Asking because I'm writing a paper on her and I think a lot of you like Chinese history/politics. Please don't shoot me for being non-Hexbearian.
Do you like the way she ruled? Was she a positive influence? Do you agree with the critics or people who praise her?
She was cool in a trivia sort of way for being the only female emperor (she wasn't an empress), but that's pretty much it. Emperor Wu was good enough at politicking and cloak and dagger shit that not even being a woman was enough to stop her from seizing the throne, but she wasn't a liberatory figure by any means. She also didn't really change Chinese history in the grand scheme of things. There wasn't some great emancipation of women because a woman was somehow about to become emperor.
Yeah, that makes sense. I actually think the distinction between female emperor and empress is interesting, because (I think) it suggests becoming an empress in the first place wasn't possible due to the patriarchal structures. I am looking to research how she affected female gender roles / the view of women since becoming a ruler. I believe those in her closest political circles were all women, which must suggest she did it on purpose because she knew that hadn't been possible before?