I've heard Christian women pray about how they want God to build them like Queen Esther but I have never heard of someone hoping to be like Queen Vashti. So if I say "Lord make me more like Queen Vashti" does that make me a rebellious Christian woman who wants to follow the steps of a defiant woman in the Bible? 

I read the book of Esther when I was little and I have always admired Queen Esther but reading it again as an adult makes me want to be like Queen Vashti too, funny how both Queens were faced with opposite yet quite similar predicaments and they both courageously stood against misogyny, damning the consequences of their actions because they both knew what was right. But we've heard a lot, in fact, more than enough about Queen Esther but little or nothing about Queen Vashti, the woman who I think every woman should emulate too. 

Who is Vashti?  

Vashti was the Queen of Persia, and the wife of Ahasuerus, King of Persia. 

Another introduction would be Queen Vashti, the woman who fought the patriarchal system in a society where women were not allowed to challenge or oppose it. 

Or

Queen Vashti, the brave woman who refused to be objectified and had her crown taken from her. 

 I think one major reason why most women desire to be more like Esther was because hers turned out favorable for her, unlike Vashti who had to lose her crown for it but isn't standing up for yourself to oppose a wrong system supposed to be a choice of pros and cons? What if it ended badly does that rule out her brave and heroic act?

 Queen Vashti was a very beautiful woman, married to a king who never saw or acknowledged her worth except for her beauty. 

One day King Ahasuerus was merry with wine in order words Drunk and he asked Queen Vashti to appear before his people and princes wearing the royal crown. How was she supposed to appear? What was her presence supposed to do to the people? It was certainly not to show off her face so the people can see what they had already seen or known before. It was either to striptease or appear nakedly wearing only the Royal crown.

 But Vashti was a woman of dignity, she knew she was way more than a sex object. Even if she was just to appear and show off her beauty, she knew she was worth more than that. 

She was the queen of a country, a mother to women, she was the one who made a feast for royal women in the palace. For a lady of her caliber to be asked to show up in a place filled with drunk men didn't seem like a proper thing to do so she refused, she knew the likely consequence of her action, and yet she stood her ground, she refused because showing up would mean an insult to who she was, showing up would simply demean her worth as a queen. 

 There are a lot of what-ifs that come to mind. 

Questions like, What if the king was not drunk, would he have demanded such a disgraceful thing from his Queen? 

What if the king was capable of making decisions on his own without the help of his princes and people around him, would have proceeded to dethrone her?

 What if after he was sober and he remembered what he had done to Queen Vashti, he simply lowered his Ego and apologized to her? 

But then that wouldn't make him a MAN and a KING right? 

Or maybe instead of dethroning Vashti, he had simply banned excessive drinking of wine so no one would make such a despicable request again under the influence of alcohol. 

Reading the book of Esther again made me realize that contrary to what we have been taught and heard about Queen Vashti being a proud woman who was disobedient to the king,  she was a woman worth emulating.

Lessons I learned from Queen Vashti

 As a woman living in this contemporary time, I hope to unlearn the shame attached to speaking up, I do not want to be a reserved woman who is unable to stand up for herself when need be. I want to be that very person Queen Vashti was, so does this make me a rebellious Christian woman?