Women & Power: A Manifesto

At long last, Mary Beard addresses in one brave book the misogynists and trolls who mercilessly attack and demean women the world over, including, very often, Mary herself. In Women & Power, she traces the origins of this misogyny to its ancient roots, examining the pitfalls of gender and the ways that history has mistreated strong women since time immemorial. As far back as Homer's Odyssey, Beard shows, women have been prohibited from leadership roles in civic life, public speech being defined as inherently male. From Medusa to Philomela (whose tongue was cut out), from Hillary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren (who was told to sit down), Beard draws illuminating parallels between our cultural assumptions about women's relationship to power--and how powerful women provide a necessary example for all women who must resist being vacuumed into a male template. With personal reflections on her own online experiences with sexism, Beard asks: If women aren't perceived to be within the structure of power, isn't it power itself we need to redefine? And how many more centuries should we be expected to wait?

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Published Dec 12, 2017

128 pages

Average rating: 8

17 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

Mrs. Awake Taco
Nov 13, 2024
8/10 stars
Two lectures turned into a book. As such, they are compact and mostly only present questions. Having said that, the questions presented are intriguing and the examples Beard uses to interrogate the historical question of misogyny are enlightening. The one that stood out to me the most, being in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, was a classical example in which a male author declared it would be much worse to have one's voice turned feminine than to suffer through a plague. I respectfully disagree and say, with the full of weight of an incompetent aging superpower mismanaging a deadly virus, I would much rather have a higher pitched voice than have to deal with this nonsense again.

Would recommend!

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