But my mother knew that it was not all quite so simple, that real equality between women and men was still a thing of the future, and that there were causes for anger as well as for celebration.

Importance: Beard uses her mother as an example to illustrate what has prompted the thoughts that led to her essays, namely, that the equality of the sexes might seem to be a reality in the modern day, but there are still subtle yet serious biases against women that hold them back from exercising their freedom of speech and ability to achieve success.

Yet it still remains the fact that our own traditions of debate and public speaking, their conventions and rules, still lie very much in the shadow of the classical world.

Importance: This is one of Beard's central points in "The Public Voice of Women": while we are culturally far removed from the...