Women respond to viral TikTok prompt asking about ‘female version’ of male Roman Empire obsession

Sign up for the Independent Women email for the latest news, opinion and features Get the Independent Women email for free Get the Independent Women email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Many women were shocked to hear that the men in their lives think about the Roman Empire either daily or multiple times per week, prompting one TikToker to ask “what is the female version of the Roman Empire?” Los Angeles-based professional charcuterie artist Emmy Rener took to TikTok to ask her viewers that exact question as she said: “What is something random that we all think about on a very regular basis that is female specific?” Since being posted on 14 September, the video has been viewed over 600,000 times, with women either leaving comments or stitching the TikTok and sharing their own videos to answer Rener’s question. “The six wives of Henry VIII, the Titanic, obviously, not the movie but the Titanic, the Romanovs, and, of course, Greek mythology.” The question has also circulated on Twitter, formerly known as X, where one individual suggested the female version of the Roman Empire is “Tom Holland’s performance on Lip Sync Battle,” while others suggested it was Taylor Swift. Carly Maris, a postdoctoral fellow at San Diego State University whose research interests include Rome, Persia, and Egypt, responded to the trend on TikTok, saying that for her “personally, the female version of the Roman Empire is the Roman Empire”. The Roman Empire trend originally started on Instagram when Gaius Flavius, a Roman reenactor based in Sweden, shared an Instagram video to his 100,000 followers with an on-screen caption that read, “Ladies, many of you do not realise how often men think about the Roman Empire.” His caption continued: “Ask your husband/boyfriend/father/brother – you will be surprised by their answers.” Flavius’s post has been viewed more than 1.7 million times since being posted on 19 August.