Female rulers

The Byzanthine flag has nothing to do with older Ottoman flag.or Turkish flag. It symbolized the unity of east and west. But if you mean the flag of Istanbul (old Constantinopole) during the reign of Byzanthines, the symbols were totally Christian ones.

The main Ottoman flag which has three crescents on it was adopted by Alaeddin Keykubad, the Anatolian Seljuk sultan khan, to a far western "uchbeg", Ertugrul Beg. Another legend tells us that that flag was inspired by the dream of Gazi Osman Beg, when he saw his empire would rule the world. The three crescent symbol was a pure Turkic one.

The later Ottoman flag of a crescent and an eight pointed star was the symbol of universal rule and God's will since the shamanistic times. It was used on "shaman otag"s since thousands of years. Ottoman ruled that flag to symbolize the universal rule in three different continents, and the God's will's power. The red background symbolized the "west" and "western Turks". It still keeps its same format except the new style in crescent and the new five pointed star. These are the latest Ottoman symbols, shows our state being the successor state of the empire.

No women have ruled us during history oficially, except Tansu Ciller, but inoficially, we have been ruled by European women for long time periods. For example, Sultan Suleyman Khan didnt rule the empire at all, but Hurrem, a Tatar-Slavic mix woman, who was the "g�zde" of Kanun�. Oficially or not, all women rulings in our history were horrible disasters for us. Sorry for potential feminists among us, but women cant rule, they arent created for such specific and complicated jobs. We cant oppose natural laws. Man rulezz...

Mary II (Maria Theresia) was an interesting personality. She was a child of her age and she always emphasized that women have to accept their subjection by ther husbands. Still she was who really ruled instead of her imperial husband. (Who was expert in finances, and paid the war of his wife.  ) She ruled as an weak women who needs advices from her advisor, but she was the one who decided. I think her main talent was finding the adequate person for the adequate job.

her painting by Martin van Meytens:

Well, for the last 200 years monarchs haven't been so important, and for almost a century there haven't been any, male or female, in Russia and Austria.

But Victoria, Wilhelmina, Elizabeth II, Juliana, Beatrix... since 1815 the UK and the Netherlands have had queens for longer than kings. (Plus Margrethe of Denmark, and probably others.)

Queen Margaret of Denmark--ruled during the 14th Century. 

Mord

Since the French revolution there haven't meen many ruling monarchs of either sex.

As for ruling women since then - Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Mrs Bandaranaike,  Benazir Bhutto... all in the last 50 years. All made bigger impressions than most male leaders of their country.

In fact, if you asked anyone not actually from India, Ceylon, the UK, Israel, and Pakistan what non-current prime ministers of those countries they could name, I bet the women would be included.

However, Queen Elizabeth II is currently Australia's head of state.

Absolutely wrong. The flag which contains moon and star, has been made when " Abdulhamit II" was Padishah ( or abdulhamit I ). But you have to learn something about Moon and star. Today, moon and star symbolises " Islamic faith " but, there are some findings in " Kyrgyzistan " now. In these findings, there are " Gokturk coins " and these coins contains " moon and star " . So we can easily say that, moon and star, after the Turks became very important and strong in Islamic world, became Islam's symbol. I think, we didn't take anything from Byzantines except for Istanbul

Btw. You know, Turks are seperated in " boy "s. So every " boy " has its culture ( but these cultures nearly same... ). Some of these boys were allowing womans to became " Hatun " and rule. We know that, especially " Sibir "s and " Pecenek"s were allowing womans...( i can post smth. here but i can't translate it to English... )

Oh... by the way, Sorry for my bad english ....