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Public speaking Quote by Mary Beard

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““What I mean is that public speaking and oratory were not merely things that ancient women didn’t do: they were exclusive practices and skills that defined masculinity as a gender. As we saw with Telemachus, to become a man (or at least an elite man) was to claim the right to speak. Public speech was a – if not the – defining attribute of maleness.””

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Public speaking

More by Mary Beard

I receive something we might euphemistically call an 'inappropriately hostile' response - that is to say, more than fair criticism or even fair anger…

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We have never escaped a certain male cultural desire for women's silence.

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“defend women’s right to be wrong, at least occasionally.”

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You don't overturn x-thousand years of patriarchy in a generation.

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“we have no template for what a powerful woman looks like, except that she looks rather like a man.”

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“(In the Afghan parliament, apparently, they disconnect the mics when they don’t want to hear the women speak).”

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I've chosen to be this way because that's how I feel comfortable with myself. That's how I am. It's about joining up the dots…

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People who exploit others come to spend an enormous amount of energy wondering about and justifying that exploitation.

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Wherever possible, I try to see things from the other side of the dividing line and to read civilisation 'against the grain.'

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I remember plastering the kitchen with Black Power pictures of Angela Davis.

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“thinking about power as an attribute or even a verb (‘to power’), not as a possession.”

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If women are not perceived to be fully within the structures of power, surely it is power that we need to redefine rather than…

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Explore all 137 Mary Beard quotes

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“Take care of your costume and your confidence will take care of itself.”

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If you don't know what you want, you will probably never get it.

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“Social anxiety disorder”—which essentially means pathological shyness—is now thought to afflict nearly one in five of us. The most recent version of the Diagnostic…

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“In general, poor is polite and rich is rude.”

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Whenever people have trouble public speaking, it's because they are just thinking about themselves.

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“The smell of the sweat is not sweet, but the fruit of the sweat is very sweet.”

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I was extremely shy and had a terrible fear of public speaking. But I had fallen in love with stand-up.

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Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public....

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My activism has to do with my conscience; I cannot let certain things slide without doing something. My public speaking is part of an…

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I've been an educator all my life pretty much. It's important as a manager and also as a record label, to educate your artists…

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Browse all 347 Public speaking quotes