The Queen's Path
A Revolutionary Guide to Women’s Empowerment and Sovereignty
Stacey Simmons’s The Queen’s Path is a self-help guide to women’s sovereignty that exposes patriarchy’s hostility toward women and suggests ways to break free of cultural and social expectations.
Arguing that women are burdened by a history of inequality, exclusion, and violence for refusing to conform to society’s rules, it says that they still labor under the legacy of patriarchy, being labeled “good” or “bad” depending on the roles they play in relation to men. In making the case that there is no “Hero’s Journey” that reflects the lived reality of women, the book argues that women have but two choices: submission, which prohibits them from reaching their full potential, or rebellion, which leads to their becoming outcasts. Both choices, it says, consign women to invisibility, divided lives, and, since patriarchal society fears the awakening of their gifts, to being denied the means to express themselves. To achieve sovereignty, the book says, women must instead walk the transformative path of a queen.
In arguing for this alternative, the narrative calls upon relatable memories of women’s past hopes and dreams. It also deconstructs popular fairy tales, literary works, films, and television programs to highlight how ancient archetypes feed into the formation of women’s beliefs about how they “should” live. The steps to rejecting these paradigms include rejecting archetypes; women telling, writing, and living their own stories; meeting challenges specific to living under patriarchy; and gathering one’s tribe to claim one’s territory and crown.
The Queen’s Path is an inspiring self-help guide to breaking the bonds of patriarchy and claiming one’s full sovereignty.
Reviewed by
Kristine Morris
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
