Women & Power: A Manifesto

This book is short, but boy does it pack a punch. I learned so much in my short time reading it and it was very well written! Highly recommend!

This is a useful link-up of Ms. Beard's expertise in antiquity studies to modern feminism in showing that the discrimination is rooted in our cultural past, although that is not really surprising. I don't know that her thoughts on the female tragedy ladiies, ie., Medusa, Medea, etc., that the playwriters meant to discriminate against women because of the deeds of these few-after all these were dramas for enterainment-not morality stories.I have studied "The Iliad" but not the "The Odyssey," but of course am familiar with the story. I understand Ms. Beard's point about Telemachus silencing his mother, Penelope, as the first instance of denying women a legitimate voice in Western literature, but Penelope is a super heroine regardless. I can cite a more recent example of a woman who employed Penelope's strategy of undoing the days progress at night to survive. After the fall of Saigon and South Vietnam in April 1975, a South Vietnamese female employee of a major US bank in Saigon who had failed to evacuate was forced by the North Vietnamese to train their cadre to operate the bank's computer (modern for that time). Sagely realizing that her usefulness would be over if she did this, she managed to delete their instruction every night so that they could never master the technology. Eventually she was allowed to leave Vietnam, and go to the West. (Source: Foreign Broadcast Information Service /FBIS/ from mid 1975.) I don't think she was familiar with Penelope or the Odyssey, but her survival certainly mirrors the plot, and she is very definitely a brave, heroic lady.

Mary Beard is a Professor at Cambridge in the UK, specializing in the study of the Greek and Roman classics. One of her most famous works is “SPQR – A History of Ancient Rome,” which has been on the Best Seller Lists. Regrettably, I have yet to read it, but hope to soon. Beard provides some perspective from the ancient world to reflect on the on-going issue of women’s access to power, which would hopefully include power over their own bodies. This work is a collection of two separate lectures that she has given: “The Public Voice of Women” and “Women in Power.”Of late, I’ve found myself referencing “The Odyssey” a lot, with the portrayal of the bad homecoming Odysseus experienced when he returned from Troy. Beard, in her first lecture, also draws a lesson from this work, specifically when the son of Odysseus and Penelope, Telemachus, essentially tells his mom to shut up, get back to the loom, ‘cause the men are speaking. And things have not changed much in two and a half millenniums, a point Beard underscores with a cartoon from “Punch,” in which Mrs. Triggs makes a point in a Board meeting, and the Chairman asks if another male would be willing to make the same point (with the idea that then it would be “heard.”) Beard goes on to ruminate on exactly what must occur for women to be “heard,” particularly in public, besides speech lessons to emulate a deep gravelly voice.In the second essay, Beard introduced me to “Herland,” by Charlotte Gilman, first published in 1915, about a land that contained only women, a marvelous utopia that was tidy and peaceful, and “even the cats had stopped killing the birds!” I had to chuckle, regrettably, as she documents the negative reactions, seemingly unconsciously, in the main steam media when a woman assumes a position of power, noting that it was called a “power grab.” Yes, women are making substantial progress in acquiring elective offices, and perhaps a better, and maybe fairer world will result. Yet there is definitely a backlash. I had not seen it before, but there was a cartoon of Trump as Perseus, who had decapitated Hillary Clinton, who was portrayed at Medusa. Wow!I’ve read my share of “feminist classics,” starting with Betty Frieden’s “The Feminine Mystique” in the ‘60’s, followed thereafter in 1970, by Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal work, “The Second Sex.” As with some other issues from back then (like no more war!), I really thought we’d be much further along in developing fair and equitable relations between men and women, involving power, and yes, changing the diapers. Two steps forward, and one step back, or is it the other way around, as Susan Faludi has argued in “Backlash”.Beard presents not a hint of what I would consider the next level of evolution: once one has power, and one is conscientious in its use, one finds it an utter relief to give it up and let someone else do it and concentrate on “smelling the roses” instead! Nonetheless, for Beard’s ability to use the classics to provide perspective on the on-going contemporary dilemmas involving women’s efforts to obtain fairer and more equitable relations (coupled with some male allies), she deserves 5-stars.

This book is a compilation of two of Mary Beard’s speeches, although neither is an off the cuff discourse on the steps of wherever. Both obviously involved considerable forethought and achieved the depth normally reserved for the written word.Beard herself, however, admits to the limitation of the form, noting: “So much for the diagnosis: what’s the practical remedy?” And she insightfully notes, “Putting it bluntly, having women pretend to be men may be a quick fix, but it doesn’t get to the heart of the problem.”Speaking for America, at least, we ultimately have to move beyond the issues of gender, race, sexual orientation, and the like, and recognize that at the heart of all repression and discrimination is power. And the conventions by which we define and, more importantly, allocate power today were defined by men in their image. They were built on the supremacy of rugged individualism, as Herbert Hoover referred to it, a decidedly masculine imagery that conjures up visions of thrusting swords and men standing atop slain enemies.It is an imagery, setting gender aside, that no longer fits the crowded, inter-connected, weapons of mass destruction, ecologically self-destructive world we live in. If we are to save the planet and ourselves we must begin to think collectively, to put the collective good above individual triumph.Beard notes: “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.” She’s absolutely spot on. The voice of authority is a social convention that can and must be changed, not just for the sake of women, or minorities, or the LGBT community, but to save us all and to create a more enlightened and equitable world.“How and why do the conventional definitions of ‘power’ (or for that matter of ‘knowledge’, ‘expertise’ and ‘authority’) that we carry round in our heads exclude women?” It’s a very good question, to be sure, but I’m not sure it’s the right one. The question, I believe, answers itself in that it suggests that power is currently what economists would call a zero sum game.It is, but it can’t be. At least not if we want to leave anything worthwhile for our children. Our social, political, and commercial conventions must be re-defined to be more inclusive both out of a restored sense of what is right and fair, as well as a recognition that we have created a collective world in which individualism—of any kind—must be subordinate to the collective good.If we do that, and walk away from the zero sum game of the past, perhaps we can move beyond the cultural bias and distortion that Beard so clearly and thoughtfully lays out here.Yes, I am a white man who has held positions of power (in my case commercial) for a long time. And I know exactly how I got to where I did. I dearly hope, however, that my own children, who happen to be daughters, will re-define those conventions so that their children, my offspring, of course, will rise above the imbalanced (power, wealth, etc.) mess we find ourselves in.One closing thought. Beard suggests that one structural change we need to make is “decoupling it [power] from public prestige.” She’s right. And building the conventions surrounding power around the collective good rather than the individual as warrior, entrepreneur, or political leader, will do just that—gender aside.A must read for all, particularly our children.