Women & Power

Mary Beard confronts in this courageous book - for the first time - the misogynists and bullies that viciously insult and denigrate women worldwide, including Mary herself. In "Women & Power", Mary traces the history of sexism to its ancient beginnings, analyzing the traps of sexism and the ways in which history has abused powerful women from the dawn of time.

Beard demonstrates that since Homer's Odyssey, women have been barred from leading positions in civic life, since public speaking has been considered essentially masculine. From Medusa to Philomela, from Elizabeth Warren to Hillary Clinton, Beard draws illuminating resemblances between our social assumptions regarding women's relationship to power - and how powerful female figures provide a requisite example for all ladies who must fight back being scrubbed into a male template.

In "Women & Power", Beard also reflects on her own encounters with sexism to pose the question: If women are not believed to be inside the framework of power, shouldn't we rethink power itself? And for how many millennia are we supposed to wait?

Author: Mary Beard

Year of Release: 2017

Goodreads Score: 4.03 stars (from 29,020 reviews)