Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
‘To be men, they have to learn to silence women. I don’t think we’ve entirely got over that.’
From philosophy and politics to literature and art, the Western world has inherited much from Ancient Greece. But one disturbing cultural legacy is the enduring view of women as lesser beings who should shut up and stay out of the public intellectual sphere. Our social media is rife with examples of this persistent misogyny, which casts vocal women as stupid, shrill or some combination of the two. As the classicist Mary Beard of the University of Cambridge argues, nearly every leading female politician has been at some point depicted as Medusa – that beautiful woman of Ancient Greek myth who was transformed into a hideous beast as punishment for her own rape. In this video, commissioned by the Getty Museum on the occasion of Beard receiving their 2019 Getty Medal for contributions to the arts, she elaborates on the telling similarities between Ancient Greek depictions of women and those in our own times.
Director: Matthew Miller
Producers: Ways & Means, Christopher Broyles
video
Rituals and celebrations
Beware the Nalujuit! A rare glimpse into a chilling Labrador Inuit tradition
13 minutes
video
Future of technology
Artificial ‘creativity’ is unstoppable. Grappling with its ethics is up to us
23 minutes
video
Design and fashion
Refined towards imperfection – a ceramic artist recreates a rare Korean treasure
15 minutes
video
Politics and government
‘Without a poster, you don’t exist!’ – on the curious political banners of Mumbai
20 minutes
video
Global history
The famed medieval map that stretched beyond Earth to heaven, history and myth
5 minutes
video
Design and fashion
Household items are reborn in a ‘visual symphony of everyday objects’
11 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
Meet the man who uncovered the scandal of nuclear testing in South Australia
13 minutes
video
Global history
The strange journey of the Parthenon Marbles to the British Museum
10 minutes
video
Animals and humans
Laura fights to protect the magnificence of wild horses running free
6 minutes