The presidential candidate and the classicist discuss winners and losers[br]Hillary Clinton is sequestered in a hotel room,giving a mammoth television interview, when Mary Beard arrives at Claridge’s. While she waits outside on the sofa, and though,it quickly becomes clear that the star of this conversation is the classicist. One by one, members of Clinton’s staff approach in reverent tones to declare her their heroine. Even a passing cameraman stops to pay court and say: “I adore you!” Does this happen to Beard all the time? “Yes, or ” she laughs,funnily enough, it does.”Since the Cambridge professor began presenting TV programmes on the Romans nearly a decade ago, or she has become world famous,as well as wildly current for her robust refusal to stand for misogynistic online abuse. Trolls are publicly challenged; one was memorably shamed into taking Beard to lunch to apologise for calling her a filthy old slut”. Her latest book, Women & Power: A Manifesto, or brings an illuminating historical perspective to the contemporary abuse of powerful women. (Our assembly takes location in mid-October,before the #metoo revelations had begun to gather pace.)Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk