All this is standard operating procedure in 21st-century Hollywood, where the industry is dominated by post-boomer males reared on the comic books, TV shows and blockbuster movies of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, and the audience is understood in almost Pavlovian terms as a slavering horde of permanent adolescents. Audience familiarity and “pre-awareness” are greatly prized, so nearly all these guy-oriented movies derive from superhero comics or video games or other decades-old pop franchises. (It is, of course, possible to go too far into the pop-culture past. Let’s observe a moment of silence, once again, for “John Carter.”) We can certainly argue about which of these movies create an interesting twist on existing formula and which are cynical crap, but I don’t think we can argue that it makes much difference to the bottom line. “The Avengers” will make a kazillion dollars, and so did “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” The differences between the two are mostly a matter of fine-grained detail; they’ve both got cartoonish male bonding, a lot of stuff blowing up, and hot-chick eye candy.

If you’re female and you’re interested in any or all of the above pictures, by the way, I apologize for making it sound as if you don’t exist. But in marketing terms, you don’t. There’s no end of paradox in Hollywood’s patronizing attitude toward female viewers, especially given the long-held marketing truism that in a date-night situation, the woman’s vote typically holds more sway than the man’s. (It’s a standard sitcom joke, right? She persuades him to go see “The Notebook,” and he has to pretend he didn’t cry at the end.) But broadly speaking, women are supposed to be satisfied with the mid-budget, low-prestige romantic comedies made on the Hollywood margins, many of which are so phoned-in and formulaic — hello, Garry Marshall! — they make Michael Bay look like Fassbinder. (Actually, Michael Bay is kind of like Fassbinder. But let’s not get distracted.)

Of course, the Hollywood suits have no objection to making enormous piles of money off female moviegoers, whom they rediscover every few years. (See also: “Ghost,” “Pretty Woman” and the careers of Meg Ryan and Hugh Grant.) But even enormously profitable franchises like “Sex and the City” and “The Twilight Saga” exist in a sort of pink-hued ghetto, and are widely understood both inside and outside the industry as being silly and second-rate. As opposed to the movies about muscular guys in colored costumes who fight evildoers from outer space, which attract the biggest budgets, the biggest stars and the highest possible production values. When feminist critics argued, for example, that “Sex and the City 2″ received far more scathing treatment from male reviewers than did guy-oriented movies that were every bit as wretched, I at first resisted. I now think they were correct: Critics make allowances for dumb, macho action movies, because they conform to unconscious norms and expectations, in a way they don’t for silly, superficial “vagina movies.” I have long contended that if you construct a Venn diagram showing the best of the (universally derided) “Twilight” movies and the worst of the (universally praised) “Harry Potter” movies, there’s way more overlap than fans of the latter would easily admit.

All of this reflects deeply ingrained social and cultural ideas about gender, which are present in people of both sexes. Maybe men’s preference for violent action yarns and women’s preference for sappy love stories — and our tendency to understand one as more “serious” than the other — are hard-wired in some biological way, although that falls a long way short of scientific truth. But despite the torrent of male-centric franchise flicks we’ll see this summer, and next summer, and for all the summers into the foreseeable future, the tide in the Hollywood gender wars has begun to shift, slightly but perceptibly. As I said earlier, “The Avengers” will be No. 1 this coming weekend. But the top-grossing film for the preceding six weeks was a female-oriented picture: Four weeks of “The Hunger Games,” followed by two weeks at the top for surprise hit “Think Like a Man,” whose principal audience was not just women but African-American women, who make up about 6 percent of the United States population. (Clearly a lot of other people went to see it too.)

Those six weeks aren’t statistically meaningful by themselves. But when added to the big numbers rolled up last year by “The Help” and “Bridesmaids,” and the $1.7 billion taken in so far by “The Twilight Saga” around the world, they begin to suggest the contours of a new reality, one in which films aimed at girls and women are high-end blockbusters on an equal footing with guy-flicks. This year, “Hunger Games” will be somewhere near the top in global box-office returns, alongside “The Avengers” and Chris Nolan’s final Dark Knight film. While I don’t think “Hunger Games” is likely to be remembered as a cinematic breakthrough, it’s an important movie in other ways. Its canny blend of science fiction, action flick and love story nosed it out of the pink ghetto in various ways; it was presented by industry insiders as a high-stakes gamble and a worthy successor to the Harry Potter franchise, and male critics were mostly respectful, not reacting as if they were being flooded with icky estrogen. If the film’s audience was predominantly female, the film’s ethos — the cultural narrative surrounding it — was more butch.

Maybe it’s coincidental that two of the biggest female-oriented films we’ll see this summer — Pixar’s animated “Brave” and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” with Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth — are genre-mixing action pictures with independent-minded heroines. But when it comes to the sluggish, reactionary and massively over-thought process of making Hollywood movies, I don’t believe in coincidence. Some of you with long cultural memories may be wondering whether this could mark the beginning of a long-arc trend that brings us back to big-budget Hollywood movies that aren’t so niche-marketed and gender-specific, that are meant to appeal to all ages and both sexes. One answer to that question is “Hey, Tim Burton and James Cameron and Peter Jackson,” and another answer is “only sort of.” In the meantime, it’s business as usual: “Battleship,” which is based on “the classic Hasbro naval combat game,” will open directly opposite “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” which is based on a series of lecturey and divisive pregnancy advice books. I honestly can’t decide which one to see first.

There are a host of ironies here. Obama has earned the renewed support of reproductive-rights advocates by requiring health insurers to cover contraception, but the Center for Reproductive Rights is still taking him to court – with oral hearings being held this week before a New York federal court -– for overruling the FDA’s recommendation to lift the prescription requirement on emergency contraception for women under 17. That litigation has been winding its way through the system for over a decade, throughout the Bush-era politicization of the FDA, eventually resulting in a federal judge concluding that “the FDA repeatedly and unreasonably delayed issuing a decision on [the emergency contraception pill] Plan B for suspect reasons.” The FDA was ordered to explain why Plan B shouldn’t be available over the counter for girls 13 and up. When the Obama administration overruled the FDA’s recommendation to make it over the counter, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman suggested the Center for Reproductive Rights reopen its case.

“It seems to me that what we’re going through is a rerun of what happened before,” Korman remarked, referring to politics trumping the recommendations of medical professionals.

The Obama administration’s unspoken but unmistakable fear was of an election-cycle attack line that Michele Bachmann would use anyway: That teenage girls would be able to get Plan B from “the grocery store aisles next to bubble gum and next to M&Ms.” That was, in fact, an echo of the language President Obama himself used to invoke a highly unsupported bogeyman: that “a 10-year-old or 11-year-old going to a drugstore would be able to, alongside bubble gum or batteries, … buy a medication that potentially if not used properly can have an adverse effect.”

But there is another twist, so far mostly overlooked: Emergency contraception won’t be covered by insurance for everyone, since it’s available over-the-counter for those who can show I.D. proving that they’re 17 or older. They’ll still have to fork over around $50 a pop. But as long as girls 16 and younger need a prescription for the morning-after pill and they have insurance, it will be fully covered — effectively free. The same goes for women older than 17 who decide to jump through the hoops of getting a prescription, either for over-the-counter Plan B or the prescription-only generic and Ella versions.

As much as pro-choice advocates want to lift the barriers that make emergency contraception hard to get — because it’s more effective the faster you use it — one of those barriers, the prescription requirement, also mitigates another, the high cost. Said Adam Sonfield, a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, of this catch-22, “It presents a tradeoff between cost and access.”

– – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – –

Part of the reason people get confused about emergency contraception and abortion is because lots of people are confused about the basic biology of pregnancy: specifically, that it doesn’t necessarily happen instantaneously and that sperm can live in the body for several days, during which time a woman can ovulate and an egg can potentially be fertilized and implant. Regular use of hormonal contraception prevents ovulation and the chance for fertilization; emergency contraception essentially works the same way except that it’s taken after sex, by which point ovulation may have already happened. But according to recent studies, there is no evidence that taking emergency contraception after ovulation and fertilization will stop the egg from implanting.

But the misinformation and misunderstanding have created a contradictory public health picture when it comes to emergency contraception. In some ways, it’s become more accessible. In 2010, the U.S. approved a longer-acting French variant of Plan B, known as Ella, and there are scattered experiments in convenient delivery, from a birth-control vending machine at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania to a new bike messenger service in London, both of which caused minor news sensations. The annual “Back Up Your Birth Control” campaign has been promoting the line “EC=BC,” emphasizing that emergency contraception is birth control, not abortion — just in case that is a barrier for women who are considering taking it. And the Center for Reproductive Rights’ petition did manage to lower the age restriction from 18 to 17.

But there are more disturbing suggestions that misinformation is triumphing. A recent Boston Medical Center study found that many pharmacists were still often misinformed about the age requirement and were even more likely to wrongly refuse emergency contraception to 17-year-olds in low-income neighborhoods, where the rate of unintended pregnancy is higher. In Honduras, the Supreme Court upheld the criminalization of emergency contraception, which means women who use it could be jailed. Personhood initiatives, which oppose the morning-after pill, have so far failed in Colorado, Mississippi and Oklahoma, but they’ve introduced false doubts by providing even more opportunities for pundits and candidates to say “the morning-after abortion pill.”

It’s a problem that dates back decades: When, throughout the ’90s, the U.S. considered approving a French chemical abortion pill known as RU-486, it was widely called the “morning-after abortion pill,” including, often, in the New York Times. The distinction wasn’t pressed by the pro-choice community itself.  “At the time, the prevailing medical wisdom was that there is a continuum rather than a bright line between EC and mifepristone,” said Gloria Feldt, who was president of Planned Parenthood at the time, with the benefit providing more options for women who did not wish to be pregnant. “It was also assumed that a formulation of mifepristone would eventually be made for use as a true ‘morning-after’ pill.” The widespread belief, she recalled, was that a chemical abortion pill would “solve all the abortion debate problems and guarantee privacy.”

Another problem was that although doctors and non-professionals had been giving women high dosages of regular birth control pills for decades as a form of emergency contraception, the science of exactly how emergency contraception worked remained unclear. The medical definition of pregnancy remains “implantation of a fertilized egg,” but let’s say you believe, as the Catholic Church does, that fertilization itself creates a human life. Anti-choice advocates obsess over what would happen if a woman who took emergency contraception did happen to ovulate anyway and an egg potentially was fertilized, which is enough reason for some of them to call postcoital contraception “abortion.” They have claimed that hormonal contraception makes the lining of the endometrium inhospitable to a fertilized egg, constituting “murder.” Even the official packaging for Plan B, the single-step version of emergency contraception, suggests that “in addition” to blocking ovulation and fertilization, “it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium).”

Except that we now know it doesn’t, even if you walk down the path of remote maybes, which requires you to believe that a zygote, which may not implant for unknowable reasons, has the same rights as a living woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant. As Princeton’s Kelly Cleland pointed out recently, “The science has evolved considerably in the last 13 years. Newer evidence, published since the Plan B label was approved, provides compelling evidence that levonorgestrel EC (LNG EC) works before ovulation, but not after.” The International Consortium for Emergency Contraception and the International Federation of Gynecology & Obstetrics also note that two new studies have shown conclusively that if a woman has ovulated and an egg has been fertilized, it’s too late for emergency contraception to work. They recommended that the language on the product labeling be changed.

Of course, scientific evidence has rarely had much place in this debate. In the meantime, even the most non-ideological news sources keep making the mistake alongside the ideologues. Last week, a furor erupted after the Associated Press reported that “Women seeking to take emergency contraception like the so-called ‘morning after’ pill would have to do so in the presence of a doctor under a bill before the Alabama legislature.” That is, until Erin Gloria Ryan from Jezebel read the actual bill and saw that it was, in fact, a law meant to limit chemical abortion, not emergency contraception. (A spokesperson for the AP said a correction was being prepared). “The confusion over this issue is probably one of the reasons emergency contraception hasn’t had as positive an impact as hoped when it comes to lowering the abortion rate,” wrote Amanda Marcotte at RH Reality Check. “If women think it is some kind of abortion-ish thing, they probably think taking it is a big deal, instead of thinking of it more like taking the pill, since it’s basically the same thing.”

But talk about moved goalposts. If ’90s-era advocates had hoped that the ability to end a pregnancy in the safety of your home with RU-486 — the actual abortion pill, not the morning-after one — would defuse the abortion debate, their more recent counterparts hoped to take it to the next technological level by providing “tele-med” abortions. They would involve doctors seeing a woman over webcam with a nurse practitioner physically present, helping women in remote areas with ever-dwindling options for safe abortions to access them. But four states have already passed requirements meant to undercut these options by forcing a doctor’s presence, and the bill the Associated Press misreported was aiming to add Alabama to the list. All in all, there have been fewer gamechangers, and more cases of one step forward, two steps back.

While editing my “John Carter” obituary a few weeks ago, I removed a large paragraph dealing with the trend of giving young white male filmmakers with barely a feature credit to their name the keys to $100 million-$300 million franchise films while seasoned pro women and/or minorities remain noticeably absent from the “wish list” (yes, I was glad to see F. Gary Gray on the Marvel wish-list for “Captain America 2″). And while I wouldn’t consider “The Hunger Games” a “female film,” it would be a great opportunity to make a point that female directors can indeed handle the kind of big-scale filmmaking that studios are all too willing to offer to mostly untested male directors as a matter of course. So, perhaps arbitrarily, perhaps to prove a point about how inaccessible the wish list is for female directors, here are nine directors who happen to be women who also belong on the wish list as Lionsgate hunts for a second director. These are in alphabetical order, with the exception of the final entry who would be my top choice.

Kathryn Bigelow

Duh. In fact, she’ll probably make the wish list as a token nod to gender diversity, and all she had to do was become the first female in history to win a best director Oscar. I don’t really have to explain this pick. She’s been directing hard action pictures for 30 years. She’s helmed the likes of “Near Dark” (a dusty vampire thriller that still holds up 25 years later), “Point Break” (which is really better than its camp-fueled reputation), the underrated “Blue Steel,” “Strange Days,” “K19: The Widowmaker,” the two-part guns-ablaze sixth-season finale of “Homicide: Life on the Street,” and of course the Oscar-winning “The Hurt Locker.” If Lionsgate wants instant critical respectability without breaking a sweat, Bigelow will be at the top of the list, regardless of gender.

Niki Caro

“North Country” is the definition of the kind of movie they just don’t make anymore. As recently as 2005, Warner Bros. gave Caro the reins to an all-star drama detailing a landmark 1984 sexual-discrimination/harassment suit. Lead Charlize Theron and supporting actress Frances McDormand both justifiably received Oscar nominations for the little-seen October 2005 release. The picture is a straight-up social issues drama, filled with character turns from Richard Jenkins, Sean Bean, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson and then-unknowns Amber Heard, Michelle Monaghan and Jeremy Renner. In 2005, it was one of any number of big studio dramas battling it out for Oscar glory. Today, it would be a front-runner purely by virtue of its existence. Caro’s picture personifies the sort of high-quality big-studio adult drama that is all but an endangered species, and she also helmed the dynamite “Whale Rider” back in 2002 as well. If every studio release were at least as good as “North Country,” I imagine most of us wouldn’t feel the need to constantly whine about the state of studio movies these days.

Catherine Hardwicke

Yes, “Red Riding Hood” was an entertaining whiff. I like it even while admitting it’s pretty bad (it’s certainly never boring and Gary Oldman is a hoot). But go back and watch the first “Twilight.” Here’s a dirty secret: It’s actually pretty good. It’s light on its feet, quirky, self-deprecating and utterly aware of its melodramatic nature. Unlike the self-serious sequels, which treat their respective source material like holy tombs (and probably would have cut “vampire baseball” out of fear of irreverence), the first “Twilight “is genuinely fun, willing to change little details and add character beats to keep the film engaging. Kristen Stewart is quite compelling as a more self-aware Bella while Robert Pattinson is allowed to be just a little goofy in the opening act (his biology class freak-out is pretty hilarious). Most important for the purposes of this current franchise, the supporting characters are wonderfully fleshed out and brought to life, giving the film a pulpy lived-in quality that none of the sequels can match (Bella’s friends are actually charming and have their own lives). Point being, if you’re among the many critics who wished that even a few of the supporting characters were a little more fleshed out in the first “Hunger Games” installment, why not bring on someone who knows how to build an aggressively lively supporting cast, one that arguably superceded the stars in at least one film? She wouldn’t be my top choice, but there would be some poetic justice to it nonetheless.

Mary Harron

Has any movie made in the early 2000s, save perhaps ”Requiem for a Dream,” aged as tragically well as ”American Psycho”?  The film got mixed reviews in its day, with many critics unable to look past the grotesque subject matter (and the even more grotesque source material) to notice that the film’s sex and violence were all but beside the point. Christian Bale turns in what will probably be the best performance of his career (certainly Patrick Bateman is as defining a turn as Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle) in a brutal satire of the 1980s “greed is good” corporate mind-set that tragically proves even more topical today as the ghosts of Reagan came back to haunt us in the guise of George W. Bush and corporate giants like Goldman Sachs. Had the film been better received in its time, perhaps Harron wouldn’t have just now helmed a theatrical follow-up, the upcoming ”The Moth Diaries” (she directed an HBO Bettie Page biopic in 2005). Not to repeat a theme (and it won’t be the last time I bring this up), but had “she” been a “he,” Harron probably would have a half-dozen features to her name by this point.

Patty Jenkins

She was supposed to be the mold-breaker. Hired late last year to direct Marvel Comics’ “Thor 2,” Jenkins was supposed to become the first female director to helm a mega-budget comic book tent pole (Lexi Alexander’s “Punisher: War Zone” cost just $30 million). But the rather mysterious “creative differences” excuse sent her packing, replaced by longtime television director Alan Taylor (director of the heartbreaking “Homicide: Life on the Street “series finale and the “Mad Men” pilot), which in turn led to a national grumbling among feminist film pundits and a very pissed-off Natalie Portman. Jenkins’ career is a perfect demonstration of the gender disparity in Hollywood. In an age where Marc Webb is handed the reins to “The Amazing Spider-Man ” after directing one moderately successful low-budget romantic comedy (“500 Days of Summer”), Jenkins has barely worked since directing the Oscar-winning “Monster” nine years ago. She recently won an Emmy for directing the pilot for AMC’s “The Killing,” but that’s pretty much all she’s done since 2003. If you haven’t seen “Monster” in a while, it’s a pretty great movie, and it’s certainly more than just Charlize Theron’s deservedly-Oscar-winning star turn (Christina Ricci is just as good). Call it poetic justice or merely good sense, but Lionsgate would be wise to snap up Jenkins and give her the keys to an even bigger franchise.

Mimi Leder

In the late 1990s, Mimi Leder was on her way to becoming one of the biggest female directors in modern history. But while male directors get whiff after whiff until their eventual “comeback film” (think Scorsese in the 1980s, from “Raging Bull “to “Goodfellas”), Leder was out after just one high-profile miss. Never mind that “The Peacemaker” was a frighteningly ahead-of-its-time action drama (and a painfully underrated one at that), never mind that “Deep Impact” was at the time the highest grossing film in history directed by a woman.  The critical and artistic disaster of “Pay It Forward” pretty much killed everyone involved, ending the film careers of Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment while fatally damaging Kevin Spacey’s prestige. Leder hasn’t directed another theatrical feature since that 2000 disappointment (she helmed the 2009 Morgan Freeman/Antonio Bandaras direct-to-DVD action flick “Thick as Thieves”).  She just started preproduction on a remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which, if it comes to pass, will be her first theatrical release in 12 years. If you want a female director who knows how to craft top-notch action, why not hire Leder?

Lynne Ramsay

In a gender-neutral world, Lynne Ramsay would be on all of the wish lists right now. After all, she made a splash last year with the fantastic “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” coaxing a career-peak performance from Tilda Swinton and crafting a powerful psychological horror drama that defies easy description or even common interpretation. It’s a powerful and gripping picture, her third feature no less. If “Chronicle’s” Josh Trank can end up with a dozen high-profile choices after making one terrific film, then Ramsay deserves her pick of the litter as well. Of course, the fact that Trank made his mark with a superhero deconstruction and was then offered a bunch of comic book superhero films is in itself a sign of Hollywood’s lack of imagination, which is why Debra Granik (who would also be on various wish lists in a just world) won’t be on this list. There is no escaping the several similarities between “Winter’s Bone” and “The Hunger Games” and I’d argue that choosing the helmer of the former is every bit as lazy as choosing Jennifer Lawrence to basically reprise her Oscar-nominated character in the first place. But Ramsay would be an inspired and outside-the-box choice, and arguably someone who can bring suspense and intensity to a franchise that lacked requisite tension the first time around.

Jennifer Yuh

With all the seemingly justified hubbub about Brenda Chapman getting canned from Pixar’s “Brave” last year, no one seemed to notice that Dreamworks (who hired Chapman to direct “The Prince of Egypt” 14 years ago) gave one of its prize franchises to a South Korean female director who promptly knocked it out of the park. I assume you don’t need me to remind you how much I loved “Kung Fu Panda 2.” It was my favorite film of 2011 and a splendid action dramedy that absolutely stands with “Toy Story 2,” “The Dark Knight” and “X2: X-Men United” on the list of all-time great genre sequels from the last 15 years.  The only reason she isn’t my top pick is because I wouldn’t want her taking the “Chasing Fire” gig to stand in the way of her directing “Kung Fu Panda 3.” But she absolutely deserves a spot on every genre wish list from now until she retires.

And my personal pick…

Kasi Lemmons

Yes, it would be groundbreaking/cool/etc. if the reins to today’s biggest new franchise were handed off to an African-American woman. But it would also be just-plain-cool if “Chasing Fire” were handed to the person who happened to direct “Eve’s Bayou” and “Talk to Me.” She directed three features between 1997 and 2007 (the middle one being the not-that-great “The Caveman’s Valentine” in 2001, which still featured a fine star turn from Samuel L. Jackson). But “Eve’s Bayou” is a terrific period drama that features one of Jackson’s best performances, period. ”Talk to Me” is a fine and thoughtful biopic about 1960s Washington, D.C., radio DJ Ralph “Petey” Greene (played by Don Cheadle), which features strong supporting work from Chiwetel Ejiofor (his pool hall conversation with Cheadle is the stuff of acting-class gold), Taraji P. Henson and Martin Sheen (even if Sheen’s best scene ended up on the DVD deleted scenes reel). I don’t pretend to know why she has worked so little in the last 15 years, but her lack of output has always (to me) personified the difficulty that minority and female filmmakers face in terms of having a steady output of movies even after they’ve had one or two successes.  Tokenism and/or affirmative action accusations aide, Lemmons has made two awfully good films and deserves a shot at the big leagues at least as much as the likes of Josh Trank and Marc Webb.

OK, your turn to pick.  Who would you want to see helm the next “Hunger Games” film?  It doesn’t have to be a woman or a minority, but try to be a little creative.

I was looking over the books I enjoy and can recommend highly, and this was undeniably one of the underlying themes that seemed to tie them all together. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a strong woman is likely to have more difficulty in marriage. At least, that definitely applied to a number of royal wives! What is interesting is that sometimes they triumph over their husbands, and sometimes their husbands triumph over them.

For our first example of just such a strong woman, let’s go back to the Middle Ages to someone who was considered one of the most beautiful women in Europe and one of the great heroines of the middle ages – Eleanor of Aquitaine.

["Eleanor of Aquitaine"] is one of Alison Weir’s best books. I think she has managed to teach history to more people than Oxford University, because her books are so well written and easy to follow. She is especially good at taking time to explain the world that she writes about, so the reader gets a real feel for what it was like to live in the Middle Ages. Her books emphasize the color and pageantry of that era – what everyone wore, what their jewels were like. I love that kind of book.

What was her heroine, Eleanor, like as a person?

Eleanor lived in the 12th century and was a great heiress. She owned Aquitaine, a large duchy in southwest France. She was originally married to the French king, Louis VII. He was two years older than she was, but hers was the stronger personality and he was no match for her. She ran him around.

What did she do?

He was very pious and he was in love with her. She was beautiful and very sexually active, and he was apparently less so. They had a great deal of trouble having a child.

When you say she was sexually active, does that mean she had lots of lovers on the side?

I think she tried to like Louis at first, but soon gave up and started taking lovers. She was never able to conceive a son with him. Someone gave her the idea that this was because they were too closely related, and hadn’t initially gotten a letter from the pope approving the marriage. When she decided she didn’t want Louis anymore, she asked for an annulment based on this lack of a papal dispensation. Louis agreed to her request, not realizing that she had already set up her next marriage – to Henry II [the king of England]. Eleanor was 30 at the time of her second marriage, and her new husband was only 19. Henry and Eleanor seemed to have had a good marriage for about 10 years. She certainly gave him many sons.

Which was quite amazing given that she married him at 30, which in those days was ancient.

What is amazing about Eleanor is that she lived to 82. Now that was ancient for the Middle Ages. She ended up long outliving Henry. Their marriage broke down when she was in her 40s and he in his 30s. That’s when he began openly to prefer other women and take lovers. But Eleanor gave as good as she got – before she married Henry, she had an affair with his father.

It sounds like something straight out of a gossip magazine.

That’s why I love these women. But the problem for Eleanor was that when her marriage went sour, Henry actually put her under house arrest – a situation that lasted for 10 years before she was released. Her sons were very loyal to her, so in the end they got her out.

Your next book ["The Serpent and the Moon"] tackles the age-old problem of marriage not being big enough for three people. This time Catherine de’ Medici, queen consort of France in the 16th century, is the wronged woman.

This book made me think of Princess Diana. But in terms of marriage, Catherine de’ Medici had it much worse. At least Princess Diana was young and beautiful, although of course it is heartbreaking that she died. Catherine de’ Medici was not attractive. She married Henri II, who eventually became the king of France. But Henri was only a second son when he got married, and was never meant to inherit the throne.

Presumably theirs was a business marriage.

Exactly. It was to promote his father’s hopeless campaign in Italy. Catherine came from a very rich merchant family but was essentially of lower birth. The problem was that her cousin – who was the Pope, and who had arranged the marriage – died soon after she arrived in France. His successor in Rome repudiated the alliance, and so Catherine lost almost all of the money and property associated with her dowry. She came to the marriage with nothing.

In what way did she manage to be strong in spite of all this?

She hung in there. The French wanted to annul the marriage. Catherine’s husband, Henri, didn’t love her. He wanted another woman, Diane de Poitiers, who was much older than him. Diane was a great beauty, but she really worked at it! She would get up every morning at dawn and take a cold bath. Then she got on her horse for hours, and afterwards only had a light lunch.

How did Catherine cope with this?

Catherine was unable to provide an heir at first, but then the three of them worked out an arrangement because Diane de Poitiers didn’t want Henri to annul his marriage to Catherine. She was afraid he might end up marrying someone younger and more beautiful, and not want Diane as a lover anymore. So Diane helped Catherine to get pregnant. She would warm Henri up in her bed and then send him on to Catherine! This innovative method appeared to work, as Catherine ended up conceiving a number of sons.

I must say, I didn’t realize that Her Royal Highness Princess Michael of Kent was an author. Do you think she does this amazing story justice?

Many people have written about Catherine and Diane. I chose this book over the others because the gossip is so delicious! But a reader should bear in mind that it is terribly one-sided toward Diane.

There is a mystery surrounding the author of your next book, “The Heptameron.” Many believe that is was written by Marguerite of Navarre in the 16th century.

I think it was definitely written by her. She wrote other books, and was a very intelligent woman.

For those who don’t know, can you tell us a bit about who she was?

Marguerite was the sister of François I, King of France [father of Henri II]. She was originally married to Charles IV of Alençon, who died in 1525. After she was widowed, Marguerite was strongly encouraged by her brother to marry a younger man for political purposes. This second marriage was not happy. Marguerite’s new husband, Henry II of Navarre, didn’t really want her. She was an intellectual who was interested in humanism, the Reformation and the Renaissance. He was much less educated, in addition to which he was also coarse and, frankly, brutish.

How did she cope with the marriage?

She just had to endure it. Even though her husband was violent, divorce was not an option for a French princess in those days. One of the ways Marguerite fought back was to write this book. She was inspired by a new French translation of “The Decameron,” written by an Italian, Giovanni Boccaccio, in the 14th century. “The Decameron” used the literary device of 10 people telling 10 stories each, so it contained a hundred short stories, almost all of them about love. Everyone at the French court read and discussed the new translation – it was like a 16th century book group. After reading it, Marguerite also decided to write a book of [72] short stories, but with one big difference – the stories in her book were supposed to have actually happened. She only included anecdotes that she knew to be true, or that came from a source which she trusted.

What kinds of story was she telling?

They are about love and the battle of the sexes. The first two stories are very harsh. Marguerite is clearly getting her revenge on her husband, and men in general. The rest of the anecdotes are much funnier and cleverer. This is a good choice if you want to learn about the period, because these are the voices of real people. Think of it as being a bit like Desperate Renaissance Housewives!

Next up is “Murder of a Medici Princess,” which focuses on the tragic death of Isabella de’ Medici who lived in Renaissance Italy.

This book is about a very strong woman – Isabella, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, the powerful ruler of 15th century Florence. Isabella was Cosimo’s favorite daughter, but even so she was obliged to marry Paolo Giordano I Orsini, a member of the lesser nobility, for political purposes. The Medici family was very wealthy, and Isabella was used to a luxurious life surrounded by beauty, art and literature. Her husband, on the other hand, owned one shabby castle in the middle of nowhere. She went there for one season, then for the rest of her life she lived in Florence away from him.

So she couldn’t handle life out in the sticks?

She really did not like it, or him. She had her way for a very long time, and there was nothing he could do about it because she was her father’s favorite daughter. Cosimo protected her.  He wanted her to stay home in Florence to run his court. All the parties were much better when she was around to organize them.

How did it all end up in murder?

Isabella’s father died and she fell afoul of her brother’s mistress. Also, Isabella represented a significant political threat. Catherine de’ Medici, who was queen of France by this time, believed that she had a stronger claim to Florence than Isabella’s brother. If Isabella fled to Paris and allied with Catherine, together they might have overthrown Isabella’s brother and his mistress. To prevent that from happening, her brother had her strangled.

Finally you have chosen “Wedlock,” subtitled “The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore.”

Mary Eleanor Bowes, an ancestor of Elizabeth II, lived in the 18th century. She was an exceedingly wealthy woman. Her father made a fortune in coal, and as his only child she inherited everything when he died. This made her a very attractive candidate for marriage. Her first husband, whom she married when she was only 18, was the Earl of Strathmore. That’s how she became a countess – he got the money and she got the title. Interestingly, Mary did not exhibit a particularly strong character when she was younger. She had been spoiled by her parents and was only interested in parties and dresses. She was unhappy with her first marriage because her husband was older, cold and distant. She was 27 when he died.

So she went for love in her next marriage, with disastrous results.

Yes – she got duped. Mary fell prey to a con man who feigned being wounded in a duel in her honor so that he could beg her to marry him on his “death bed.” Of course he recovered as soon as she said yes, and turned out to be possibly the worst husband in history! He took her money, and physically and mentally abused her. What is so good about this book is that, in addition to being very well written, it chronicles Mary’s transformation from victim to strong, independent woman. At the beginning you don’t feel much sympathy for her, but by the end you are rooting for her all the way. We all owe her a debt – it was she who actually made divorce possible. Because she was both titled and wealthy, she managed to take her case to the courts.

Tell us about your new book, “The Maid and the Queen,” about the extraordinary queen who championed Joan of Arc – she sounds like one of history’s strong women.

My new book is about Yolande of Aragon, 15th century queen of Sicily, and her (until now) overlooked influence on the story of Joan of Arc. Yolande was a brilliant strategist and diplomat who happened to be the mother-in-law of the dauphin [eldest son of the king of France]. She also seems to be the exception that proves the rule – Yolande was a very strong woman whose marriage was actually pretty good.

I am a great admirer of Joan of Arc, who was one of the most courageous women in history, but like everyone else I was perplexed by her mysterious story. How did Joan, an ignorant peasant girl, get in to see the dauphin? What secret sign did she show him that convinced him to follow her advice? How did a 17-year-old girl manage to lift the siege of Orléans in a single week? All of these questions are answered in my book. Although other people have hypothesized that the queen of Sicily was responsible for the introduction of Joan of Arc to the court of the dauphin – the first person to do so was Jehanne d’Orliac, a French historian, in 1933 – until now no one has ever proved it. Mine is the first biography of Yolande in English, and the first to demonstrate not only how she brought Joan into the political situation but also why she did it, and more importantly what inspired her to do so.

What strikes me about your theme of strong women and terrible marriages is just how modern their predicaments sound.

Yes. I think that each of the women in the books I have chosen was very courageous in her own way – and it is interesting to see how modern they were in their approach to life. So many of the issues that women grapple with today, it would seem, have not changed over the centuries.

But the people claiming to be the truest hip-hop fans only seem to prefer half of the artist, namely when she claims to be playing an invented male personality named Roman. This is often dissonant with her feminine aesthetics and Lady Gaga-influenced wardrobe, part of why she’s celebrated as such an original. So why does a rapper as self-evidently talented as Nicki have to recast herself as a man? Well, to get respect.

Minaj has spent much of her career playing up an image of traditional (almost cartoonishly so) girliness. One of her earliest mixtapes was called “Barbie World” and “Harajuku Barbie” is one of her many nicknames. On the “Pink Friday” CD cover she intentionally resembles a lifeless, leg-lengthened plastic doll. Her near-literal hourglass figure is widely assumed to be unnatural. In videos and album art she’s bedecked in pastels, shades of rainbow and, yes, pink.

At the start of Nicki Minaj’s 2010 debut album, she announced “I am not Jasmine/ I am Aladdin.” Weird choice of hero — his success was totally dependent on that lamp — but that’s not the point. She’s the title character, not your sidekick, love interest or video ho. It wasn’t the boldest boast in rap that year; that title goes to the next track, in which she imagines having a penis and says, “I would pull it out and piss on em,” which isn’t even the most scatological line in the song.

Flash to 2012, where “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” immediately dispenses with the hypothetical: “If you wasn’t so ugly,” she raps, she’d put that same appendage in your face. She stops the beat to riff on this obscenity for a little, in an ironic, Mariah-esque melisma. In her mocking tone over a fire-engine siren beat, the effect is so disorienting that it takes several plays to notice the song’s cryptically filthy-sounding title, “Come on a Cone,” is only a reference to how cold her ice is. It’s bookended by a similarly phallic dare and a reintroduction to her, you guessed it, male alter ego.

Since Run-DMC’s tough talk and the takeover of gangsta rap replaced the disco-derived funk of Sugarhill Gang and the Furious Five, rap has had little patience for the female voice. Too $hort and Freddie Gibbs are rap generations apart but both claim a history of pimping, while Kanye West pines for porn stars and Eminem craves revenge on his wife and mother. In the most revered rap, women are prizes, currency or receptacles.

So while even hardcore heads decried Tyler, the Creator’s misogynist songs last year because times are (sort of) changin’, you’d be hard-pressed to get any of them to denounce Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic,” which  infamously compared “bitches” to “hoes and tricks.” LL Cool J was famously upstaged by Canibus in 1998 with a dis whose most famous quote was “99 percent of your fans wear high heels.” Few female-friendly (or female, period) rappers have survived a canon that is now mostly agreed-upon: Biggie, Tupac, Nas, Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Clan and Eminem. Icons like Queen Latifah and Lil’ Kim sure had their moments in the sun, but their actual recordings have never been pored over at length the way, say, Gucci Mane’s or Cam’ron’s mixtapes are. The two most popular females in rap, Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott, have mostly left the conversation as they disappeared from view.

Jay-Z  has managed to become a socially  and politically conscious rapper, in a subtle secondary way that doesn’t distract from his cool. He didn’t clap for Rihanna-battering Chris Brown at the Grammys, though he hasn’t elected to state any condemnation beyond that publicly. It’s telling that someone as famous as Jay-Z would feel the need to stay mum, still feeling his clout is secondary to the genre’s maleness. A rookie like Minaj actually has to feature Brown on her record; his feature “Right by My Side” is now the second single.

Ironically, Minaj has spoken out about her desire to avoid talking about sex in her music. Once she graduated from mixtapes to albums, Minaj told interviewers that she would not be singing or rapping about it: “I want people — especially young girls — to know that in life, nothing is going to be based on sex appeal.” Minaj has plenty of tender odes (her first hit “Your Love”) but any time genitals make an appearance it’s usually for business rather than pleasure.

She shares this trait with some of the aforementioned alpha males; Jay and Dre have rarely allowed a glimpse into their bedrooms even as they point frantically at how much they have coming in and out of them. Eminem’s love-man asides have been mercifully scarce. One notable exception in the realm of rapper’s rap, however, is Lil Wayne (aka Weezy), who dedicated a whole five minutes on certain editions of his biggest album “Tha Carter III,” to a riff on the Cookie Monster and a part of the female anatomy, in which he announces lovingly that “Girl, you food” among other things. The equally polarizing Wayne has been both a major catalyst for Minaj’s career (signing her to his Young Money collective was her big break) and strangely absent from it (missing her smash debut from prison, floundering on his own somewhat while she collaborated with megastars like Kanye).

On “Roman Reloaded’s” final track, “Stupid Hoe,” she ends the entire record with the declaration, “I am the female Weezy.” Unlike the “Aladdin” song, this statement is much less clear. Is the female Weezy a superior one? And will rap ever see a star who aspires to be the male Nicki?