In 1984, I returned to Newnham College at Cambridge University to teach after completing my Ph.D. there a couple of years earlier. Almost all of my colleagues in the university's classics department were men, and my office at the all-women's college was in the dorm.

One of the downsides of working in antiquity is that you don't have many female voices, but you certainly have a lot of male terror about the potential of women's power. It shows you very clearly that the most oppressive cultures tend to be afraid of those whom they oppress.

For whatever reason, some sorts of women's silence were broken by MeToo. This is the optimistic bit. And that will lead to a much more careful attention to women's voices.

Gender is a key marker of power and powerlessness. Most of the structures of how our world works are biased in terms of men.

It is only the ignorant who despise education.

You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.

Sometimes I loved the disruptive student in class who livened up lectures with wisecracks - it put a spin on things, added flavor, made me laugh. Other times, I wished the heckler would just shut up so I could learn something.

Decent wages keep people out of homeless shelters. Decent wages allow families to afford books and, I don't know, school fees and things like that.