10 quotes
This is a dangerous myth if we think we are better historians than our predecessors.
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (2017)
It’s not easy to make women fit into a structure that is initially encoded as masculine: what needs to be done is to change the structure.
Women & Power: a Manifesto (2017)
Greek men didn't all look like this. And indeed, this guy, his musculature is actually physically impossible. What these are are images of a kind of perfect version of Greek masculinity.
Shock of the Nude (2020)
It’s a "high-end" power in the traditional sense and linked to the image of the "glass ceiling", which not only places women out of power, but imagines pioneers as successful superwomen who only a few vestiges of male prejudice prevented them from reaching the top.
Women & Power: a Manifesto (2017)
Roman society incorporated those who were mostly excluded in the ancient world, most obviously, women... They didn't have any formal political rights in Rome
Roman history is constantly being written around, it has always been done; In a sense, we know more about our ancient Romans than they themselves knew. In other words, Roman history is a work in progress.
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (2017)
Rome was the only place in the ancient world where the state took responsibility for ensuring its citizens had enough to eat. [They knew] how you make a human community work.
As for the deep cultural structures that legitimize the exclusion of women, it is very likely that these gradual changes will last too long, at least for me. We need to reflect on what power is, what it is for and how it is calibrated, or in other words, if we do not perceive that women are totally within power structures, then what we need to redefine is power, not women.
Women & Power: a Manifesto (2017)
Rome of antiquity is important. Ignoring the Romans would not be merely a blind eye to the long-ago past, for Rome helps us to this day to delineate our way of making sense of our world and ourselves, from sublime theory to vulgar comedies. After two thousand years, Rome is still the basis for the culture and politics, literatures and the sense of the world and its place in the world.
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (2017)
When I went to my first interview for an academic position, oddly enough in Thatcher's heyday. I bought myself a pair of blue stockings especially for the occasion. Although it was not my usual style, the logic seemed satisfactory: "If you, interviewers, are going to think that I am a real bluestocking, I will show you that I know what you are thinking and that I thought about it first.
Women & Power: a Manifesto (2017)