Mary Beard’s Manifesto: Redefining Power

 by Anya Shankar

Mary Beard is one of Britain's most famous classicists, she currently teaches at Cambridge as a professor of ancient literature. Her striking manifesto ‘Women & Power’ explores the many ways in which the classical world and the modern day have cultivated a habit of silencing women. She takes many examples from ancient literature and world politics to make a powerful case to challenge the ways in which women have been pushed out of power and making women feel like they cannot be powerful because of the consequences they might face. 

One of the examples she takes from Ancient Athens is an old comedy, called ‘Assemblywomen’ by Aristophanes. This play describes a hilarious fantasy in which the women of Athens take over the state because they are sick of the men who are too slow and unfocused - it's really just a critique of democracy. The play is built too obviously on misogyny; Aristophanes makes the point that women can’t speak properly in public or adapt their private speech, which is mainly focused on sex, to the brooding male speech of politics. Another example of a more physical silencing of women, Mary suggests Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ which tells of the princess Io. She was one of Zeus’ mortal lovers - lovers might be the wrong word, Zeus probably just liked the look of her - whom Zeus turned into a cow. All she could do now was moo. Furthermore, Echo, a mountain nymph was punished so that she could only echo the speech of others and her words were never her own. While one might find this argument a bit strained since there is about 3,000 years between us and the Greeks, Mary makes a convincing argument; brutal men, mute women, shaming them as an act of control, it seems all too familiar to us today. 

Women in general faced disempowerment in classical worlds, they had no voting rights, limited independence and in early Athens they weren't even considered citizens. Oratory and public speaking were things defined only by masculinity. Women's voices were a threat to the state, and so gendered speech was established. Politics doesn't like the high pitched nature of a woman's voice which is why terms like ‘whine’ still tend to be reserved for women. 

Mary Beard then takes to a modernist literary example to continue her argument. She references Henry James’ ‘Bostonians’ and his protagonist Verena Tarrant, a young feminist campaigner and speaker. As she approaches her suitor she finds herself unable to speak in public. In a series of essays, James explains perfectly where he stood and wrote about the polluting and socially destructive manner of women's voices. James was writing in the late 1800s and at the turn of the century, although his manner of argument sounds very Ancient Greek. 

Mary Beard uses these examples to urge readers to raise consciousness about how we've constructed the ‘voice of authority’ and ask questions about who’s voice fits. 

Mary then goes on to talk about women in power and how stereotypical positions of power are intrinsically male. Even women in positions of power wear pantsuits and, in some cases, take voice lessons to lower their voices because they are much more likely to be heard if they sound more masculine. Athenian drama portrays women as abusers rather than users of power, their actions always lead to death and destruction. Mary argues that one cannot fit women into a structure that is male coded, so we need to change that structure. With her own personal reflections, Mary 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?