Stop Pretending You’re Not in Midlife with Mary Beard

Summary

Stop Pretending You’re Not in Midlife with Mary Beard

My So-Called Midlife with Reshma Saujani
Host: Reshma Saujani
Guest: Mary Beard
Release Date: January 15, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of My So-Called Midlife, Reshma Saujani welcomes Mary Beard, a distinguished English classicist and author of Women in Power. Together, they explore the nuanced challenges and empowering moments that define midlife for women. The conversation delves into themes of finding one’s voice, navigating societal expectations, and redefining power dynamics in midlife.

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Mary Beard’s Perspective on Midlife

Mary Beard opens up about her personal journey through midlife, sharing insights gained over nearly seven decades. Reflecting on her current stage, she states:

"[04:55] Mary Beard: Well, that's quite difficult because I'm 69 and nearly 70... I have rather enjoyed midlife."

Mary emphasizes the confidence and resilience that come with age, contrasting her present satisfaction with the anxieties she experienced earlier in life. She highlights the evolution of her mindset, noting a significant decrease in fear and an increase in self-assurance.

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Finding Her Voice in Midlife

A central theme of the discussion is Mary’s struggle and eventual triumph in finding her authentic voice as a writer and speaker. She recounts years of writer’s block and the difficulty in expressing herself authentically:

"[07:14] Mary Beard: It's only been in midlife that I found how to write and how to speak. I found a voice."

Mary shares her breakthrough moment when she realized she could speak and write in a way that truly reflected her thoughts and personality, free from the need to emulate others. This transformation was not solely due to her media presence but stemmed from a deeper personal evolution.

Reshma’s Personal Experiences

Reshma relates Mary’s journey to her own experiences in politics, where she initially attempted to mimic the speaking styles of male leaders. She confesses:

"[10:32] Reshma Saujani: I sound like a fake... I just authentically am just myself."

By discarding scripted speeches and embracing her natural voice, Reshma found greater authenticity and effectiveness in her communication, reinforcing the importance of self-expression over conformity.

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Women’s Voices and Public Authority

The conversation shifts to the broader issue of why women’s voices often lack perceived authority. Mary introduces the concept of "muthos" – the authoritative quality of speech that commands attention and respect:

"[18:06] Reshma Saujani: It’s simply that you’re saying it. Yes, you write, it is still the case when a listener hears a female voice, they do not hear a voice that connotes authority."

Mary discusses historical and contemporary examples, such as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Senator Elizabeth Warren, illustrating how women are frequently silenced or not taken seriously despite their authoritative positions. She highlights the inherent biases that undermine women’s spoken authority.

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Reevaluating Empowerment Metaphors

Mary challenges traditional metaphors used in feminist discourse, such as "breaking the glass ceiling" and "storming the citadel," arguing that they frame empowerment as an aggressive takeover rather than a collaborative advancement:

"[29:54] Mary Beard: I have got to feel increasingly anxious about the glass ceiling metaphor... it's a violent image."

She suggests that these metaphors create a sense of adversarial struggle between genders, which can alienate potential allies and obscure more constructive paths to equality. Mary calls for the development of new language that better encapsulates the collaborative and inclusive nature of true empowerment.

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The Right to Be Wrong

Addressing the double standards in how mistakes are perceived, Mary explains that women are often denied the same grace as men when they err. She illustrates this with the contrasting receptions of political figures:

"[32:08] Mary Beard: Women have to be ridiculously prepared and then some. Men get to be wrong all the time... Women, we do the judging as well."

Mary highlights cases like Diane Abbott and Boris Johnson, showing how women face harsher criticism and fewer second chances compared to their male counterparts. This disparity perpetuates a culture where women must maintain impeccable standards to be taken seriously.

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Advice for Women in Midlife

As the conversation draws to a close, Mary offers heartfelt advice for women navigating midlife challenges. She emphasizes the importance of resilience and authenticity:

"[37:52] Mary Beard: Resilience is terribly important... The revolution comes by people not being battered down by feeling that you can say what you want and you won't be shut up."

Mary encourages women to embrace their true selves, use humor and ridicule as tools for leveling the playing field, and reject societal pressures to conform. She underscores that true empowerment arises from within, through confidence and the willingness to speak out.

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Conclusion

Reshma and Mary conclude the episode on an empowering note, reinforcing the message that midlife is not merely a period to endure but a time to harness one’s strengths and redefine personal and professional boundaries. Mary thanks Reshma for the engaging conversation, leaving listeners with a sense of inspiration and determination to embrace their midlife journeys authentically.

"[41:35] Mary Beard: Thank you. Thank you. This is exactly the dream meeting that I hoped it would be."

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Final Thoughts

Stop Pretending You’re Not in Midlife with Mary Beard is a thought-provoking episode that challenges conventional narratives around midlife and women’s roles in society. Through Mary Beard’s insightful reflections and candid dialogue with Reshma Saujani, listeners are encouraged to redefine their perceptions of midlife, embrace their authentic voices, and pursue empowerment with resilience and grace.

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Notable Quotes

• Mary Beard:
  "[04:55] ...I have rather enjoyed midlife."
  "[07:14] ...I found a voice."
  "[18:06] It's simply that you’re saying it."

• Reshma Saujani:
  "[10:32] ...I sound like a fake."
  "[29:54] ...I have got to feel increasingly anxious about the glass ceiling metaphor."
  "[37:52] ...The revolution comes by people not being battered down."

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This episode serves as a beacon for women in midlife, offering both solace and actionable insights to navigate this transformative phase with strength and authenticity.

Transcript

[Reshma Sajani]

Hi, I'm Kulap Vilay Sak. And I'm Soojin Pak. And we're your aunties on Add to Cart, a podcast all about the things we buy, the things we buy into, and what that says about who we are. We're real life friends who love to talk about what we're adding to cart. Sometimes that means trying the latest snail serum to slather on our faces or a sweater that screams 1/3 ugly. That's right, Sue. Each week we dive into honest, oftentimes TMI conversations about what's taking up space in our shopping carts and in our minds, be it products, trends or something for our auntie book club. We also bring guests on the show and take a peek into their carts because the things a person buys or doesn't says a lot about them. We like to think of ourselves as aunties to all fun, slightly unhinged and always ready to share some sage advice and a good product wreck. Add to Cart is out now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Choice Words listeners. Sam B.

[Mary Beard]

Here.

[Reshma Sajani]

Guess what? We are back with a brand new season of Choice Words from Lemonada Media. Each week I'll chat with amazing guests like Kerry Washington, Laura Dern and Nick Offerman to dive into the biggest choices they've ever made. We are talking career shaping, history changing, life defining decisions. As someone who has made my own fair share of questionable choices. Hello Bangs. I am pumped to share these funny, poignant, all too relatable stories with you. Season 2 of Choice Words is out now. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. You won't want to miss it. Lemonada welcome to my so Called Midlife a podcast where we figure out how to stop just getting through it and start actually living it. I'm Reshma Sajani. So they say that women in midlife don't have power. All our best ideas, all our best moments are behind us. In fact, there's even what I call a midlife penalty. Like the biggest pay gap for women are women above the age of 50. I am all about recognizing that women in midlife, we got a shitload of power, but we have to go get it. And that is why I am obsessed with our next guest. Mary Beard is an English classicist specializing in ancient Rome. She's probably the most famous classicist of all time. She's the author of one of my favorite books, Women in a Manifesto. And look, I'm going to be completely honest. I totally fangirl over her. Like I have been dying to meet her for a Very long time. I got turned on to Mary Beard from my mentor, Hillary Clinton. She told me about her book, and she was like, reshma, you gotta read it. So if you know about her work, you'll understand exactly what I'm saying. In 2018, the Guardian wrote an article about the cult of Mary Beard. So I know I'm not alone. And I think this quote from the article sums up her appeal so well. It says, everyone who has met Beard seems to have a story about encountering her for the first time, usually involving her rigorous intellect, her total lack of formality, and her sense of mischief. In today's episode, Mary reminds us that the effort to silence women has existed since the beginning of time. Our voice is our power. So speak up, midlifers. If we want to change the world, if we want to change the reality for women, we gotta use our voices, and we gotta do it in a way that feels right to you. Mary has a cult following because she doesn't fit any kind of mold. She definitely speaks up, and she says whatever she thinks whenever she wants. So she's taught me that it's time we do the same thing. So let's get into it. Mary, are you in D.C. yes. Oh, what are you doing there?

[Mary Beard]

I'm here for eight months doing. I've got a fellowship at the National Gallery.

[Reshma Sajani]

Ah, well, what a fun, fun week to be in D.C. yes.

[Mary Beard]

Yes.

[Reshma Sajani]

All right, let's get started. I am, like, I'm a huge fan. I am, like, so excited. I have been waiting for this interview forever, since the moment you were like, I can't believe she said yes. And we're gonna have so much fun. Okay, so the way I like to open up is we ask our guests about their midlife mindset. And so my first question is, how has midlife been for you, and what's your mindset about midlife?

[Mary Beard]

Well, that's quite difficult because I'm 69 and nearly 70, you know, and I think I'm coming out of midlife, probably and going into older age.

[Reshma Sajani]

No, you're just right there. Still. You're still in the club, Mary.

[Mary Beard]

In some ways, for me, it's been wonderful. I've got to feel more confident. I've got to feel more resilient. And I remember very vividly, this was ten years ago now. I got some pretty nasty death threats on social media, and I reported them to the police, because that's what you do. I kind of said to my daughter, look, I'm not worried. I don't think they are going to come and blow up our house at 9:45 tomorrow. And she said, just think how you'd feel about that thread if you were 30 years younger. And I thought, look, I've come, in a sense to get over some of the anxieties that I used to have, some of the fear about where I was in the world. Now, that's not to say that I go out every day feeling super confident. Of course, you wouldn't be a human being if you didn't have some anxieties. But I've rather enjoyed midlife. You know, I have all kinds of political objections to what happens to, to women in midlife.

[Reshma Sajani]

It's, it's, it's actually wild.

[Mary Beard]

But personally, I've enjoyed being a menopausal woman. I know this is, you know, I'm not.

[Reshma Sajani]

Ooh, you gotta tell us your secret about that one.

[Mary Beard]

I, you know, I just must. I know that I'm very lucky, but I've enjoyed, you know, not having to menstruate.

[Reshma Sajani]

Yeah, yeah. It's just a period getting to that point, you know, it's so fascinating you say that, Mary, because all the women in my life are, like, fucking miserable, right? Like, midlife sucks. It's hard. Multitude of reasons. But then everyone I interview is like, it's great. Like, this is the best time of my life. And I'm like, okay, that is. The journey of this podcast is to figure out what you're all doing to feel that way. Let me ask you a question before we get started. Is there anything you're doing that's been a game changer for you in this decade?

[Mary Beard]

I mean, in some ways, I suppose it was only in midlife that I learned how to write in a way that people wanted to read. You know, that's, for me, been really important. And I spent most of my 20s and early 30s, you know, really with writer's block, finding it very hard to write. You know, finding it hard to speak. You know, I would go to seminars or I'd go to lectures, and I'd want to contribute at the end and put my hand up and say, look, I have a point here. And never managed to do it. So it's only been in midlife that I found how to write and how to. How to speak. I found a voice. Now, I don't know how that happened. I don't know. I wish, I wish I could tell you how it happened, but it has. And I think for me, a lot of people think that, oh, it must have been, you know, doing a lot of media doing television, that was the game changer. It wasn't really. I mean, I've enjoyed that. You know, what meant most to me was that I could speak out in public, in private, in seminars, in a way that felt like me. And that I could write something that I was confident there were some people out there would want to read. And that's my game changer.

[Reshma Sajani]

Yeah. I mean, do you think it's. I'd like to explore this a little more. Like, is it life experience? Cause I'm going to tell you this. I love your book, Women in Power. I'm obsessed with it. I tell everyone to read it. And I was reading it again this morning for probably the fifth time, and I literally. I know this is gonna sound weird, but I wanna eat your words. I love them so much. I know that it's like, there's no other way to communicate, like how I literally want to eat them. So this is, like. It is. It's amazing. And I say this as a speaker, as an order, right. Who uses speech to really move and build mountains. And so it's fascinating to me that you say that like it was in midlife that this gift almost came to you. So what do you think that is? What do you. I mean, is it life experience?

[Mary Beard]

I think that at a certain point, I realized that I could say what I wanted to and it could sound like me. I'd spent years of my life, you know, particularly in an academic job, in a university, being, I think, not a very good lecturer. And partly I wasn't very good because I was always copying somebody. I was always kind of pretending to be a man, doing this, you know, say, well, ladies and gentlemen, this morning we go to. And, you know, I'd hear myself in my ears, and it was like someone else was speaking. Now, at a certain point, and I think it came when I was about 40. I guess I suddenly realized I didn't have to do it like that. If I, you know, I could get up and speak, for me, I could hear my own voice. And I think that's what I noticed now about television. I mean, I. One thing that I now feel confident about and do feel confident about is that when I look at the television, I see me and I hear me. And for me, that's been the thing that's really made the most difference.

[Reshma Sajani]

I really resonate with this because when I ran for office for the first time, I went on YouTube and I typed in great female order because I thought, I will just copy someone. Because I know men who can give a great speech. Kennedy, Clinton, Obama. But what does a woman sound like?

[Mary Beard]

Yes, that's true.

[Reshma Sajani]

And I would just write down my speech, I would memorize it, and I'd put it in my back of my pocket. And I sound like a fake.

[Mary Beard]

Yes.

[Reshma Sajani]

Like I sound like a fake. And I don't think this is why I lost my elections. But I think that I. I just, I didn't feel comfortable.

[Mary Beard]

No, no, that's.

[Reshma Sajani]

And then I just.

[Mary Beard]

I totally agree.

[Reshma Sajani]

Totally agree. I threw it on the garbage, right? And I just authentically am just myself. Maybe, I swear, maybe I don't pronounce the word exactly the right way. But like, but there's. And it's shifted everything for me.

[Mary Beard]

Yes.

[Reshma Sajani]

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[Mary Beard]

Yeah. Yes I will.

[Reshma Sajani]

And explain what it tells us about women's voices?

[Mary Beard]

The Odyssey is the story composed in the 8th century BC by someone we call Homer. Tells the story of how Odysseus, one of the Greeks heroes of the Trojan War, gets back home to his wife and family in Ithaca from Troy. But there's a parallel story of what's happening at home with his wife Penelope. But there's also their son Telemachus. And part of the story is about how while Odysseus is away, Telemachus grows up. So it's both a homecoming movie and it's a story of how the boy becomes a man. And in the very first book of the Odyssey, we are in the palace at Ithaca and Penelope is upstairs, she's working her loom and she hears the bard below starting to sing songs about what a terrible time time those Trojan, those heroes of the Trojan War, the Greek heroes of the Trojan War are having trying to get back home and they're going through disaster and it's terrible, etc. Etc. Penelope goes downstairs from her upper room and says to the bard, look, do you think you could actually sing something a bit more cheerful, perfectly reasonable, sensible middle aged woman's request, you know, turn, you know, put a better record on, please? Bard Right. But as she says that Telemachus, who's still a teenager at this point, comes up to her. He's very wet behind the ears. He's not very smart. She's savvy. And he says, mother, public speech is man's business. Go upstairs, I'm the boss in this household. And up she goes. And what I think is amazing is that I had read that several times in my first of all, I guess, when I was a teenager, then through my 20s and 30s. It really wasn't until I came to think about women in power and tried to think about the roots of Western misogyny that I noticed that, you know, I'd read that passage and thought, oh, Telemachus tells Mum to go upstairs. You know, I suddenly kind of thought, blinding flash. That is extraordinary, you know, that this kid has shut his mother up. And how many more times in the history of the west does that happen?

[Reshma Sajani]

Yeah, you say it doesn't. You say it doesn't matter much what line you take as a woman. If you venture in male territory, the abuse will come.

[Mary Beard]

That's it.

[Reshma Sajani]

It's not what you say. It's simply that you're saying it. Yes, you write, it is still the case when a listener hears a female voice, they do not hear a voice that connotes authority. Or rather, they have not learned how to hear authority in it. They don't hear what you call muthos. Can you explain to people who have not read your work what muthos is and why men don't hear it in our voice?

[Mary Beard]

I mean, muthos is the word that Telemachus used that when I was summarizing, I said public speech. It's the word that gives us myth. But here it's not being used in that sense. It's about speaking. But it's speaking to be listened to. It's a kind of public speech. And I think I find the ultimate answer to that question quite difficult. Why? Why do women's voices not seem to carry that public authority that men's voices do? I'm not sure I can answer that, but I can see the history of that, and I can see the impact it has right now. I mean, to tell a story against myself. Again, it was quite shock. I mean, I was shocked by me. I remember this was about 15 years ago or so now, I guess, when I first got on an airplane. And that. That little bit of speech that comes from the pilot, you know, we'll be welcome. Everybody will be traveling at 35,000ft. It will be going and all the rest. And it's much the same each time. It was spoken by a woman. And I remember for a tiny split second, I thought, why is a member of the cabin crew giving this speech? And I thought, oh, you know, and there was. I thought, it's a woman pilot. I wanted there to be women pilots forever. But even I, you know, who have been so vociferous on this. I hear a woman do it. What do I think? I think it is the cabin crew.

[Reshma Sajani]

Not the captain.

[Mary Beard]

Not the captain. And we know that. I mean, you probably know this better than me. You know, we know that what women politicians often do. Margaret Thatcher is the absolute classic case in the uk, who, in order to sound authoritative, took voice coaching lessons so that her voice got deeper, deeper.

[Reshma Sajani]

She sounded like a man.

[Mary Beard]

So she sounded like a man. And when I gave the lecture, that was the first kind of germ and underlies, the Women in Power book. The first lecture I got, oh, women from the BBC from all over the place saying, I have been on leadership courses and one of the things that we're told to do is make our voice deeper still. Now, why should it be that a.

[Reshma Sajani]

Deep voice is a more authoritative voice?

[Mary Beard]

Right. Why is it? I don't know the answer to that, but we hear it as that.

[Reshma Sajani]

So, Mary. But do you think it's that? It's because it really is that, oh, you just don't sound authoritative or they just don't want to hear our voice.

[Mary Beard]

I think it's an inextricable combination of the two.

[Reshma Sajani]

Because I'm just thinking about the. You write in the book about how this plays out in modern history and the example of Elizabeth Warren trying to read the letter of Coretta Scott King.

[Mary Beard]

Yes, yes.

[Reshma Sajani]

And she's silenced.

[Mary Beard]

She's silenced, yeah. And that happens in every walk of life. I mean, I think one of the things that's been interesting about the book is that, you know, I. I very much hoped, though I was a bit afraid about this, that it would look as if I was talking about people like Elizabeth Warren, and we're talking about women who have actually got, to some extent, a public platform and are to some extent listened to, but are then sometimes strategically shut up. But women from every walk of life have said to me, that happens. It happens in my supermarket where I'm the manager. It happens everywhere. And I remember very much looking back at these, you know, quite informal, very friendly seminars where when I was a younger academic, I found it very hard to speak. I can still remember if I did actually make a point. I remember what every woman I've met knows this feeling too. I remember there being a bit of a silence and then a man would say what I was trying to say was. And it somehow would be as if you had never intervened. It was as if that nobody was noticing what you had said. It's as if you're being negated. And I noticed then in the kind of, I don't get so much Twitter abuse or ex abuse or whatever now, but I, I do remember. And this picks up absolutely what you said about it being not. It's not so much what you say that makes people abuse you, it's that you're saying it, saying it. And so I, first of all, because I'm quite a replier on social media, I tend not to block people. I tend to reply and to say, no, that isn't what I said. Or my argument was a bit different from that or whatever. And I would do that. It took me some time to realize that the argument wasn't the point. And when I then went and looked at the really vile bits of abuse that I got, some of it was like other women have had, you know, pretty violent. But I think rather, I don't want to say unserious, every death threat is serious, but I think there were fantasy death threats I was getting, but also I was getting things which absolutely hit home to the woman's right to speak. They would say things like, we're going to come and cut your tongue out.

[Reshma Sajani]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, that's the thing. Either you're sidestepped when you're in a meeting or you get a death threat or a rape threat. And I want to. Is there anything that we can do to immediately change that? Like is the answer. Keep talking.

[Mary Beard]

There are some tactics that you could learn that we can learn. And I think that to some extent I have part of that is just a bit of humor and ridicule. I think women feel a bit embarrassed often partly because they have been social, often have been socialized differently from men. So the kind of idea of ridicule, you know, it's like the, it's still much harder for a woman to use humor as a stand up comic than a man. I mean, they, some women are doing that brilliantly, but it's harder. And in kind of relatively formal meetings, I found that what I got to say, I sort of dislikely play with the guys. I used to say things like, look, can you just let the woman speak for once? Right. Just call them out on it.

[Reshma Sajani]

Yeah, I tell them to count to 10.

[Mary Beard]

Yeah. You know, and just kind of, you know, let, can we please level the playing field here, guys? And I remember once it was something that, that my colleagues still remember. We were having some very contentious academic debate about academic policy and two of my male colleagues went out to the loo. They went to the lavatory at the same time, the bathroom. When they came back, I said, do you know what really I can't stand? It's men going to the men's room to fix the business. And of course, that is what they've been doing. That is.

[Reshma Sajani]

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[Mary Beard]

So I.

[Reshma Sajani]

Okay, I have to ask this. So you know, so many of the metaphors that we use as feminists, right, about accessing female power are break the glass ceiling, storm the citadel. So we're seen as we're taking something away from the men. You described a story, right, about in your book that like when it's about a story about women gaining positions in the police force and the title of the story is like Women Power Grab.

[Mary Beard]

Yes.

[Reshma Sajani]

And I just, you know, and you see it all the time and I just wonder, did we undo ourselves by using the wrong language? Do I need to like, you know what I mean? Do we need to like throw out all the future's female girl boss, like, you know what I mean? Should Hillary have not have had the glass ceiling? Like, I mean, do we need to just change the language as we grab our, as we take our power?

[Mary Beard]

I, I wonder. I have got to feel increasingly anxious about the glass ceiling metaphor. Partly because, as you say, it is, it is the kind of grabbing, breaking, smashing through. Watch out, this is going to be nast, right? You might get cut. Help. This is a kind of the violent image, I think also it's an image that leaves a lot of women cold. I mean, women in politics, women in high ranking professional careers, they know exactly what that means. And if you're working on the factory floor, the glass ceiling is so far away that it, it doesn't mean much to you. So I think it's, I think there are many wise reasons for it being, you know, perhaps not the best metaphor, but I'm not sure what metaphor we want.

[Reshma Sajani]

I know, I think we need new language, but I know that the fact is we're falling. They realize very quickly that if we can convince men who are feeling vulnerable that they're taking something from you, we can get them to come out. And I think if we just simply do the math, it's like we just need some of them and we're falling into their prey. Right? And I'm starting to realize that one of the things that you wrote is like, if you were gonna write this book again from scratch, you would find more space to defend a woman's right to be wrong, at least occasionally. Like men get to be wrong all the time. They get to pull bs, laugh it off, someone else calls them. But women, we have to be so ridiculously prepared and then some. And we don't get second chances. No, we don't. You know, can you tell me a little bit about what it means to you about a woman's right to be wrong?

[Mary Beard]

Yes, I think it, it's one of those things which often goes under the radar. You don't, when you think about how women are in some way still put down or disadvantaged or whatever, you know, people don't often come out first with. They're not allowed to be wrong. But I've seen mostly in British politics, but you can replicate it here, you know, I've seen the idea that women, as you say, they give no second chances and that you're living in a world in which women are sort of allowed into the hierarchy very, very conditionally. As soon as they put a foot wrong, they're out. Whereas men, because they belong there, they get told off, perhaps. I remember once there was extremely useful for me comparison between Diane Abbott, who was the first black woman MP in the uk, Labour mp and I compared her with Boris Johnson, you know, needs, I'm afraid, no introduction. And they both had around one of our election campaigns, I can't, I can't remember which. They both had an absolute car crash of a radio interview. And you know, I'm sure Diane would be the first to admit she'd done really badly. You know, it wasn't that it was a good interview at all. The press just slaughtered her. That this woman is not fit to be in power, etc, etc. You can imagine what it is. Johnson gets kind of let off with a few sort of blokish laugh saying, oh come on Boris, do your prep better next time. You know, because for him they assumed there was going to be a better next time. Abbott was being told you finished yourself. Now she didn't finish herself. But the, the inequity of the treatment of their mistakes was, I thought, you know, super revealing.

[Reshma Sajani]

How do we change that? Because, you know, it's women too. It's we, us judging women more harshly.

[Mary Beard]

Yes, yes. And you know, I think, well, I think one thing we can do is recognize that we are also, we're implicated. You know, it would be, I think quite a lot easier if women were all there entirely untainted by these assumptions and you know, we could critique them and we're part of this, we do the judging as well. Just like my story about hearing the woman pilot and me mistaking her for the cabin crew. And I think. I mean, in some ways, I suppose I was very doubtful about calling Women in Power a manifesto, because I thought when you have a manifesto, people think that you have answers, you know, that you will end by saying, well, okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, this is what we've got to do. And actually, I think it doesn't end like that.

[Reshma Sajani]

No, it doesn't. Mary, are you writing another book? That's what I want to talk. Oh, yes. It doesn't end that way.

[Mary Beard]

I'm not holding back. You know, if I'd sat there and thought, all right, I can see what needs to be done, I would have. I would have written it. I mean, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't kind of keeping something up my sleeve for a sequel. And I mean. And I think, you know, as an academic, you know, I've got a get out clause here and say, look, I think part of what you need to do, the first part of solving the problem is seeing what the problem is. Right. And I think that insofar as Women in Power is a manifesto, it is, I hope, showing you and exploring the problems.

[Reshma Sajani]

It absolutely does.

[Mary Beard]

Yeah. And it's also, I think, convincing you that, you know, this isn't a problem of the last 20 years. You know, this is a problem certainly of Western culture and probably, I suspect, of those cultures that I know less about. And I haven't grown up kind of with all the cultural baggage that Western culture has given me. So I can see that this goes right back to the beginning. I see that when you walk into an art gallery, you see women put down. You see women. Women all around us are made subservient.

[Reshma Sajani]

Yeah. And in certain ways, you can see it. Okay. But one of the things I will say I found satisfying is that you did say what the answer is not. So you said, the answer is not patience, because gradualism takes too long. The answer is not exploiting the status quo. We should all be like men. And the other observation that you make is sometimes, like, for example, you said it's also understanding where the power may not be anymore. So maybe when you do see a lot of women in parliament, that means power's not there anymore. I thought that those were really powerful observations.

[Mary Beard]

Yes.

[Reshma Sajani]

All right, well, I want to end by bringing it back to midlife. So, like, you know, we've heard from so many women who say, like, this is the time. This is basically what you're saying, like, where they just give less fucks and they go after what they want. And so for women who haven't gotten there yet, what's your advice to help them get there?

[Mary Beard]

Well, in English there's a kind of, there's a Latinate English phrase which saying, don't let the buggers get you down. B. I think resilience is terribly important. I think, look, you do hit some, you know, unpleasant bits of midlife. You know, I don't have my hair colored. I made that decision. I'm very happy like this. But the kind of stuff that I get on Twitter, you know, x, you're a witch, where's your cat? Where's your broomstick? And there is a sense in which, although I've said, look, I found my voice in midlife, it's also the case that quite a lot of women, and me, to some extent, you can feel invisible. And there's a very common feature of British television which I'm sure is a feature here, which is there are a lot of, not just midlife men, old men, wrinkly, grey haired, bald, who again have the authority to appear on television. There are very few women who kind of go through that. The women on television tend to be the young. When they start to look older, they find themselves onto radio, you know, not telly. And, you know, and I think I have managed that. Why have I managed that? I've managed it because to some extent I'm slightly eccentric and that gives me a license to be and to appear were women who are kind of less eccentric than me. I mean, eccentricity is a bit of an armor, a bit of a weapon. But I think you have to be resilience now is a pretty unfashionable virtue to have, you know, and people I know rightly say, why should you have to be resilient? You know, we should make people nicer, not make women or any other minority group or disadvantaged group. It shouldn't be up to them to be resilient. It should be up to everybody else to treat them better. And of course I see that logically. But I think in the end, you know, the revolution comes by people not being battered down by feeling that you can, you know, you can say what you want and you won't be shut up. You know, the Elizabeth Warren kind of, you know, back to the Elizabeth Warren moment.

[Reshma Sajani]

That's right, that's right, that's right, Mary. I'm lifting my weights every day. That's why I'm doing this podcast, right, because this is about building strength.

[Mary Beard]

Yes, yeah, you know, and it's saying, sorry, no, you know, and sorry, I don't. And when I was, I was kind of hugely ridiculed after one television program by a notorious British, British TV critic, you know, who said, you know, she could make herself a look if she was going to come into our living rooms where we're watching her on the telly. Eventually I said, and I was in my mid-50s there, so what do you think a middle-50s woman looks like? Right, she looks like me. And even quite a lot of conservative newspaper readers from very conservative papers came on my side because they said, look, we want to look like us. We don't want to have to pretend not to be us.

[Reshma Sajani]

Oh, Mary Beard, you just delivered. You delivered.

[Mary Beard]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Reshma Sajani]

This is exactly the dream meeting that I hoped it would be.

[Mary Beard]

Thank you. It's been very enjoyable. Thank you very much.

[Reshma Sajani]

Mary Beard is a classicist and an author. If you haven't read her book, Women in Power, I highly recommend it. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening. Bye. There's more of my so Called Midlife with Lemonada. Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like Midlife Advice that didn't make it into the show. Subscribe now. In Apple Podcasts, I'm your host, Rashmi Sejani. Our producer is Claire Jones. This series is sound designed by Ivan Koraev. Our theme was composed by Ivan Kuraev and performed by Ryan Jewell, Ivan Kurayev and Karen Waltok. Our senior supervising producer is Kristen Lepore. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neal. Executive producers include me, Reshma Sajani, Stephanie Whittles Wax and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Series consulting and production support from Katie Cordova. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. And let us know how you're doing in Midlife. You can submit your story to be included in the [e-mail] follow my so Called Midlife wherever you get your podcast or listen Ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Thanks for listening. See you next week. Bye. Why, hello there. This is your pal Sarah Silverman. You know, the standup comic that's not afraid of a diarrhea joke. Oh my God, I'm brave. I hope you're enjoying this podcast that you're listening to. I am just dropping in here to let you know about another podcast I think you'd like and it's called the Sarah Silverman Podcast. Each week listeners from all over the world call in and they ask me for advice or they talk about something going on in their life. Anything. Their silliest, grossest, deepest, darkest situations. And then I respond, whether I'm qualified to or not. Go ahead. Search for the Sarah Silverman podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Bye. People love to pretend that there are simple formulas for living your best life. Now eat this and you won't get sick. Manifest it and everything will work out. But there are some things you can choose and some things you can't. And it's okay that life isn't always getting better. I'm Kate Bowler, and on Everything Happens, I speak with kind, smart, funny people about life as it really is. Beautiful, terrible, and everything in between. Let's be human together. Everything Happens is available wherever you get your podcasts.