Cleopatra and The Queen Bee Trope: Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra"

How is Cleopatra a Queen Bee and why is it a trope? The informal definition of queen bee is, "a woman who has a dominant or controlling position in a particular group or sphere".

The trope is as follows: Beautiful, rich, manipulative, and commands attention. The Queen Bee reigns over her subjects until challenged by another women, this challenger makes her question the validity of her beauty (beauty being the primary source of the attention she attracts, it is the most important trait in the trope) and we see the QB (is the male equivalent the 90s-esque Quarter Back trope?) attempt to dismantle the beauty of the other women to maintain  

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her position. Either the Queen Bee is dethroned and the cycle begins anew, or the Queen Bee abdicates her thrown in a symbolic act of solidarity as she joins women on a somewhat more equal footing because she no longer employees her Queen Bee weaponry against other women. Cleopatra is literally a queen in charge of a country, however, if we remove Cleopatra from her crown she still displays the characteristics of the Queen Bee. She is surrounded by very loyal servants such as Charmian and Iras who die with her. Her beauty makes her magnetic and she uses that power to control the people around, specifically men. Egypt, in the play, is considered very rich which means so is its Queen. There is a similarity between the Queen Bee traits and Orientalism; specifically, the mystique, the indescribable, and the seemingly incomprehensible way all these traits work together to form a specific aesthetic. 
We see this trope working as she questions a messenger to describe Antony's wife Octavia. The audience is aware of Cleopatra's beauty, it's been waxed poetic several times before this scene. The actors, specifically Charmian's, do a wonderful job of capturing the nuance and fragility Cleopatra is experiencing in the moment by cuing to one another to speak as to not upset her.
Cleopatra
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Cleopatra
  Is she as tall as me?
Messenger
  She is not, Madam.
Cleopatra
  Didst hear her speak? Is she shrill-tongued or low?
Messenger
  Madam, I heard her speak; she is low-voiced.

Cleopatra
  What majesty is in her gait? Remember,
  If e'er thou look'dst on majesty.
Messenger
  She creeps.
  Her motion and her station are as one.
  She shows a body rather than a life,
  A statue than a breather

  Guess at her years, I prithee.
Messenger
  Madam,
  She was a widow --
Cleopatra
  Widow? Charmian, hark!
Messenger
  And I do think she's thirty.
Cleopatra
  Bear'st thou her face in mind? Is't long or round?
Messenger
  Round, even to faultiness.
Cleopatra
  For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.
  Her hair, what colour?
Messenger
  Brown, Madam, and her forehead
  as low as she would wish it.
Cleopatra
  There's gold for thee.
  Though must not take my former sharpness ill.
  I will employ thee back again; I find thee
  Most fit for business
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Somewhat not astonishing is every trait Cleopatra and the Messenger talk about are still modern traditional ideas of beauty to some degree: height, voice, movement (grace), age, marriage status, roundness of face and hair color; all still relevant to our cultural portrayal of beauty. Voice may seem a little out of place however, women are currently facing more criticism over the sound of their voices with the rise of podcasting. The term "Vocal-fry" is being thrown at women who (seem to) lower their voices during sound recording in an attempt to attenuate the higher natural pitch of their voice, listeners (men) say it creates an irritating popping noise like bacon in a frying pan. So what's the purpose of the Queen Bee trope? Does a trope have a basis in reality that authors have magnified? I personally think so. Like many, I went to public school and the Queen Bee existed; albeit, with much more reasonable degrees of money, beauty and manipulation skills. But what is the trope doing for us on a social level? The insecurities presented by challenging the QB with another women does two things: One) it shows that the QB is not the perfection she emanates and two) it lowers the audiences' expectations of a women which devalues her position. Sounds like misogyny and the only reason it skates under the radar is because of the dirty trick being played on us; the queen openly devalues other women when challenged. How can taking away strength from a women be misogynistic if she is doing the exact same thing to another women? How is it misogynistic if there is a queen at all? We have been manipulated into complacency because of the trope. 


Luckily, we have wonderfully funny women like Tina Fey to help sort out some of the problem.
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