Mary Beard on Women and Power

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

I thought this was very applicable to the current situation.

"Beard is uncomfortably familiar with such snubs – as an active user of social media, she’s received a shocking amount of abuse, much of which she’s described as ‘truly vile’ and which would be inappropriate to reproduce here.

She asserts that the reason women speaking in public provokes such a vicious response is because ‘public speech was a – if not the – defining attribute of maleness’ in ancient times. Accordingly, any woman who dared infringe on male territory was ruthlessly silenced.

In the classical world, this sometimes meant the removal of tongues or women’s transformation into animals like cows."
Quote from this review:
blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/02/06/book-review-women-power-a-manifesto-by-mary-beard/

Book: Women & Power: a Manifesto

And you can listen to her really excellent lecture on the subject here:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=VGDJIlUCjA0

I do love that woman.

I did love that little manifesto of hers. Makes you think very differently about the 'strong' female characters in Ancient Greek and Roman literature.

Thanks - I'll watch this.

Thank goodness times have moved on and we can all talk freely without fear of violence and verbal abuse from men

It's a good book - I really recommend anyone who hasn't read it to get a copy.

"She asserts that the reason women speaking in public provokes such a vicious response is because ‘public speech was a – if not the – defining attribute of maleness’ in ancient times. Accordingly, any woman who dared infringe on male territory was ruthlessly silenced".

That is really interesting in the light of the huge attempts at silencing women speaking at or attending WPUK and Let a Woman Talk events.

And of course all social media is "public talk" so women must be hounded off social media. And if they can't be hounded off then they must be banned from Twitter and Facebook.

You would think men would have moved on somewhat.

I would love to get her take on the trans debate and the violent silencing of women. She's gotta see what this is - she's spent a lifetime documenting the ways that men have silenced women from the public forum.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/02/15/mary-beard-left-wanting-to-cry-after-row-over-trans-censorship-letter/

extraordinary wonderful woman - and takes a lot to silence her.... seriously shocking.....

thanks for the recommendation - just ordered the book

That article from 2015 explains why she hasn't been speaking out. I assume she doesn't feel eager to face that kind of abuse again. If she does stick her head above the parapet it will bring the zombie hordes down on her, and she already knows how it feels to be dehumanised on social media.

She's seen what happened to Germaine Greer and may well have decided that she'd prefer to concentrate on her own academic and media interests, rather than have her entire life and work disrupted by the kind of human hyenas who hunt in cowardly packs.