History is how we have learnt to think about ourselves. It's not as though the Greeks and Romans are static entities out there to be discovered and translated. We make them speak, we talk to them, and they inform what we say.
Mary BeardRead
What I find very interesting is, we're not enthralled by the ancient world, and we've escaped all kinds of ancient preconceptions and assumptions and prejudices. But, nevertheless, we still make that connection between authoritative speech and male speech.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the persistent biases in gender perception, particularly in authority and communication.
Mary Beard points out a paradox where, despite living in a modern world that has moved beyond ancient prejudices, contemporary society still associates authoritative speech with male voices. This observation invites reflection on how gender roles continue to influence perceptions of credibility and authority in discourse.
Themes
GenderAuthorityCommunicationPrejudiceSociety
In practice
Example use cases
A panel discussion on gender biases in modern communications.
More from Mary Beard
All quotes →I don't think that we are completely dominated by what we have inherited from the past, but it is the case that as far back as you can go - just to Homer, but also to the literature of Rome, the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance - what you will find is that women's voices are not taken seriously.
Mary BeardRead
What politicians do is they never get the rhetoric wrong, and the price they pay is they don't speak the truth as they see it. Now, I will speak truth as I see it, and sometimes I don't get the rhetoric right. I think that's a fair trade-off.
Mary BeardRead
I'd quite like to be in Caligula's court - living in the back room somewhere and just being able to observe.
Mary BeardRead
Whatever you say about popular culture, people like people who know things, who are experts, and it doesn't particularly matter what they look like.
Mary BeardRead
There is no way, absolutely no way, that I would want people to stop reading the 'Odyssey.' But I want them to read it with their eyes open. To notice it and then to think what it says about us.
Mary BeardRead
Similar quotes
All men have the stars," he answered, "but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all the stars are silent. You--you alone--will have the stars as no one else has them--
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead
Fling me across the fabric of time and the seas of space. Make me nothing and from nothing-everything.
RumiRead
I used to be a Catholic. I left because I object to conversion by concussion. If you don't agree with what they teach, you get clobbered over the head until you do. All that does is change the shape of the head.
Alan AldaRead
If in a discussion of many matters ... we are not able to give perfectly exact and self-consistent accounts, do not be surprised: rather we would be content if we provide accounts that are second to none in probability.
PlatoRead
A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
A new understanding of power is replacing our old understanding of power as the ability to manipulate and control. The old understanding of power has become counterproductive to our evolution. What used to be good medicine has become poisonous. Pursuit of the ability to manipulate and control now produces only violence and destruction.
Gary ZukavRead