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Women & power : a manifesto / Mary Beard.

by Beard, Mary, author., Beard, Mary, Public voice of women., Beard, Mary, Women in power.

New York, N.Y. ; London : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a Division of W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.

xi, 115 pages : illustrations ; 20 cm

First American edition.

The public voice of women -- Women in power.

Two essays connect the past with the present, tracing the history of misogyny to its ancient roots and examining the pitfalls of gender.

"At long last, Mary Beard has decided to address in one brave book the misogynists and trolls who mercilessly attack and demean women the world over. Few, sadly, are more experienced with this kind of hateful barrage than Beard herself, who has been subjected to a whole onslaught of criticism online, in response to her articles and public speeches. In [this book], Beard presents her most powerful statement yet, tracing the origins of misogyny to their ancient roots. In two provocative essays, Beard connects the past to the present as only she can, examining the pitfalls of gender and the ways that history has mistreated powerful 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 historically being defined as inherently male. There is no clearer example than Odysseus' wife, Penelope, who seals her lips and proceeds upstairs when told to shut up by Telemachus, her son. Other women who have dared to open their mouths in public or, against all odds, gained power--from would-be Roman orators, though the great queen Elizabeth I--have been treated as 'freakish androgynes, ' attacked or punished for their courage--regarded with suspicion at best, contempt at worst. From Medusa to Philomela (whose tongue was cut out), from Hillary Clinton to Elizabeth Warren (who was told to sit down), Beard draws endlessly 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 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?"--Jacket.

"A version of 'The Public voice of women' first appeared in the London Review of Books, 20 March 2014; 'Women in power' was published, also in the London Review of Books, 16 March 2017. Both were lectures presented by Mary Beard in the LRB Winter Lecture series."--Title page verso.

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