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Women & Power: A Manifesto

Mary Beard

4.05 · Rating details · 18,076 ratings · 2,155 reviews

An updated edition of the Sunday Times Bestseller

Britain's best-known classicist Mary Beard, is also a committed and vocal feminist. With wry wit, she revisits the gender agenda and shows how history has treated powerful women. Her examples range from the classical world to the modern day, from Medusa and Athena to Theresa May and Hillary Clinton. Beard explores the ...more

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Paperback, 144 pages

Published November 1st 2018 by Profile Books (first published November 2nd 2017)

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Feb 23, 2018 Sean Barrs The Ultra Vegan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 4-star-reads, feminism

I question the intelligence and moral integrity of any man who does not consider himself a feminist, and I also question the fact that I am the only male in my friends list to read this book. Books like this are so vitally important, important for both men and women. So go read it! Im not trying to shame my male friends, but merely point out the imbalance in the readers of this book, at least, here on goodreads.

Why is this I wonder?

Mary argues that ever since the ancient Greeks women have been ...more

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Feb 01, 2018 Ariel added it · review of another edition

But my basic premise is that our mental, cultural template for a powerful person remains resolutely male."

I read this text because I thought it might be useful to my investigation of our treatment of instapoets. Adapted from two speeches that Beard made in 2014 and 2017, she tracks what women's relationship with power has been, from ancient myths to current twitter discourse. I personally think a third essay was missing - it would have been great to have an essay of conclusions and solutions. ...more

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Dec 05, 2017 Ina Cawl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It is a shame for women to be loud

I dont know who told me this this stupid wisdom and I dont remember
Maybe in my school or maybe in my house but nevertheless I feel guilty for believing it.
Why some men or most of traditional men are scared of women talking loudly, what about women doest those feel irritated by it ?
Lack of public speaking to group of people was curse that befell on women for most of time and still now that right to speak in public place ( usually mens areas ) .

For many centuries ...more

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May 23, 2018 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, persuasive

We've come a long way.

If we compare our lives today with any earlier time and our place here in Northern Europe with any other place, we should celebrate. And there is nothing wrong with celebrating either, for example by reading an entertaining volume on the voice and power of women - written by one of the many women who have used the luck of time and place well - to become a professor with a clear and loud, and female voice.

So, let's celebrate.

But... there is still so much to do.

How often We've come a long way.

If we compare our lives today with any earlier time and our place here in Northern Europe with any other place, we should celebrate. And there is nothing wrong with celebrating either, for example by reading an entertaining volume on the voice and power of women - written by one of the many women who have used the luck of time and place well - to become a professor with a clear and loud, and female voice.

So, let's celebrate.

But... there is still so much to do.

How often is a wish for more equality in the contemporary power distribution met with a condescending comment referring to "how grateful we should be to have achieved so much already", thus silently telling us to shut up and stop fighting for more, to be pleased with having almost reached equality? Almost.

As long as power and masculinity are paired, there is no natural place for women within power. And Mary Beard argues beautifully that the target must be to change the structure and definition of power rather than woman.

With funny but disturbingly accurate examples from classical times to our present political atmosphere, she shows the reality women face when they try to empower themselves. Either they turn into hybrids like Antigone, Clytamnestra or Medea, powerful by the male attributes they acquire at a high cost, or they face the ridicule and abuse of those who identify power as a male concept per se, and try to push women back into the private or sexual sphere in order to control their voices.

A thought experiment made it vividly clear to me, myself a privileged, well-educated woman in a liberal democracy: closing my eyes and imagining a professor or a successful politician - I saw a man. An old man. A baby boomer man. A white baby boomer man. How can I blame anyone else for the lopsidedness of perceptions of power if that is what I see?

Naturally, that is not what I WANT to see, necessarily, so I force myself to imagine a staff picture at a Cambridge university department or in a government of any random country, and I try hard to imagine it in all possible colours and shapes and age groups.

And I know why I see what I see before my inner eye when I imagine intellectual or political power. We are not there yet. And we are not done until we are there.

We have a voice. And we will use it. And we have had time since Antiquity to get used to the abuse following a woman's voice speaking up for humanity!

Mary Beard has a voice that deserves to be heard and respected for her intellectual power and emotional courage.

Let it be heard! ...more

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Dec 21, 2017 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks, reviewcopy, read2017, essays

This is a very thought-provoking read, as long as you understand what it is - the texts of two speeches Mary Beard has given in the 21st century. Honestly, I do wish she'd used them as a starting point and written a much longer book about the topic, because I think she is drawing some connections I have not seen before - between classical imagery and modern politics, the cultural precedents for the oppression of women in the oldest literature, etc. She completely blew my mind about incorrect ...more

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Sep 18, 2018 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century, politics-and-polemic, non-fiction

So short, I had not quite intended to read it, when I did, but having in idleness picked it up and read a few pages nonchalantly, I found I was near enough half way through. There are two lectures padded out with illustrations (perhaps Beard had slides for her lectures) in the book, I felt these talks were her in conversation with Virginia Woolf's A Room of one's Own. Both naturally very revealing about their authors. Woolf the novelist deals in pictures: Woman excluded from public places, woman So short, I had not quite intended to read it, when I did, but having in idleness picked it up and read a few pages nonchalantly, I found I was near enough half way through. There are two lectures padded out with illustrations (perhaps Beard had slides for her lectures) in the book, I felt these talks were her in conversation with Virginia Woolf's A Room of one's Own. Both naturally very revealing about their authors. Woolf the novelist deals in pictures: Woman excluded from public places, woman inherits money and removes herself from public - with inherited money she can afford not to worry and to have a private space to retreat into where she can lock the door and write. Who she will write for or who to is unclear, maybe just for her own satisfaction, since her husband was a publisher getting into print wasn't to be an issue.

Beard, scholar that she is takes a different approach, less interested in the particular pictures of women excluded from the library or chased off the lawn she looks at the structures and tradition of power and the silencing of women.

On structure she points out that our notions of power itself are a problem. It is not collaborative, it is a thing to be possessed by a person on their own, by definition most are excluded from it, it is not something we conceive of arising from people working together. Therefore there will be exclusion and participation will be policed.

She discusses the shutting up in public of women from Penelope by her son Telemachus onwards, I don't disagree with anything she says but I do notice that not all the world's cultures have adopted Greece and Rome as their cultural ancestors yet one finds that this doesn't limit the public belittling of women even though as she points out the specific forms of silencing in 'European' cultures have a long heritage.

It might be dispiriting, the pace of change is very slow, but Beard amused me by teaching me that the famous speech of Queen Elizabeth I in which she declaims that she had the heart and stomach of a man etc etc may well be a pure invention,in any case it was first recorded forty years afterwards (once she was dead) by a man and more that the well known speech 'ain't I a woman' by Sojourner Truth, certainly was not what she said but a translation into a Southern drawl - she herself a Northerner who had grown up speaking Dutch as her first language, mind you it serves to illustrate Beard's point that for women who are allowed to speak in certain permitted contexts there is no guarantee that her words will stand and not be 'translated' into something considered more appropriate.

Post script some more hours after reading. One thing that Beard does is illustrate Keynes' belief that we are often surprisingly under the influence of long dead thinkers - in this case Beard shows that typical terms of abuse to silence women, describing women's voices as whining, whinging, animal noises, also the threats of rape and ripping out of tongues, are already there in ancient Greek and Roman writings which are quite explicit that public speech is the domain of the adult man. Ok, so Beard demonstrates that apparently emotional outbursts from the free will of some aggrieved man or other are in fact programmed and automatic responses, but what do we do with this information? And in a book which is called 'a manifesto' where does it lead us towards? Is awareness alone transformative? If I were to be critical I might say that Beard's book draws back the curtain, or points out the Emperor's nakedness but isn't a manifesto in that it doesn't suggest a path leading from the present state to something different other than her suggestion that we rethink ideas of power (admittedly that though a very big suggestion). ...more

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Feb 17, 2018 Thomas rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, feminism

A splendid start to the discussion about the silencing of women and how patriarchy precludes them from gaining power. Mary Beard traces the roots of this hatred against women back to Greek and Roman mythology, and she connects these historical examples to the modern-day mistreatment of women like Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton. My favorite part of this book: how Beard argues that instead of trying to make women powerful like men, we should change the structure of power to value more ...more

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Oct 29, 2017 Nicola rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I pretty much wanted to underline the whole thing. Review coming in The Big Issue soon.

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Mar 15, 2018 Trish rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, british, political-science, social-science, speech, sexuality

This book is two lectures modified and dispensing the understanding of a classicist with regard to The Public Role of Women, the very title of the first lecture. My markers are all in the second lecture, delivered in March 2017 and titled Women in Power. Mary Beard applies her knowledge of ancient languages and civilizations to uncover for us the origins of our notions of sexuality and power. It is not all she knows. It is merely her opinion of what she knows.

As though in a long, amusing ...more

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May 06, 2018 Ted rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: society, gender-topics, social-justice

4 1/2

the author

Beard, born in 1955, is the author of the popular SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (2015 finalist National Book Critics Award for non-fiction), and is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement. She makes frequent media appearances, gives many public lectures, and is active on social media. The Wiki article about Beard ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Be... ) references many of the controversial statements she ...more

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May 23, 2018 Hannah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I dont have all that much too say about this book which is why my review will be rather on the short side (quite like the book). This book collects two speeches Mary Beard has given, one called The Public Voice Of Women and one Women & Power and as speeches I am sure this worked wonderfully. As a book however, it really fell a bit short for me. I might not be the target audience and this might work better as an introduction to feminist thinking but for me, while I agreed with Mary Beard and ...more

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Feb 09, 2019 Markus rated it liked it

Shelves: history, social-criticism, feminism, gender-studies

I'm reminded of this lovely George R.R. Martin interview

description

As a (male) scholar of women & power in history, I've always found it both important and interesting not to see women primarily as mere silent victims of patriarchal oppression (although that certainly happens in most historical periods), but as individuals with their own motives, agency and stories to tell. That is the change that is needed in our collective perception of the past. Scrutiny and victimisation are two sides of the same ...more

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Dec 13, 2017 Raymond rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"When it comes to silencing women, Western culture has had thousands of years of practice." -Mary Beard

Beards Women & Power is a collection of two lectures that she gave in 2014 and 2017 both on the subject on how women are treated and perceived in the public sphere and the historical roots of this treatment. Beard shows through her lectures that the silencing of women as well as the way we view women in power has its roots in Greek and Roman mythology. In many ways this book reminded me of ...more

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Nov 01, 2017 Becky rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I will get straight to the point, with no ladylike silly shally.... this is bloody brilliant.

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Mar 27, 2018 Paul rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism

4.5 stars rounded up
This brief book is based on two lectures, one from 2014 and one from 2017 by Mary Beard. Beard is a classicist and historian, a very good one. The primary subject is female voice and silence and is very much concerned with misogyny and links to the abuse Beard and others have experienced on social media. Given the recent revelations relating to Harvey Weinstein and the current social media landscape it is a much needed wake up call.
Beard looks at the origins of misogyny and 4.5 stars rounded up
This brief book is based on two lectures, one from 2014 and one from 2017 by Mary Beard. Beard is a classicist and historian, a very good one. The primary subject is female voice and silence and is very much concerned with misogyny and links to the abuse Beard and others have experienced on social media. Given the recent revelations relating to Harvey Weinstein and the current social media landscape it is a much needed wake up call.
Beard looks at the origins of misogyny and being a classicist she takes as her starting point Greece, Rome and the Ancient world. In fact the starting point is Telemachus telling his mother Penelope to shut up in the Odyssey. It is essentially an analysis of the silencing of the female voice and the humiliation of those few females who dared to speak out. Beard knows her stuff and the examples from the classical era are penetrating and very apposite. She looks at the way the female voice is characterised, for example by the word whine. Beard also focuses on the famous Punch cartoon by Riana Duncan about “Miss Triggs”. It shows a woman at a meeting with five men in suits. The chairman is saying: “That’s an excellent suggestion, Miss Triggs. Perhaps one of the men here would like to make it.” Which neatly caricatures a particular attitude of mind. Beard throws in an analysis of Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Amazons myth.
The first lecture is an analysis of why culture silences women and the second looks at how culture prevents women from achieving equality and looks at the nature of power. Beard expresses herself frustrated at gradualist solutions, although she does admit some progress has been made. She does make some very prescient points about what needs to happen:
“I would like in the future to think harder about how exactly we might go about re-configuring those notions of ‘power’ that now exclude all but a very few women, and I would like to try to pull apart the very idea of ‘leadership’ (usually male) that is now assumed to be the key to successful institutions.”
She is right about leadership theories and we need to look at more “feminist” ideas about leadership. Of course men need to get used to the idea that they need to give up power and think differently about public space. My only niggle is that these were lectures, I would like Beard to follow up with something longer and more detailed. ...more

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Feb 08, 2018 Julie Ehlers rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism-and-gender, free-library

There have been a lot of tiny feminist books published recently, and there's not much point in comparing themjust read them all; they all have worthwhile things to say. Nevertheless, I thought Women & Power was more fun to read than Rebecca Solnit's small volumes and had more depth than Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie's. I liked the look at the classical world (something I haven't thought about much since my university days), and I thought she made some interesting and timely arguments. Of course, ...more

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Feb 22, 2018 Alice Lippart rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2018

Very interesting, especially liked how Beard draws parallels to ancient history.

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Dec 12, 2017 Abigail Bok rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Women are having a momentthough this aged cynic believes it will last only a moment. And into this moment steps Mary Beard, a British classical scholar who has taken more than her share of abuse, mostly via the Internet, to speak truth to power (or at least truth to trolls). In response to the haters she published two essays in the London Review of Books, in 2014 and 2017; and this slim volume is a reissue of those essays, with some emendations and updates.

The packaging is charminghigh-quality Women are having a moment—though this aged cynic believes it will last only a moment. And into this moment steps Mary Beard, a British classical scholar who has taken more than her share of abuse, mostly via the Internet, to speak truth to power (or at least truth to trolls). In response to the haters she published two essays in the London Review of Books, in 2014 and 2017; and this slim volume is a reissue of those essays, with some emendations and updates.

The packaging is charming—high-quality paper, beautiful design, well-chosen illustrations—which is a good thing, because the essays themselves are more or less scholarly fluff. In the first, “The Public Voice of Women,” she traces the roots of the silencing of women to ancient Greece, attempting to show that the bias and misogyny we experience today are deeply embedded in our culture. I believe her, though they seem equally embedded in many other cultures around the world that owe little or nothing to Greek antiquity. And I was hoping for some action items, but she does little to lead us out of our error: the best she can offer is “What we need is some old fashioned consciousness-raising about what we mean by the ‘voice of authority’ and how we’ve come to construct it.” Not much in the way of pointers there.

So I turned with interest to the second essay, “Women in Power.” Here she feeds us some morsels about how a few women (such as Margaret Thatcher) who have risen to positions of traditional power have tried to masculinize themselves to fit traditional visions of the role of Powerful Person. She also, more promisingly, problematizes the very way we construct power, showing how our definitions tend to exclude the majority of people and especially the majority of women. I sat up straighter, hoping this would lead to some real wisdom about how power can be redefined in a way that is more inclusive. And I got a little nugget: “It means decoupling [power] from public prestige. It means thinking collaboratively, about the power of followers not just of leaders. It means, above all, thinking about power as an attribute or even a verb (‘to power’), not as a possession. 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.”

Unfortunately, for me this was nothing new; and worse, it seems to feed right into gender stereotypes—women as collaborators, women content to stand in the background so long as they can promote positive change. I’m not sure that’s a universal attribute of females, and I’m not sure it’s aiming high enough. I believe we need to try for a world in which women can take visible leadership without being resented or demonized. Collaboration is great, but it can also be messy and lead to quagmires; and sometimes someone has to stand on the bank and pull everyone else out with a rope. Some women should be prepared to take that role.

So for unexamined assumptions and a certain amount of fuzzy reasoning, I have to give this only two stars. ...more

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Mar 11, 2020 Bill rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, classical-world, 4-star, read-in-2020, feminism

The London Review of Books commissioned Cambridge Professor of Classics Mary Beard to present two lectures at the British Museum, "Oh Do Shut Up Dear" in 2014 and "Women in Power" in 2017; this book publishes revised versions of the two lectures, with the first retitled "The Public Voice of Women".

As I write this review in March 2020, it has just been reported that Beard's nomination to the Board of Trustees of the British Museum was vetoed by the Prime Minister's office for the offense of The London Review of Books commissioned Cambridge Professor of Classics Mary Beard to present two lectures at the British Museum, "Oh Do Shut Up Dear" in 2014 and "Women in Power" in 2017; this book publishes revised versions of the two lectures, with the first retitled "The Public Voice of Women".

As I write this review in March 2020, it has just been reported that Beard's nomination to the Board of Trustees of the British Museum was vetoed by the Prime Minister's office for the offense of holding an impolitic opinion on an unrelated issue, an irony that probably doesn't surprise her. Her stated purpose for the lectures and book is to explain:

just how deeply embedded in Western culture are the mechanisms that silence women, that refuse to take them seriously, and that sever them...from the centres of power. This is one place where the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans can help to throw light on our own. When it comes to silencing women, Western culture has had thousands of years of practice.

Beard locates the first written record of a man silencing the public voice of a woman in the first written record of Western culture, Homer's Odyssey, in this pronouncement by Telemachus to his mother Penelope:

go back up into your quarters, and take up your own work, the loom and the distaff...speech will be the business of men, all men, and of me most of all; for mine is the power in this household.

The first essay is a brief catalog and analysis of examples of this male stifling of women's speech from the classical era to a 1988 Punch cartoon captioned: "That's an excellent suggestion, Miss Triggs. Perhaps one of the men here would like to make it."

The second essay explores the "radical separation...between women and power" that is the consequence of the silencing of women's public voices, again through a selection of examples from Aeschylus to the more recent drama of Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump.

No doubt to the frustration of some readers, Beard only hints at possibilities to change the status quo, and concludes:

We have not got anywhere near subverting those foundational stories of power that serve to keep women out of it, and turning them to our own advantage."

Recommended for most.

Women & Power: A Manifesto ...more

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Mar 31, 2019 Bradley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, political, 2019-shelf

There are few books like this anymore. We're used to long scholarly treatises and we're used to little soundbites that say everything and almost nothing at all.

What we've been missing is a call to arms. That's what a manifesto is. A mixed mission statement and an outrage. A rallying call and a hot pinprick of a single idea meant to sear itself into your brain.

That's what a manifesto is supposed to be. A wake-up call.

But what is this one in particular?

It's about the nature of power and misogyny, ...more

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Mar 26, 2018 Kristen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: month-womens-history

I would probably give this a 3.5.

This book offers a wealth of history on the treatment of women, particularly in regards to their attempts at having an accepted public voice. As others stated, where this book falls short is in its offering of any strong solutions to the problem. Granted, when I stopped to really think about it, I had a difficult time coming up with any solutions either. How do we go about correcting a problem that has been so deeply ingrained in our society?

I did very much ...more

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May 30, 2018 Jaya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, palate-cleansers, mmxviii, popsugar-18, history-nonfic

At the beginning itself Beard mentions that this is mainly about Women vis-a-vis Power wrt to "the western civilization". Drawing examples from Classical Graeco-Roman times and creating parallels with contemporary incidents/events makes this quite an engaging read. The arguments and issues that Beard throws up surely will resonate with most of us in some way or the other.
I wish there were similar studies, (there very well might be and am ignorant of their existence) if not on India in ...more

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Jan 18, 2018 Anna Baillie-Karas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A gem. Crisp, erudite writing on women and power. Especially interesting about womens voices and how they are silenced, ignored or worse. Up to the minute but draws on the classics (Mary Beards specialty). Beard says we should redefine power so women can participate in different ways. Lightly written but much food for thought. My first of her books but wont be the last. ...more

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Nov 09, 2017 Victoria (Eve's Alexandria) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, feminism, essays, bought-2017

Read in one late-train-journey gulp and very much enjoyed. There isnt a lot new here from a feminist theory perspective but I really appreciated how Mary Beard foregrounds the impact of speech and speech imagery. Its engaging, thoughtful and so inventive in the connections made between the classical and the contemporary world. I just wish it was longer, with more space to expand. ...more

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Jan 23, 2018 Bfisher rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a repackaging of two essays written for the London Review of Books in 2014 ("The Public Voice of Women") and 2017 (Women In Power).

As a classical scholar, she has some illuminating comments about long running cultural constraints on the voices of women in the public sphere.

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Mar 21, 2018 Debbie "DJ" rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, feminism, own

And here I thought Id read pretty much everything on feminism...NOT!
Beard took me back to Greek and Roman mythology. How the silencing of women in these myths translate to the present. She uses examples of modern day women such as Hillary Clinton, and Elizabeth Warren to really drive home her point. I was amazed at just how relevant these early myths are. What a fascinating and short read! ...more

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Oct 30, 2017 Joanna Flis rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A very important book. Loud voice about voiceless women.

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Mar 05, 2018 Jo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, non-fiction

"When it comes to silencing women, Western culture has had thousands of years of practice"

I love Mary Beard. She's clever, interesting and really raises some rather thought provoking issues. I have enjoyed watching her documentaries, and when I noticed she had written "Women and Power" I'll admit, I was quite delighted.
This rather short book consists of two lectures given in different years based on the subject of the treatment of women in society, and the history behind this treatment. I know ...more

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Jan 19, 2018 Steven rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, books-i-own, non-fiction, british, feminism, essays, literature, criticism

"If we want to give women as a genderand not just in the shape of a few determined individualstheir place inside the structures of power, we have to think harder about how and why we think as we do. If there is a cultural template, which works to disempower women, what exactly is it and where do we get it from?" (58)

...more

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Dec 20, 2017 Kristi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Reading a book with this title while on public transit felt like an act of aggression. Which is I guess exactly why books like this are necessary.

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About Mary Beard

Mary Beard

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Winifred Mary Beard (born 1 January 1955) is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Newnham College. She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog "A Don's Life", which appears on The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as
Winifred Mary Beard (born 1 January 1955) is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of Newnham College. She is the Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog "A Don's Life", which appears on The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist".

Mary Beard, an only child, was born on 1 January 1955 in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. Her father, Roy Whitbread Beard, worked as an architect in Shrewsbury. She recalled him as "a raffish public-schoolboy type and a complete wastrel, but very engaging". Her mother Joyce Emily Beard was a headmistress and an enthusiastic reader.

Mary Beard attended an all-female direct grant school. During the summer she participated in archaeological excavations; this was initially to earn money for recreational spending, but she began to find the study of antiquity unexpectedly interesting. But it was not all that interested the young Beard. She had friends in many age groups, and a number of trangressions: "Playing around with other people's husbands when you were 17 was bad news. Yes, I was a very naughty girl."

At the age of 18 she was interviewed for a place at Newnham College, Cambridge and sat the then compulsory entrance exam. She had thought of going to King's, but rejected it when she discovered the college did not offer scholarships to women. Although studying at a single-sex college, she found in her first year that some men in the University held dismissive attitudes towards women's academic potential, and this strengthened her determination to succeed. She also developed feminist views that remained "hugely important" in her later life, although she later described "modern orthodox feminism" as partly "cant". Beard received an MA at Newnham and remained in Cambridge for her PhD.

From 1979 to 1983 she lectured in Classics at King's College London. She returned to Cambridge in 1984 as a fellow of Newnham College and the only female lecturer in the Classics faculty. Rome in the Late Republic, which she co-wrote with the Cambridge ancient historian Michael Crawford, was published the same year. In 1985 Beard married Robin Sinclair Cormack. She had a daughter in 1985 and a son in 1987. Beard became Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement in 1992.

Shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Beard was one of several authors invited to contribute articles on the topic to the London Review of Books. She opined that many people, once "the shock had faded", thought "the United States had it coming", and that "[w]orld bullies, even if their heart is in the right place, will in the end pay the price".[4] In a November 2007 interview, she stated that the hostility these comments provoked had still not subsided, although she believed it had become a standard viewpoint that terrorism was associated with American foreign policy.[1]

In 2004, Beard became the Professor of Classics at Cambridge.[3] She is also the Visiting Sather Professor of Classical Literature for 2008–2009 at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has delivered a series of lectures on "Roman Laughter".[5] ...more

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