The word as the key to power and prestige

In the sixties a publication was published with the title SCUM manifesto. SCUM stood for Society for Cutting Up Men and was a call to demolish society and eliminate men. The author received limited attention until she tried to kill the pop art artist Andy Warhol. It turned out to be excellent marketing, albeit dubious support for serious feminists like Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and Kate Millett. Some decades have passed. Now the women's battle has found new fronts, and on Hollywood's main stage, a black-clad Oprah Winfrey is thrust with the statement: "Time's up." Time's up. For the abusers. Really?

Being Harvey Weinstein. A Harvey Weinstein exists in several places. In Germany he is called Dieter Wedel and is a media mogul and godfather in the German television and film industry. Recently, the German press was flooded with accusations against Wedel, from women – actresses – who could prove his abuse. These were physical and mental violence and harassment that destroyed several lives and careers. Now these events are up to thirty years back in time. The question arises: Why did it take so long for the abuses to reach the public? One of the answers is: Because the women only now felt supported and strengthened MeToo wave. Another read: Because techniques for stopping the mouth of women have overwhelming systemic impact.

What is typical of women's long history of suffering? Popular British philologist, author and speaker Mary Beard has come up with a little book titled Women & Power. A Manifesto. The subtitle is like a wink to SCUM, and the book is a great success. Beard asks the question: What is typical of women's long history of suffering? Her toolbox contains examples from our thousands of years old Greco-Roman tradition, a tradition that from the very beginning has allowed women to perfect their sacrificial role. Beard begins with a scene: A queen watches a group of men lament over the many trials of war and the warrior. She takes the floor and asks them to switch to a less depressing theme, whereupon her son rebukes her: "Mother," he says, "go back to your room and continue your work of weaving and spinning. […] Speech is the business of men, all men, and mine most of all, for in this house it is I who have the power. " And the queen wanders away. Their names are Penelope, Odysseus' wife, and Telemachus, their son. The work is Odyssey, Homer's famous heroic epic from barely three thousand years back.

Our mental and cultural model for a person with power is and is becoming male.

The elite man's identity building. In the culture we call the cradle of our civilization, taking the word, mastering the word, was more than just an oral skill; it belonged to an elite man's essential identity building, and with this he was able to act in the public space, which was the key to power and prestige. Slaves and women had no place in this room, in ancient Greek democracy they had no voice. On the other hand, when a man's hierarchical position was thus defined, it followed inexorably that a woman who spoke the word in the same room could not be a woman, but was an androgynous freak, a female gender who had infused male attributes. But even then it was about niche themes, read women's themes. For speaking on behalf of both sexes, a woman was left blank. When we hear about (culture) history in several cases about women getting the tongue cut or cut off the head (the best known should be Medusa with the snake locks, countless times used in the imagery of the gender struggle), it is more than bestial torture. It's about preventing women from challenging men's issues.

Long lines. What Mary Beard wants with these flashbacks is to draw long lines, find similarities between ancient and contemporary women's views. She warns against seeing today's abuse as detached woman's contempt. They have roots not only far back in time, but also directly in biology. Basically, which voice demonstrates the most authority, the woman's treble or the man's bass? The then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher realized the pitfall and trained her voice down in pitch. And many women will still recognize themselves in what Beard calls "failed intervention", where the woman in a congregation where men are in the majority is either overheard, ignored, or overblown. Women should remain silent in the congregation, Paul exhorts in his first letter to the Corinthians. It was a popular quote in the fight against female priests. The phenomenon in which the man teaches others (most often women) about most things from his (in his own eyes) superior position has been given his own term, "mansplaining". Beard concludes that our mental and cultural model for a person with power is and will be male.

Techniques of stopping the mouth of women have overwhelming systemic impact.

Equality is a beautiful word. So how do we address these issues without falling back into the SCUM shooting trench? What Beard aims to avoid is to confuse fighting spirit with aggressive exclusion. She recommends that we all seek deeper insights into what has shaped us, men and women. Equality is a beautiful word – and explosive. Also for the man, who in our days must endure a lot of gunpowder smoke, hopefully without retreating into the silence women have been trapped in so often and for a long time. By all means, silence can be good, if you listen at the same time.

Think if there was anything in Beards England that we in Norway in the seventies called "the soft man"? The one who could cry at a party, with purple Sigrun Berg scarf around his neck? He was a conditional success. How much longer have we come today? The war goddess Athena, Beard recalls, was clearly androgynous – in career choices as well as in appearance, as she is often portrayed, muscular and masculine. She wasn't even born of a woman, but jumped right out of her father's forehead, Zeus. Where are the androgynous men with power? Can we imagine a smooth-shaven God Father with earrings as anything but a joke?