has a voice.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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And and then what does this actual art these artifacts actually teach us?
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Now you spoke about some amazing women.
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I want you to maybe talk about all of them.
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And, but if you can kind of tell me about some of these women and what's You you told amazing
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stories about them and what people need to know about some of these I'm gonna say they've been
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teachers and leaders for for, like you said, 2000 years, but we haven't known about No.
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What would you share with us?
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And and I know it's probably hard to pick
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a finger.
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Oh, yeah.
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Well, I have to say, You you sort of make it easy on me because there are for me 2 favorites
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because one, I I've published my book book on the first one, And and the other one is is,
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also a woman who I've studied and talked about in-depth.
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So first of all, I think it's really interesting to mention just to to, illustrate
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What kind of impact women could have?
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I think it's, nice to start in Pompe because a lot of we sort of everyone, although you might
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not know anything about Roman history, Pompey is a place.
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A lot of people have heard about.
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And we can say that, let's say until 30 years ago, we thought women had no place in society
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from sort of a powerful leadership perspective.
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And, in Pompei, there is a woman called Omakiya, and Omakiya was the 1st Roman women, I
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woman I really studied in-depth.
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And she was always referred to in the scientific literature as, yes, she was a really
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important woman in Pompe, and she built the biggest building on the forum.
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Dot.
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That was it.
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Nothing else, which was sort of intriguing because why stop there?
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But for some reason, that's exactly an illustration also of what has happened in, in
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academia.
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So I took up this case of Umakia.
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And what turned out is that Umakia was a woman in Pompe, lived around.
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She was probably born around 40 BC.
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So about 2000 years ago.
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And within the Pompeoian society, Pompeoian society, was about 20,000 people, large.
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And there were you had the city centers and the they were ruling this, the city.
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And there were some people in every sort of generation, who were sort of the main, the main
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characters who determined sort of the course of, the societal dealings with Rome, but also
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how prosperous Pompey was.
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And that that that, was something That was not just only how Pompey, how it went for Pompey,
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but how Roman Cities outside of Rome were managed.
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It was really important to have sort of a couple of characters in town who were like the
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the super mayors mayors of their town.
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And one of these people around, 40 BC up till let's say, 10 AD was this woman called Umakia,
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and she not only had a vast fortune.
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She also ran a couple of major businesses in Pompey.
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Her father had died, her husband had died, and within both families, there were large business
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as an oil factory, wool producing, business She there was, actually a brick factory also, and
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she let all these businesses.
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So she was a powerful businesswoman, and it wasn't the norm that women could run these
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businesses.
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But because of the sit the situation that her dad and her husband, both had died, it was just
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There was no one else to take up that leading position, and it was possible for women to take
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up that position.
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And she did that.
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So she had her own money.
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She earned a lot of it.
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She ran her businesses within these businesses.
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There were a lot of families who were dependent on it.
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On her and on those businesses.
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So she had an extensive network and clientele system that she was heading.
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So she was a big fig figure in Pompey.
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And what happened, was that she was that the city Senate awarded her the right to build in
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the forum of Pompey.
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And, of course, the form was sort of the not only the political center of a town, but also
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also the social and legal and religious center of a town.
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And there she built not just a building, but she built the biggest building on the whole
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forum, and she made it a public building.
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So it was not, exclusively for her and her network.
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It was a public building, and it was a large public garden with the most beautiful,
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ambulatory walks around it with art and beautiful gardens to look at.
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And in it, it was a statue of herself donated to her by the by, association in Pompey of, the
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wool producing, manufacturers who were honoring her for her role in Pompe.
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So when you entered Pompeii from C, you entered the form and the first thing that you would see
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was not the most important temple on the forum, for instance, the the the temple for Jupiter,
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or, the political buildings, no, the first thing that you saw was an incredibly big
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inscription naming, and seeing her building And when the doors were open during the day, you
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would see straight ahead her statue and her portrait statue in that space.
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So it was she was in the most literal sense, center stage in Pompe.
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In a society that actually limited women legally and socially, but you see right away
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how the What kind of the dichotomy we have between ideal versus practice?
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The law is sort of the ideal that's there in a society, but it doesn't say a thing about the
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practice and about what a society needs.
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And your is really a beautiful example of that.
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It's so fascinating.
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Right?
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Like, when you when you go back that long and it like you said, it's the explicits,
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conditions that existed at that time.
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And the implicit ones, clearly, women women like Iraqi were, demonstrating capacity.
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We're able to lead.
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We're able to to, you know, run massive businesses multiple, no doubt, and be able to
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in that time with women not having the rights, still be able to manage in a in in a, you know,
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at a time when women generally would not have had much of a voice, politically or legally.
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Yes.
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Absolutely.
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And that's the thing because oftentimes as researchers, we stop there, and I know you are,
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a psychologist, when you're Take a moment to re realize what it would have meant
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psychologically as a human being who is limited And she knows she's limited legally and and and
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socially.
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But for her to build that building in the form, she was needed on-site as well for inspections.
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She was needed to, to manage all the dealings with the Senate who had granted her the
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privilege of being able to build in the center.
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For that, you need to communicate with the highest political organ there is.
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So when we say, women had no power, you can ask yourself, what is power?
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And I think that most literal definition is that you have influence on what is happening
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around you.
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And she might not have had political power in the sense that she was able to fulfill a
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political position but I don't think it really limited her because she she did everything that
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a senator could have done.
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And that's the really interesting thing.
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I think we can take away from that.
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It was not nothing, and it was not oftentimes, it is sad.
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Now women like America could be like that because they were really rich.
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And because they inherited the sort of male lineage fortunes within the family, but the
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same goes for the men who inherited their the fortunes, that were in their families.
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And on the other hand, it takes a real character to have excuse my French, but to have
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the bulls to deal with the city Senate and to do something just a little bit different than
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people were used to.
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And she did that.
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And although we don't have any literary sources on her, to sort of pinpoint her character, I do
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think we get a glimpse of her, in the sense that, there was another woman in Pompeii who
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built a temple right next to her.
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And that's amazing as well.
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That must have been a really important woman as well, but to build a temple is is a little bit
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more safe.
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It is yeah, sort of falling into the norm of what you did as a Roman benefactor.
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And the whim that woman was called Mamiya.
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A lot of these civic benefactors were honored by the city Senate with a public funeral and a
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public tomb.
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And there was one, specific, burial street where you find these tombs of all these men who
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and women who were awarded these honorary tombs and honorary honorary, they were called in
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Latin.
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So a public, funeral.
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And your wasn't buried there, but she was buried in another burial street.
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And there, she built with her own fortune, and she she states that really clearly in an
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inscription, she built there again the biggest two imaginable outshining all the tombs that
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were in 8 burial burial streets in Pompe, she built the most lavish extravagant, gigantic,
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too possible, with, on the 3rd tier.
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It was about 10 meters tall.
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On the 3rd tier, she was on in a seated statue on top of it.
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So again, she was like saying, here I am.
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This is my family name because she was, of course, representing her family.
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This is who I am, and and don't you dare forget me because that was quite Like,
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clearly, she was, she was speaking, through the time.
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To let people know, the presence and the strength and, I'm gonna say the voice that she
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could put forward even though there were other, like, set limitations in that time.
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She she did amazing things.
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Now with these
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Yeah.
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With these times and what you've been studying.
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That's this is what I'm I'm fascinated about, especially when we talk about you know, here in
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North America, we talk a lot about parity and, you know, transformational leadership and stuff
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like that.
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We're obviously clearly showing that this has existed for centuries.
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That this has been, but through different political and religious ramifications, And like
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you said, liter literature got, passed down based on the powers that were be, and then
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there's so many things that we're learning now since the 2000.
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When you think about female leadership and think about what we're trying to achieve today.
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What's what kind of things would you say as a historian and someone that works with female
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leadership that companies or leaders of today really need to think about when, they're
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thinking about, women and and leadership.
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Yeah.
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That's a really good question.
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I think for me, one of the most important, things to start with is, again, to emphasize
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that these issues are new to think about.
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We have a legacy of of actually thought leaders thinking about issues like this.
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So we don't need to invent the wheel all over again.
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And although we, of course, we want to, adapt solutions to the times of the here and now and
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our current issues, but it is really comforting to know that our current issues aren't really
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really unique in the sense of sustainable leadership and issues with ethnicity and
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diversity and stuff like that It's been a topic of discussion and thought for 1000 years.
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And that's I think it supports us and it's sort of it creates a a starting point in which we
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can sort of relax a little bit.
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We don't need to think this is a whole new thing.
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No.
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It's it's it's in our DNA to want to try to, cooperate and, lead from a bigger perspective.
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And the thing that I the second step that that I often, take is to make people and businesses
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aware that what we call thought leaders today were the were what philosophers were 2000 years
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ago.
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Philosophie wasn't sort of an elite individual exercise you did in your own study.
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Like, we think of philosophers nowadays sort of a or sol solitary, really, intellectual
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endeavor.
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Now philosophy was was the sharing of wisdom with one another in thinking about themes as
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success and and happiness And, for it, for example, the Stowicks Woolva, I've been
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studying also for 25 years.
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Were really adamant that to be successful as a society or or individually, you needed to be in
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a happy place and happiness was the sharing of what was good for the bigger for the bigger
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good So not on the individual level.
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They thought happiness couldn't exist if it existed only for the individual.
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So That's also really, really important to realize as sort of a second step.
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It is that to think about and have a broader perspective on leadership and and what is
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success, what is happiness.
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I think that's all related.
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It's really important to know that that has been thought about also for 2000 years ago.
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And I think it's really interesting I have here, one of my favorite stoics, who I've been
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rereading again since Rome, and I think is, really interesting to know this is an excerpt
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of a text from 2000 years ago, and it was a stoic philosopher, Musoni Oofus.
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And he said about women, and and then I go into what, your question more in detail about the w
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the female issue, but I think this is really apt to start with.
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He says Someone might say that courage is an appropriate characteristic for man only, but
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this is not so.
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It is also necessary for women to be courageous and free from cowardice so that she is overcome
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neither by pain, nor by fear.
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And stoics thought that pain and fear were the 1 things or the 2 things that kept you from
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really fulfilling your purpose and being happy and therefore successful.
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And they say, so if women lack courage, it is from lack of practice rather than from courage
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not being an innate quality.
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And I think that's 2000 years old.
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That really is the bottom line for me in female leadership nowadays.
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We That's the bull.
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That's the bull's eye.
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Right?
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Like, really because it's it's for a lack of practice.
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It's not it's not if you keep women or have kept women, through the ages in the in those
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basis based on the the political or cultural context of that tie.
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Yeah.
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You know, they haven't had the opportunities to be able to practice.
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And clearly, what we're seeing today that women have amazing transformational, qualities that
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benefits, so many things within companies.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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And I think for women, we need 2 things to, to underpin this, what Smithsonian Ruffa says, to
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make this a reality.
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We need to practice our courage as women, but we need men and women around us to give us the
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space to practice that courage.
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And we are responsible whether, we we take that space that is given to us like, Umakia.
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There was just a little bit of space for her, but she ran with it.
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And, she took it, and she ran with it.
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And so it's up to us how to, create how we make use of the space that is given to us but
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realize that courage is not something we we have in spades without any practice.
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We need to practice that courage to bring to the table our type of leadership because I
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think And I wrote about this as well last week.
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I think for women, a lot of the times leadership is not so much leadership over, but
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leadership with And that doesn't mean we enter sort of, systems without hierarchy.
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It doesn't mean soft leadership, but I think leadership with others, is really a different
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definition of leadership and power than leadership over.
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And it that coincides with the 3 topics that that sort of arose or sort of learnings that I
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use in business lectures and work jobs that arose from my research, the the second sort of
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learn key learning, I always communicate is that these women 2000 years ago, if we can
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learn anything from them, it's that they really were very daring and skilled communicators in
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their representation of what they were and what they did in society.
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They did not shun away from expressing their roles in society.
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So, yes, they put up statues with inscriptions naming what they did and what they had
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achieved.
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And that is something that I think we, as women, We are sort of socially not it's not a
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social ideal for us as women to really portray our strings and communicate our
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accomplishments.
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But on the other hand, also in this case, we don't have the practice oftentimes in how to do
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that aligned to our characters because it doesn't mean you have to be I think that we
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have a lot of examples of how to communicate our accomplishments and roles from men, but for
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a lot of women, it just doesn't feel aligned with ourselves to express it like that.
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So we have to find our true expression of that.
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But I do think we have to we have to express and communicate our accomplishments and are
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roles also to inspire others to be daring and to be courageous to bring our hearts and
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leadership to the table.
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This was such a great interview that we decided to turn it into a 2 part series.
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Be sure to tune in next week for part 2 so you don't miss out on the amazing content.
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Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
34:19
healthy change.
34:20
Roxanne is a keynote speaker psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
34:26
roxannedurhaj.com/blueprint.
34:30
We'll see you next time.
34:32
An authentic living with Roxanne.