Festival of Politics 2018: In Conversation with Professor Mary Beard

okay good afternoon everyone thank you again for your patience and please welcome our speakers for this afternoon professor Mary beard and the presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament came Akintola MSP [Applause] [Music] what a fantastic reception can I say I don't think any MSP has ever been greeted that way in the chamber my name is Ken McIntosh I'm the presiding officer here at Hollywood and delighted to welcome you this afternoon thank you very much for coming along to the festival of politics 2018 this is our 14th a year and this is our final day but it's been a great success thanks to you because it's a participative event it's all about your engagement with politics and with public policy your chance to give us your thoughts and your questions and today is no exception with our guests really weird before we are going to introduce me um I want to thank first of all the Open University who are the sponsors of today's event and they've been a big supporter of us throughout this week in sponsor several events and they made this event possible this afternoon we're also broadcasting live on Facebook Facebook live so for those of you who are social media savvy and professor beard is a very social media savvy we're on hashtag FOP 2018 hashtag festival politics 2018 so I'd like to welcome professor Mary beard and I'd like to give F Canada a little bit of introduction I think actually from the reaction people do know you but for the for those who don't deem mini beard is a professor of classics at Munim College Cambridge and classics editor at The Times Literary Supplement born in Shropshire the family relocated to Shrewsbury when Professor beard was young and she attended Shrewsbury high school on a scholarship where she swiftly became a star pupil she was particularly gifted at Latin and Greek often completing all the terms homework in the first week and exactly yes and in their summer holidays participated in local archaeological digs in 1972 she took the entrance exam and applied for a place at Munim College Cambridge and since then became classics lecturer at King's College London then moving back to New College in 1984 as a fellow at the time the only female lecturer in the Faculty her first book was published in 1985 Rome in the late Republic praised as an accessible and innovative account of Rome's transformation into an empire in 1989 whilst raising her children Zoey and Raphael and working she published her only non history book the good working mother's guide a series of hints and tips for working mothers in 1992 she was appointed classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement a post she continues to hold and in 2004 many became professor of classics at unum College her breakthrough to in public consciousness was probably the book Pompey and it was read by the controller of BBC 2 who offered professor beard the opportunity to present it as a TV documentary and since dance that launchpad the learners but very approachable professor beers can be seen on TV translating Latin transcriptions carving up pizza to explain the divisions of the Roman Empire or argument public services on question time her book women in power was a runaway bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and one of her most recent television appearances has been as the one of the presenters of civilisations the big-budget BBC version of Kenneth Clark's 1969 series she is regularly flagged down by fans and one admirer published a poem titled when I grow up I want to be merely beard he's now adorns t-shirts worn by her legions of fans and she has many friends in high places including Hillary Clinton and the shoe designer Manolo Blahnik professor beard writes a blog called adorns life for The Times Literary Supplement she is known for being very active on Twitter responding to critics and trolls with reason and optimism she's this as a big part of her public role as an academic professor beard was made an OBE in 2013 and a deem commander of the Order of the British Empire and 2018 both were for services to classical scholarship she lives in Cambridge with her husband Robinson Claire Cormac a fellow classicist and art historian has two children who are also academics I'm delighted to welcome Tim Mary [Music] thank you very much now for joining us thank you can I just say the reason I did all my homework in the first week of term yes was because I wanted to get up to no good in the other week if you had a real bullets at a a binge homework session you they could go out doing things you shouldn't I like that that mischievous treat to which I think comes out in all your work well but it is I think probably worth starting just there to explain how you got into the classes because it's not even you know for very bright children as you clearly aware it's not an obvious interest inspired you I mean those kind of questions are always difficult you know there was difficulty of a true answer but the answer that makes most sense to me and me and what I remember goes back to when I was five actually and my mum who was a school teacher in Shropshire thought I ought to go to London to see the Capitol and we went to London and she was a teacher so we did some fun things and we also did some educational things we went to the British Museum and there were two things I remember about that which I think we're absolutely formative for me because first of all we went to see the path Minh marbles and whatever you think about where the Parthenon Marbles really belong I was just when I saw them gobsmacked I just thought I kind of got the impression when I was a kid that somehow humanity had been sort of a series of progresses and that if you went back a very long time people weren't so good at doing things as we were and to discover that two and a half thousand years ago you know they're actually better than us was I just remember that kind of jolting me in some ways but the thing that really really got me in this visit to the British Museum was I wanted to see the Egyptians that was the mummies but I also wanted to see Egyptian everyday life for my mum had convinced I did and there was one case where she could see in it it was the old days in the British Museum and so that it was certainly not child friendly she convinced me that that and she was right the very back of this case there was a piece on I think 4,000 year old carbonized Egyptian cake and that I think you know there's not many five-year-olds that wouldn't find the idea of five 5,000 4,000 year old piece of cake kind of intriguing but he was right at the back and I was quite big and she was trying to lift me up to this high case to see not very successfully when a guy walked past I've got no idea who he was he he must have been a keeper at the British Museum he saw what was going on he came over he unlocked the case and he said what did I want to see and I said I wanted to see the cake and he got the cake out of the case and put it right in front of me and what I think was amazing about that was not just that the cake was fascinating and it's still there I can tell you I've read to see it it's that this guy I just the message that that guy conveyed which was people will open cases for you people will help you understand the past in this might be right at the back of the case but people will be nice and they will introduced you to it you know eyeball to eyeball I think that's somehow struck it was a kind of political message in part even though I didn't quite realize it at the time it has been that that has been your approach to history or certainly the programs that you you make for for the public it's about the accessibility and it's often about the detail about what people eat you know or where's been to the toilet actually quite often you always get a load of kids interested by showing them a Roman lavatory you know and then you say I did you know they didn't use paper they used a sponge on a stick and that's at that point you've got them you know I can't you know looking back one of the things that I'm trying to do in these tele programs I think it's do what that bloke did for me and to say I look it's interesting you metaphorically at least even if you can't do it literally I want to open museum cases I make make sure that people get to enjoy what's inside them and think about it and often it isn't rocket science or when people think that you know archaeologists historians you know they have all these technical skills in looking at these objects that you know ordinary people don't have you know there is a song technical skill I wouldn't deny that but very often you know history is a game that we can all play our questions are a good questions and you know we don't we don't need to have got a degree in Roman archaeology to start to kind of engage with that and that seems to be very important time often because television programs take a very long time to make and there's a lot of hanging around I sit and I watch visitors go around Pompeii for example you know ordinary visitors whether we've guides or not what always strikes me is that when they're looking when they're really concentrating almost all the questions that they raise a really good ones you know I can't see where the water goes here you know is that where a window was and you think but often they'd be made to feel that their questions are just you know they're just kind of amateur questions and I want to make her help people to think that their questions are largely you know the right ones and they can have a go answering them so I'm struck and we'll return to some of these issues about accessibility but the I was struck by the fact that how much you do so you are busy you are generally so you meetings TV programs your and Twitter and so on but your you've got a a detail job as a as a scholar and a lecturer have you always enjoyed that part of it I mean that's hard to work and I know you don't you're famous for the hard work but do you enjoy it yeah I mean that's my day job and I think well you know about telly you have to be realistic about television you know that you get picked up you're the flavor of the month free year or so maybe five years maybe 10 years but in the end they'll get fed up with you you know that's just the law of telly I think unless yes David Attenborough is probably the only living you know I think always you know first and foremost I academic who works on history mostly ancient Rome but also important Greece yeah I've got great students I really like the job I really like writing about that in a highly academic way I've written some really really boring stuff you know and the others the other bit it's kind of it's a lovely optional extra and I'm hugely relieved that I didn't get into television until I was in my mid fifties you know because I think it would have been it would have just been awful to be a young person you know you know and you know your eyes you know you would have it would have gone to your head you know I mean I think of it as kind of quirky extra thing that I do and it's fun and there is a sense in which it's nice to get what you think and your idea is out to you know a wider audience than a few hundred undergraduates but it's it's it's not me I mean when all this is gone I shall be in the University Library in Cambridge writing extremely boring things and being very happy you you feel you don't feel the need to prove yourself in any way you have proved yourself as an academic and TV is the icing on the cake no I guess so I mean I I mean I think telly in part was proving I could do it you know and I have learned I have learnt a hell of a lot man I used to think that it would be perfectly fine to do a program on Pompeii in which she just went round you know a few houses never got outside the city at Pompeii or possibly went to see a museum and the first director I work with said they if you never get out of this town your viewers will have switched off right you know you and so I've learned a bit about how you put things over visually and you mentioned the pizza you know in one of our programs we did try to encapsulate the nature of the of the disaggregation of the Roman Empire by cutting up a pizza it took so long the pizza was inordinately difficult to pull apart by the time we finished it interestingly about that people remember that I it was the idea of my producer and I'd said we look sorry that's so nice you know I am NOT going to you know I just not and so she's very patient and she let me have a go explaining to camera the nature of the disaggregation of the Roman Empire and you know after a few attempts at this I had to agree it was so dreading the VESA eyes all right let's do the piece and we did so there are things like that that you are always learning and we'll come back to history particularly your most recent book in a second but sticking with TV one of the most as was it was life-changing moments was and when you went on TV and ie guild critically I think people may notice to me but he's they the TV critic off the Daily Mail Sunday Times right so but you had a right thought you but you had a rain call back yeah it was after he had a little go at me after my first television program on Pompeii a miner go and then he really went to town when we did a series meet the Romans about everyday life in the Roman Empire off towards and it was kind of you know she looks you know sixteen from behind but sixty-five from the front how dare she think that she can come into our living rooms without having made herself look presentable I mean those teeth I mean it just went on and on and on no I love about it now and you know when you actually pick up the paper well in fact I read it first online and you read that about yourself you think blimey you know she said she should be on the undateable but it took me a kind of you know 13 minutes also to think I can on be it this is just stupid you know this is this is sexist it's ageist and it's just not very intelligent it's not very clever so actually it paradoxically the Daily Mail was part of my defense because loads of people in the media picked this up and interestingly it it turned out that Gil was not with the trend really it must have been some people I'm sure there still are some people who think can't she do something better with her hair but I did two things I went on woman's eye I think and I did an article in The Daily Mail and I thought just saying look come on you know when we're not judging historians on telly by you know what their teeth look like you know and I was really really fearful that the daily mail audience woods and readership would would be rather with Gil than with me and the worst song but by-and-large always comments under the line the Daily Mail what you usually said absolutely ghastly um they were mostly on my side and I what I suddenly realized was that the Daily Mail's readership it's actually women at my age she didn't like this idiot saying saying that about somebody who they felt they were they were kind of the coeval of just get real you know just look at me I was in about 56 this is what a 56 year old woman actually looks like you know if she hasn't had worked on let's just accept that and in some ways this was nothing to do with me really it was it was a bit of a turning point it was people you know although one reporter one television critic in the Sunday Times about civilizations tried to cut it ay-ay-ay guilt not much success and people don't really say that now we know there's all kinds of trouble about you know women on television women getting paid the same older women on television or whatever but they don't do that and I'm pleased to say that AAA Gil had his Wikipedia page hacked and had nasty things put in to it it wasn't me either I wouldn't know how to hack a wiki page so it was it was a learning experience for us all well indeed and I mean I rather nasty students PE to experience for you to under endure but I think people warmed to that the idea of you standing up so robustly in the face of other times people would recognize that kind of attack and how in theaters but it's the fact that you stood up and you did very similarly it is to or in line with when you went on Newsnight I think 2013 and you're just defending immigrants you're seeing slightly naive then because I think I would know now but if you were to go on Newsnight and defend immigration you might feel that was very important thing to do but you know that would be you can't attack and I didn't say and so but you were really where but again who is that is because this and politicians had female politicians in particular will will recognize this you just get attacked you get you know is misogynistic it is vicious it's sexual you know and it's it's very aggressive and but you didn't again you didn't it's not just that you can buckle which is but you didn't ignore it either you then took them on and you responded and you responded politely to the point that I believe that one of the young men who and I've been attacking you I mean I was doing this and just absolutely remarkable you you could you sort of challenged his thoughts he responded and you end up getting to know him and you ended up becoming a referee for him in applying for a job it's a standing I mean I suppose you know I realized to several things actually about how you quote to deal with this one is when you get attacked online the standard advice is don't apply block them move on and I wouldn't want to say that my solution works for everybody and I think if you're if you're working online you have to find your own way of dealing with this but I thought this is just telling me to shut up you know somebody says all that rubbish about me and the advice I'm given is to say nothing you'll be kind of like saying well you know let the bullies stay in charge of the playground and let the bullied you know take them you know away from the swings and give them to the bullies that's not what I'm gonna do so I I kind of felt very strongly that I felt better if I replied and I learned that it was extremely advisable to be polite now if ever you're on Twitter and you think you are about to be rude stop it you know because he only goes to the bad no it's the slippery slope and I also kind of thought that some of these people who were writing that kind of stuff on it no bets you know we're awful you know they took you know really graphic images of female genitalia and put it over my face some of those guys I think are nasty but many of them are lonely drunk disinhibited the one that I wrote reference for certainly fell into that category because he put this stuff up it's but I think again what what my genitalia might smell like I think was the burden of it and I I said something like would you please take that down no it had two stages this story because the first stage was somebody tweeting I know his mum she'll get him to take it down which indeed I think she did and then there was a kind of bit of good news story you know if you want to stop the Twitter trolls just get on that onto their mums and that's what's fine you know then you know cuz the Daily Mail so far in which I had to say it had quite a good press then the bad side of the Daily Mail came out because they got on to this story and they tracked this kid down and they had a picture of his house know how he'd been on a holiday with his mates and too much lager had been consumed and you know it was a nasty thing to do but you know when you're you know 18 or 19 you sometimes do very stupid things and nasty things and so it had a second wave where they went for him Ben he applied for a job and he was first offered it and then they googled him and they found all this dolphin everything that the Daily Mail had had raked up and I said he they would do the offer and I and he told me about this because by that stage he'd come to Cambridge and apologized and we were in contact and I said look I will write you know the only person who can tell these people that you apologized as far as I'm concerned it's over move on it's the only person who can say that it's me so I'm not occasion like I did right but they said no we're still not fair to give him a job I then said to him look I better just write you a reference because you're not good to be able to conceal this and I am the one person who can explain what you did explain how it was resolved that you had been brave enough to come and apologize and say that you know this was now you know it as far as everybody was concerned in the past and he has not got a job but all is alright I think we might return to that because it's a it's a particularly live political issue I'm particularly for women in politics and how to how'd you do with Twitter trolls but if I can't return to your boot just em but this is a fantastic book I have to see and it's very short yes indeed and in fact I think media will be signing copies afterwards so just for information and but the key has a plug the key here though is that and we'll come on to the position of women in society you've talked already about all the women on TV the absence of all the women on TV and the reaction they get but the point here is that you Treece ask you to misogynistic as used to women back centuries and you talk about the the culture of the structures of society that keep this way can you just introduce for the fur or it's just you know you start off with a great example of i wouldn't have been talking shut up yeah i mean the book originated in lectures two lectures I did in the British Museum for the London Review of Books they wouldn't electro series they always find it actually I find it quite difficult to get women to agree to do that I said yeah okay and it was a topic that I didn't pick myself you know what it's very easy to agree to give lectures and then six months later they say what's your title going to be and you say haven't a clue you know and then they press you more and more and they say look we've got to get a title because we've got to get our publicity so I said to the editor of the magazine what do you choose a title and good literary editors are really wonderful because the mark of the really good literary editor is that they know what you'd be good at talking about they know what you want to talk about even if you've not quite realized it and so she said and it's the start of the book I think you were to talk about the public voice of women right okay that's the title and of course she was very smart and I did see that somehow all kinds of issues about the woman's voice have been something that I've been thinking about for ages but not on a crystallizing as a subject and it was what I was really pleased about was that it was a subject that could enable me to link what I did in the day job really study of the ancient world and often the study of gender relations in the ancient world with now and I put two things at the very beginning of the book really came together for me one was a little scene at the very beginning of Homer's Odyssey eighth century BC prominence the second oldest work of Western literature and as many of you I'm sure know the Odyssey is a story which has the end of the Trojan War the Greeks have been Troy but the Greek heroes are having very hard time getting home and we follow partly the story of Odysseus who wants to get home to his wife Penelope takes him ten years and an awful lot of women intervene between Odysseus and his wife it has to be said but also it's the story of Penelope waiting for him back at home and slightly at the beginning wet-behind-the-ears teenage son Telemachus and there's one very in the first book of the Odyssey like must have read what you know 20 times I've never really noticed and it's a little moment just a few lines long when Penelope is up in her room she's doing her weaving she comes downstairs in the palace Ithaca and she finds the bard singing a terribly gloomy song about what terrible time the Greek heroes are having in trying to get back home and she says quite reasonably could you please play something a little bit more cheerful right at which point this wet-behind-the-ears teenager says shut up mother speeches man's business go back to your room and she does and I thought gosh you know I looked at it in the context of this woman's voice issue I looked at it and I thought that's the first time we have any recorded evidence or something that has happened ever after in throughout the world of a bloke and in this case a rather column telling this savvy woman to shut up right that is how I'm going to open this lecture because somehow all those all those occasions in which women have been silenced in a sense go back to that and I joined it to a wonderful cartoon that was in punch I think in the 60s or 70s which is a scene that every single woman I know recognizes well this meeting is going on and there's a man in the chair there's about six or seven blokes around the table and one woman and the woman's name is Miss tricks and she's obviously just made a good suggestion and the err of the meeting is saying that's a very good suggestion miss tricks would one of the men like to make it now I don't know any woman that doesn't actually play to it is the same story is Odysseus Telemachus and Penelope and you make a couple of political observations to and talking about modern-day politics in particular and about mrs. Thatcher about having to lower her voice a register and then about the treatment that Darren Abbot receiving compared to the treatment that Boris Johnson received at apparent gasps when you when you start to look at that and you think about how women's voices are heard and what the reaction to them often you know well I think very clearly on radio you do start to see that that kind of issue that the voice of authority is still thought to be the voice of a man continues and that was very very clear in the case of Thatcher who famously when she went to kind of training courses in self-presentation was told to not lower her voice and if you go on to Google and you look at the early videos of Thatcher and the later videos of Thatcher you see that instantly that's what is that is what has happened and women who go on leadership courses now I told you exactly the same and because we don't hear the voice of a woman as a voice of knowledge or authority and that came over very clearly to me in just before and just after the last general election and added to the point that we have higher standards for women in politics than we do from then and we judge them differently and we never let them fail and there was two interviews that were one was I thinking on LBC but the other was on the Today programme and they were both politicians real mess of it one was Diane Abbott who hadn't got a maths remotely straight about what police pay would amount to and the other was Boris Johnson who didn't have the is clear what his party's policy was on something and when you looked there were total car crash radio interviews in both cases Diane Albert the reaction to it was you you know you are not fit for public office you know that is actually the interview was just before the election and she did reelected with increased majority but the beginning the the commentary and just rounded on her to say that that shows that you know get get get out of our government Boris and it's interesting that we call him Boris you know what that's very it's affectionate he what he had the kind of tucked up Boris next time be a bit more on you'd be a bit more on top of your brief you know it's a kind of naughty schoolboy being told to do is prep better you know but not being told you know you are not fit for public office and I think throughout this you can see I mean if you look for example that what happened to Hillary Clinton and the email server yeah I'm sure Larry Clinton was not sensible to have used whatever email server that she used she wasn't the only politician to have done that and it becomes a kind of hanging offense and sticking with an average I'm just conscious that of all the women in politics she attracts more aggressive attacks on Twitter and social media generally than anybody else I mean is it you famously respond to these people but is it it's not actually impossible for some of their damage she gets thousands of these horrible offenses yeah you know she's both female and she's black you know and I think that the double whammy there means that she gets you know she gets worse than I get because she's kind of she's compounded her crimes not just being a woman but being a black woman and I noticed it actually when she we were direct contemporaries in the same year where we were under graduates of Cambridge didn't know each other very well she'd found a you know undergraduate matriculation photograph and she'd kind of she she just she did a good-humoured tweet where she kind of had sort of circled her and circled me and said you know you know we don't well you know go back all those years would we ever have imagined that life would have you know for that know you privilege she wasn't you know she isn't we were both the first people in our families to get a degree you know we're not we're not you know we're people who education has made not who took advantage of education because we were already privileged and you know I just thought happens the idea though that women like that are not allowed to speak in public and the theme of your book is that it's not just they're not allowed to speak in public but there are subject to em quite well in a vicious ways of Samson yeah I mean you have your heads chopped off basically I trying to cut out I became very interested actually in how the Twitter trolls not just in that they were abusing me but now what what was they picking on and quite often it was I'm going to come and cut your tongue out no it eventually it struck me that really what was at issue here was not that I had said something unpopular about immigration it's that that I had spoken at all what what what Twitter trolls are trying to do is not say I disagree with you this particular issue which they may or may not do they're saying I don't want you to speak at all I'm gonna cut your head off and rape it I'm gonna cut your tongue out and those tropes of course go back to a game back to the ancient world itself you go back into greco-roman mythology you noni find the story of filler mailer who is raped by this nasty King Terry's and what does he do to her he cuts her tongue out so she can't denounce him there was a hard to say there's a happy ending to this story because there isn't but a fella mailer is resourceful and she weaves the story of the rape into her tapestry so she in a sense she finds another way to speak and Shakespeare then takes that up in Titus Andronicus and he has Lavinia being raped and and her rapist there who knows the story of Phil a mailer and the tapestry cuts her tongue out and chops her hands off yeah she still manages to species her a twig in her mouth and she writes the story in the ground in the dust but it's always about stopping the women speaking at all in stories and the stories that a part and parcel of our culture and we want to do no I don't want to say we shouldn't watch Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus because it shows a woman being punished for being raped because we should have our eyes open to what's going on but it does alert us to things that need to change and Canterbury at this point if anybody wants to come in and ask questions or maybe a little points just trying put your hand up so I can see you and we'll pass a microphone round of grunt your desk and but we are I mean with you we are 2018 so it's a hundred years since women's suffrage was introduced for some women in this country and but this is also the year that seen the me - movement you know is that does that depress you frustrate you or encourage you lack of progress partly I think I feel and my mother felt that we she had and I am now still living through a revolution I feel my mom was born before women had any women had the vote in general elections and she died having seen a female Prime Minister and even though it was a female prime minister she had no time for whatsoever she did at least think it was yeah there was a change to celebrate her and yeah I feel that I mean when when I was growing up something like four percent women of Westminster MPs were female now it's just over 30 percent no I'm that's still not necessarily good enough but you know I feel I live in a different world I feel that when I look at Westminster Parliament the Scottish Parliament I mean I feel that it's the for all disadvantages it's not just many in seats you know when I was a kid it was basically men in suits and Barbara castle and Margaret Thatcher and so you know I can do the optimistic story but then you come to something like me too and you know part of me again is whatever the terrible allegations are that lie behind that and I partly feels celebratory the women have really used social media as a way of speaking out that that it's been impossible not to hear some of the voices of women over the last 12 months my my question is what what's the trajectory of me to and you know how do you turn a hashtag into a kind of social change and I mean I think it's far too it's for Cheerilee to say and you know I have two entirely different predictions here one is we'll look back to the end of 2017 2018 and we'll say that was the start of a revolution another revolution about what women should be able to do what they should not have to put up with not just women are in the rather glamorous bits of the film industry but you know women in the office women in on the factory floor women beside the photocopier in schools and universities you know that however kind of torturous the path might be that was the moment we look at and that's what I hope I also kind of think that there is a possibility but even if things don't ever go back quite to what they were before that there'll be a fizzle here and and if you were to say why might there be a fizzle it's because if you think that that sort of abuse of women is about the differential power structure then actually what's going to change that is not a hashtag it's going to be changing the power structure and you know if you look at the statistics for who is powerful in the film industry just to name one and you'd think that something like 10 percent of the directors of big Hollywood movies are female now if you're going to actually make women's about women's careers but you did provide a proper place for women in the film industry you've got to change that you've got to do more than say me too you've got to change that structure we'll see but you're encouraged by it but but a lot more needs to happen there for a question right here yes you see you make football come on in a second Kristen your head I'm a psychiatric abuse survivor a nun which tier of campaign and blogger writer and educator I want to see that there are a lot of strong women probably that were behind the men that were strong and I'm thinking join norc's and probably his mother was there I'm thinking of all these statues of men and I'm thinking of Scotland here because I had a lot of strong women in my family we went academics my mother was a psychiatric survivor and she survived much ECT and various other forced drugging and was a great example to me of my surviving despite all that and been very productive because she sterilized her mental distress I think in Scotland historically be a very strong woman it goes right back to Pictish times where women did actually it was a matriarchal line as far as I'm aware so I think historically in Scotland we are strong I feel that I'm a strong woman I choose who I wanted to marry and he said yes and before that his mother asked me if I would marry him and that Scottish folk and I think you know he married me again when I asked him in 2002 because I divorced him before that but the reason being I was again having to voluntarily go in a psychiatric ward and I think he's really good because he's anti-psychiatry I needed him but were separated again because what kind of really good on you know it's just he was useful and he's quite happy as a father my three sons and they're they're all psychiatric survivors are all so there are different ways of being strong and being perfect because I think that the excellent story and your life there but it's also the start over the point about the visibility of these strong women and today because the statute we've everyone's comment upon this recently all the statues the public statutes in Scotland I mean I mean I think in terms of strong women you know that it may be one of one of the several things that Scotland does better than England I think a sense of strong women but it and I think for me the issue is not whether there have been or are strong women because I you know women are immensely resilient tough strong in all kinds of ways it's the issue of whether you see them and it's the issue of whether you hear them and it's also the issue whether they get a chance to change the world and you know historically you know you know historically I think they've often told them in folk what to do but uh but I think a lot of us think that you know being the power behind the throne it's not what we want to be I want to be the power on the throne not behind it and that's the difficulty what do you think about the move very I kind of cost it to smash all these such as bring them down I mean do you approve or do you disapprove or how do you see that I think it's a really tricky one because you know again I'm such a bloody academic I'm sorry I've always got I've always got to once as which are diametrically opposed right one is I is like a politician I to take statues of let's say university benefactors who profited from the slave trade something like that I worry that removing those statues partly lets us off the hook what I want to do is I want to say you did give this university a lot of money and we are now looking you in the eye because we've got to accept where that money came from we've got we've got to see it by removing you but you know we we can somehow turn a blind eye to where the cash came from I was in Oxford quite recently and they have a very notorious example this a guy called Cod Anton who made a huge amount of money on slave plantations in the Caribbean and endowed vast sums of money they've left his statue but they've put a really really big an elegant pluck saying this is in memory of all the people who actually suffered we've got this money and so I like the idea of looking these stuck kids in the eye putting two fingers up to them I like walking through London and seeing all these blokes and thinking you never thought I should have the vote did you you know I'm moving on you know this is the other side of the argument if you would should we still think you know that we'd be happy with a statue of gurbles or Hitler then of course I think No so somewhere in between this there's a boundary which I'm not entirely certain where it lies but just always remember to say to these guys you didn't think I had shut up the vote and they quail in their bronze so can i some of the things that the battles that you have fought or are fighting and how do you win them because for example the first one to appear - for older women to appear on TV so it's about the visibility of women in places I mean you are still the exception there are very few older women on TV I think I think there are more but I did a television program with another great had excellent Denison of Glasgow didn't he's minor novelist and she did tweet before we went on this program I thought it used to be illegal to have two grey haired women on the same telly program but I think partly one does it by resilience you know when I said I was pleased I haven't done any of this before I was fifty odd you know in the end he doesn't he doesn't matter all that much to me I've got a pretty thick skin but I just won't be battered partly as being an academic because so when look my job is arguing with students and when students say something that I think is probably wrong or possibly stupid or with which I disagree I say I don't agree with you and that's I mean I've done that for 40 years I've been teaching in the university and I'm not going to stop now you know even if it's some silly young lad you know making stupid comments about what I smell like so I the Academy gives you a kind of it it programs you to do that I also think a bit of sense of humor helps I think that and again I think that comes with age I think when I was you know my twenties I think I was cross about things the whole time I was angry and I was outraged and no no I think it's a good idea that sometimes people should be cross angry and outraged because that's in a way it's it's partly what changes things but also it's a good idea to have a laugh at it and I think there are some bits you know in terms of the world of sexism and misogyny I think that there are some bits that's so terrible that you have to call it out it's just disgraceful but you know some things that some men do and I'm not tiring or men be the same but they just silly you know it's not that I want you know they're ridiculous so we should laugh at it as much as we try to stop it but laughing at it is quite a good way of stopping it in because they tend to feel a bit silly I was in treated reading and you you ask you to sexist behavior has changed as well in the sense that in the 70s being of this in an article you've been interviewed you you were actually no more tolerant but um it was perhaps it was more socially acceptable perhaps I saw what it was and so for example in universities and you'd be groupers and you know Googlers and all the rest of it and you Tory to them to an extent that perhaps you wouldn't I think I think of my levels of tolerance and what I expect has changed and it's certainly true the the kind of my kind of world that students lived in in universities in the seventies is very very different and what I would now call the abuse of power which in some ways it was it's something that we would now call out and say this should not happen you know the fact that you know let's say this is you know the you know the elderly Don he thinks it's fine to put his hand on your knee or whatever and I think that's true and that kind of the convent the conventions of morality for all kinds of good reasons change what I think is important to realize and this is what my students I think find very hard to kind of get their heads round because if you tell them what life was like as a student in the seventies early including how many have people have few women students there were at Cambridge they think God he must have had a terrible time you know must have been just awful you know they imagine that you were well that you were sad the whole time really and you say no actually what's really interesting is that I had the most wonderful time when I was an undergraduate you know I think the best time of your life is usually the bit you're now in or it is for me but but anybody comes along and says to me look at the sexist behavior that you have to put up with how did you manage it must have been awful I could say I can analyze it in those chants intellectually but actually I had a great time thank you and I had agency and I wasn't a victim not a victim or I did not well what I'm what I dislike is people telling people like me but at 20 years on that we've got to go back look at our experience and realize that we were victims I'm not going to be made into a victim I think that what went on was so hand just go up there yes if you speak up there think the microphone will come on there as well and any other hands is cool look at this I'm looking the wrong way that's why okay the lady there and then we'll get some over here there's just one working it I'm wondering how much you still believe in progress as you did when you were five because women have got their power back and then lost it historically time and time again I'm thinking of women regaining power in the mana in their monasteries nunneries whatever and then it being pushed back and thinking of great movements of women getting power back in the 1980s re 18th century 17th century and then it getting pushed straight back French Revolution and so on and so on and so on and I wonder which do you still believe in progress it depends what lens I I take I mean if I look at my own life and the way the opportunities for me you know have changed you know over my sixty-three years then it's very hard to put that in any kind of under any definition it has to be progress and now we may worry that there's not enough gray-haired old ladies on telly but 30 years ago there wouldn't have been one right so I I fear I feel that I am living in a world ask come on if you then say right okay think wider than that you know you know try to foresee what happens you know off maybe you know when you're long you know underneath the earth do I think that things are going to go on going on I'm I'm really not sure that I do I mean I hope I hope so and I think that you know we can all point to the ways for example that periods of austerity often fall harder on women than they do or men and that progresses is perilous and that no it's it's very easy to get it's very easy to get you know as a keyboard warrior enthusiastic about change but it's harder to embed that so that it can't so that it can't ever go back and so you know I think that I'm less certain though for me I'm you know I celebrates the fact that I've lived over the late 20th and early 21st century because don't thing is you know there's never been a better time to be me I think hi there Mary I was really interested in your book and also what you said today about the register of women's voices their tone and um having our voice of authority you were seeing the women in leadership are told as was Margaret Thatcher that you need to lower your voice I'm trying to do that right this minute but it's Saturday morning so that's probably not our today afternoon not so difficult is that what women have to do - women have to learn to lower their voice or do the listeners have to reassume what they expect a year basically I think the listeners have to retune because I think the problem about the kind of leadership courses that we may or may not go on is that basically they tend to suggest to women that women should pretend to be men right so that when you so here you are you're in the political sphere you're you're lecturing you or whatever and the way to claim Authority is to be as close to being a man as you possibly could be and you can see that invoice you can see that in the outfits the dress that the that is very often adopted by female politicians I mean you know Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel regularly were very sensible and practical trouser suits and I'm sure partly its sense it's good sense and practicality that's behind it it also makes them they're dressing as close to looking like men as they possibly can and I mean I think someone has to we have to learn to hear women's voices as speaking with expertise and authority and even me and I example that I've quite often told about myself but I think it shows how we're all implicated in this it's a about 15 20 years ago I was on a plane and there was that bit where the pilot speaks to you and says we're gonna be traveling at 35,000 feet and whatever no and does the kind of pilot bit I was on this plane and that notice was being made and it was a woman's voice for a second I said to myself why is one of the cabin crew during this notice and I thought oh my god you know I have been fighting all my life for women to be pilots oh not which of Cantabria whatever and even I but my first instant reaction was that's not the pilot and you know I then changed it into a celebration that we are now getting female pilots on airplanes but it was it was wake-up call for me because I thought you just caught yourself out in falling into the traps that you criticize if you can pass the microphone down to yes and there's a man just here if you into the bakery should come on fees oh it's on sorry I beg your pardon I thought you were looking for someone else for the last couple of years we've been talking a lot about fake news but I think the professor beer dispenser in life questioning fake news in in history how do you establish a fact in in history would you like to say something about that please thank you it's extremely difficult I mean I think that you know in a way I don't trade much in facts when you know I'm not going to be happy if somebody says that julius caesar was murdered in 43 bc rather than 44 bc when he was murdered that's true but i what i'm trying to do with my students is to see that the facts there are far fewer facts in the distant past that we would like to think and often i think the area of history i work in people have rather cree defied the idea of a fact and so i will find my students come up and say look i would nero was a bad emperor fact and you say well okay was tony blair a good prime minister and then they say oh well that's difficult isn't it because you know some things he did I said right let's try and think about all the ways that we debate our own political historical world and that we see that there are hundreds of different perspectives and let's try and think as hard as we can about how we can reflect those debates back into antiquity now so I think in some ways it's recognizing that news and fake news are always two sides of the same coin and saying and then saying so what difference does that make when you think about that historically it's always fake news has done you know as done the world of good for historical sophistication naturally yes I'm Annie I work in the charity sector at the moment there was a long long time ago I attempted to pass as an academic and I really would be interested in your thoughts connecting with what you said about the silencing of women about seems to me an increasingly kind of fraught and angry debate in in the Academy about no platforming yeah I mean I think this is quite again it's quite difficult I think that you know speaking of somebody whose day job is in the university it frankly isn't what I see around me in Cambridge all the time I mean I do you know but I also read stories of a key and I think in some ways you know unacceptable examples of this but you know people if he's very easy to get the impression the university sector in the United Kingdom is absolutely River with problems of no platforming you know and actually I haven't I haven't spotted that with my own eyes and I think it it does provide it provides a very good a very good case study for any journalist or for any political persuasion you know really getting it you know well the obvious the snowflake generation or whatever now I don't think it's entirely invented and in my own view is very straightforward that that I I will and I want my students to listen to every kind of opposing view they legally can listen to and and learn how to argue with it now of course we know there's a problem because certainly on some of the far right of this debate you've you get people saying free speech counts as everything well actually most of us do not think that free speech includes the right to go and hatred against Muslims or any other minority or majority group so again it's a bit like those statues you know quite where you draw the line I think he's bound to be contested but I I want my students to listen to any engage with and show how wrong some of the people with whom they rightly disagree are cogently and learn to be plausible in arguing I learned to be powerful in argument and to keep their ears open and not to get an echo chamber you know Twitter is a bit of an echo chamber and I think that you know your followers tend to agree with you because that's why they're your followers and they and there is a kind of degree of self-righteousness which can come on both sides and word I notice and I think it's kind of shows a bit of that sort of echo chamber mentality is that people sometimes say about me when I've said something with which they don't just with which they don't agree in my kind of group I'm very disappointed in Mary beards perfect Meriel we disagree right you don't have to make that a moral failing on my part we can actually disagree fervently on one thing we might agree in a lot of others so I a bridle every time I see I'm very disappointed yes as a follower of you on Twitter I've always very much enjoyed listening to what you've got to say about women in power I want to professor beard if I can tempt you to talk a little bit about men and power because in the world I come from which is diplomacy and international affairs there's a lot of concern about the rise of the strongman that Putin's Trump's arrogance or bands what's happening in Saudi Arabia North Korea and so on and actually it strikes me that the end of the Republic in Rome the Roman Empire and so and tells one a great deal about strongmen and power and what happens to politics with it I'd be very interested in your thoughts on that I absolutely agree and I don't mean to you know against my own commercial interest to recommend somebody else's book but Chimamanda negotiated DJ's book on why we should all be feminists or something I think she's extremely good on on the male aspect of this the you know we can give it the the kind of shorthand toxic masculinity but she says you know you only have to go to a school playground to see you know little boy falls down and still people will say don't cry you know you know they still like big boys don't cry and and actually if you're kind of thinking about you know how the world would be wrong better it would be run much better if little boys were allowed to cry and and guys like you know Trump and Putin whatever and I'm sure we could name some politicians in the United Kingdom - didn't think of powers something which was kind of weaponized for them and which they stood to lose everything by if they didn't get what they wanted and there's I think that feminism always although it hasn't always stressed it but for me at the root affair has always been you know it's it's as much empowering women as it's you know it's letting some if letting men off the hook a bit you know it's allowing them not to be like that and it's sort of calling out these guys who who I think you're probably in a trapped in that kind of masculinity really I mean I'd like to think that if Donald Trump could think very hard he wouldn't like to be Donald Trump we should let him not be Donald Trump there's hand singing I've ever hear yes thank you my name is Marcy Winstanley I'm a second year and classical literature and civilization student at the University of Birmingham and one of my main interests in the ancient world is kind of women's voices the power of underrepresented groups whether it's slaves minorities in any sense but I'm also interested in that in our own world and after university I want to go into politics so women and power was something that really affected me and I think it's my favorite book of all time and so I just wanted to ask though and I think already in my own research even though I'm less than halfway through my degree there's been kind of at some point dismissal by some men of kind of the whole field of studying women and power and somehow looking at women in the ancient world through an a kind of contemporary feminist lens is wrong anachronistic and not valid I was just wondering kind of whether you could give me your thoughts on that what would be a constructive response to some men who say that well the widest level I'd say look history is all about looking at the past through our eyes you know I don't I don't think that the ultimate aim of history is to find out exactly how it really was I'm not saying we should not be interested in that at all but I think the best historians always have been those who have had a dialogue between that and what we in our own our own world you know you can look in the classical world that the study of the of the rise of autocracy in Rome was really reinvigorated in the late 30s for quite obvious reasons just by looking round at what was happening in Europe and you know I've lived again this is another kind of revolution I've lived through in which you know when I was an undergraduate actually we used occasionally in the summer term do an essay on women cause it wasn't you know it's what you did in the summer term what didn't really matter right and now it's not it's that it's not that women in the ancient world seemed to me to be important of course they are it's the whole way that gender operates and I mean I think I would say to them look a gendered approach to ancient history has revolutionized our understanding of how the men we see in ancient literature are presented and again it's about feminism always being bifocal and if anybody wants to come to me and say you know feminist theory has not made our picture of the ancient world richer more sophisticated all kinds of issues into strong relief look I didn't notice Penelope being shut up by Telemachus when I was an undergraduate I just although probably it's kind of we things that happen along very long time ago and so it makes you see different things it's not necessarily right it you know there isn't it's not that we go to kind of get history finished once we've given it a feminist tinge but we are going to it's going to enrich what we see and I would just tell him to shut up couple of comment to the Facebook Beauvais just an incident one about who's seen that she's a teacher and she when she talks to boys about statistics the don't think she's being truthful or they don't give her authority I think that's what she's saying it's just an observation she lost a question with the Miche word for a couple of hands here I was asking questions yes we should come on you okay first I'm sorry for my voice I'm just all over the place and so recently the Brett Kavanaugh case and you were talking earlier about silencing women and how they're sort of portrayed in the media and a lot of press both here and in the u.s. we're talking about these women being hysterical when they were confronting and confronting these these like these men in suits and um and hope you were so unsophisticated and they weren't put together and I'm thinking about the silencing women and when women do speak out it's about her men then will men and women portray and what they're saying and I'm sort of trying at your opinion on and not just that case but sort of when women do speak out how they're then and either then spoken about further a good example of that is everybody I think ought to examine carefully the the verb to whine because it's something that no man is accused of and women regularly or I did actually do that's not quite true the Premier League football play football managers are often accused of whining I don't know why that is but otherwise you did get in you get a position in which women's attempts to speak out successful attempts to speak out or then dismissed by using a particular kind of verb to describe their interventions now and that is true right back to antiquity as well you know women's voices in the Roman in the Roman period were often described as animal voices they they Yelp or they bark and you still find that Henry James late 19th century is still saying the voices of women pollute political discourse so you don't what that means is you don't have to listen to them and when I thought in like the governor case and I started off thinking well maybe I do feel a bit awkward about what happened 37 years ago when the guy was 17 somehow being now seen as as the breaking point here what was very interesting is that I somewhat had to eat my words because in his response to those allegations whatever you think of the allegations that response to his allegations in my his response to the allegations in my view meant that he displayed his on suitability for the post and I think a lot of women felt that though the OP shot was not quite as we wanted to and it will be interesting to see how that story gets replayed and narrative eyes you know who's who is going to seem the narrative winner in the long run I think we don't know that yet yes dude can I ask you a couple of political questions of his conscious were coming to the end and politics so think you about well but a couple of points you made about and you said it your popularity's because people an expert but of course we're not period we're Michael Gove famously said that you know it's the the the priests probably don't want to hear any more experts thank you very much in the context of the brakes of referendum in particular yeah so do you think there is I mean good about this issue about truth and you know fate news what is the role of a expert and to protects politics needed yes I mean I think that that we just have to we have to speak out in support of expertise now I think the difficulty is again which one to do two things and one is you know and I'm now going back to basically an ancient democratic argument here but in some ways everybody's an expert in politics what being a citizen is being a political being and people sometimes attack me and other people who when they appear on question time saying well you're a classic they say stick to your own subject right and you have to say politics is everybody's subject we're all experts in politics and what we want is the citizen to speak out and I think that's absolutely true at the same time and again another ancient democratic argument is the problem is democracy isn't worth a hill of beans if the Democratic citizen does not get access to correct information so the democracy is not defined by putting a vote in a ballot box solely that is a kind of part of certainly a part of it it's not the be-all and end-all you democracy is about the well informed voter putting his or her vote in the ballot box now when you say that people often say oh so you're saying that people who voted for brexit were stupid I'm not saying that whatsoever I'm saying that we have reached a position in which the referendum on both sides was an example of that the brexit referendum where we have forgotten the importance of proper accurate and expert information and if there was a if there was a real Democratic tragedy in the brexit referendum it was that not 99% of us and I'm including me whatever we thought did not vote with full information most of us cannot still not actually explain the difference between the customs unions a single market and it's absolutely crucial and my final question to end this this Parliament is the leaders of the two biggest parties are women Nicola Sturgeon who stands sits there and receives numerous it's here and of course we have Owen Prime Minister Tereza me now do you see her with from your political perspective do you see her as a conservative or you see her as a woman prime ministers to when she when she danced onto the stage well she danced on the stage she was half commended for that yeah the courage of that and half mocked yes so what did you do you I am afraid I thought she has been advised by her PR people but to take a little self-irony at her previous dancing at outing would be a very good idea I would have felt happier with it if I felt she'd felt happy with it I mean no idea I don't you know dancers I love her shoes you know and I think why the hell not you know I think why the hell not my unease was that you you know I just I pictured this back room thinking okay now last year ms just made speech was a bit of a disaster so what are we going to do this year and then somebody had an idea I know Hey look dancing because it was you know and and so the whole thing seemed to me in two sentences of word extremely choreographed and I think what you know what I want to hear and this is I want to hear my elected representatives even if I've not voted for them talking to me in what they want to say I mean I still you know I'm still the person who feels kind of slightly anxious when I kind of realize all their speeches are written for them you know and we and and and their articles in newspapers you know you can see an article signed what whatever kind of from bench spokesperson you know in whatever Sunday newspaper and you know in what sense do we think that's by that person and so you know I would kind of I would like to you know D choreograph D P R and D slogan eyes politics but it's probably a bit late maybe okay thank you very much in fact I want to say thank you to everybody here for coming along and for supporting the face of all politics for your questions and your interest in politics future politicians of the audience is good to see thank you very much also to the Open University for supporting this event afterwards if you there's other events on the building but if you want to go down merely will be signing copies of her book in the garden lobby which I'm sure she'd welcome to see more of you and any further questions you can put her there but could I ask you to join me in thanking our guest today Dame professor many beers [Applause]

Channel: The Scottish Parliament

Views: 9,265

Keywords: Holyrood, Scottish-Parliament, Scottish, MSPs, MSP, Edinburgh, politics, Parliament, debate, Mary Beard, Festival of Politics 2018, FoP2018, Professor Mary Beard

Id: dtzPQQ8MoH8

Length: 84min 50sec (5090 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 13 2018