Books: Women and Power - Mary Beard

[cybermule]

 Bookclub read. Also a library loan.

 

Tis a good book, based on two lectures by Mary Beard explaining how our modern attitudes to women and power were deeply rooted in the classics, and hence passed through posh people into positions of power ad infinitum. I paraphrase. It's interesting but to me and mine it wouldn't be particularly new. The ideas of difference between power and celebrity were interesting. And I actually did have privilege enough to grow up with plenty of classics education so I may be a poor judge of how useful it would be. I'm not sure of its audience, though?

Anyway, it would be a good thing for teens to read as part of critical thinking or classics courses.

Comments

[janey_m]

Me! I'm the audience! Mary Beard is brilliant!

[cybermule]

I would love to go and see her speak, I must say. I'm just not sure who the book of the essay would be for, other than people who already knew of her.