Interesting you should mention these two. Though intellectual genius is one thing, but the political savvy and charisma necessary to rival the achievements of these two might be another. Plenty of the world's greatest leaders have been lacking in sheer brainpower, I suspect. It is far better to be
shrewd than a genius, when dominating your fellow men and women.
Other women, if we consider the ability to rule an empire to be the equivalent of genius, would be Hatsepshut, Catherine the Great, Theodora (the real power behind 'Justinian the Great'), Empress Dowager Cixi. I know there are more but I have been partying lol.
My favorite woman of all time, though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_I_of_Caria
What the article doesn't tell you, though is the tale of possibly the most outrageous military coup ever, pulled off by Artemisia at the battle of Salamis. She commanded 5 ships there as a semi-voluntary ally of the Persian Empire; as all the Ionian Greeks were pretty much required to contribute to the war effort.
When it looked like the Persians were losing, and a bunch of Greek triremes were running down on her ass, she turned and rammed another Persian Allied ship. So the Greeks chasing her thought she was one of them, and left her alone. She was able to get away, unlike the majority of the other Persian and allied ships.
Xerxes was watching the battle from a high mountainous promontory. When he saw what Artemisia did, he supposedly remarked 'My women have become men, and my men women.' She had advised him not to do what he did at Salamis, BTW--arguably the single most decisive battle in history.
It didn't hurt that the ship she rammed was commanded by another Persian ally who had been an asshole to her before.

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