Mary Beard Interviewed by Brooke Masters

Britain’s best-known classicist and committed feminist Dame Mary Beard looks at how history has treated powerful women, explores the culture of misogyny and issues around rape and consent, and asks how things have moved on since the advent of #metoo.

Beard takes examples ranging from Medusa and Athena in the classical age to modern figures including Theresa may and Hillary Clinton. She looks at the public voice of women, cultural assumptions about women’s relationship with power and how powerful women resist being packaged into a male template.

Beard is professor of classics at the University of Cambridge. Her books include Civilisations: How We look/The Eye of Faith; SPQR; the Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii; and It’s a Don’s Life. She has presented several television documentaries and is known for her often controversial public statements. Here she talks to FT opinion and analysis editor Brooke Masters.