Liveright Publishing

“What I mean is that public speaking and oratory were not merely things that ancient women didn’t do: they were exclusive practices and skills that defined masculinity as a gender.”
― Mary Beard, Women & Power: A Manifesto

“Women in power are seen as breaking down barriers, or alternatively as taking something to which they are not quite entitled.”
― Mary Beard, Women & Power: A Manifesto

“What I have in mind is the ability to be effective, to make a difference in the world, and the right to be taken seriously, together as much as individually. It is power in that sense that many women feel they don’t have – and that they want.”
― Mary Beard, Women & Power: A Manifesto

“How do I get my point heard? How do I get it noticed? How do I get to belong in the discussion? I am sure it is something some men feel too, but if there’s one thing that bonds women of all backgrounds, of all political colours, in all kinds of business and profession, it is the classic experience of the failed intervention; you’re at a meeting, you make a point, then a short silence follows, and after a few awkward seconds some man picks up where he had just left off: ‘What I was saying was …’ You might as well never have opened your mouth, and you end up blaming both yourself and the men whose exclusive club the discussion appears to be.”
― Mary Beard, Women & Power: A Manifesto