Helen Rickerby
Notes on the Unsilent Woman
(excerpts)
36. Maybe my favourite part of this story is when Hipparchia went with Crates to a dinner party. There she meets her nemesis: Theodoros the atheist. ‘Who is the woman who has left behind the shuttles of the loom?’ he asked, affronted. Anti-Penelope. Unnatural monster. She replied, ‘I, Theodorus, am that person. Does it seem wrong to you that I devote my time to philosophy rather the loom?’ And maybe that same night, or perhaps another, she said ‘Whatever you do cannot be said to be wrong, and so if I do it, it can’t be wrong either. For example, if you hit yourself, it wouldn’t be wrong, so if I hit you, it wouldn’t be wrong either.’ I guess he lacked a decent comeback: he tried to pull her cloak off. Exposing her body. She stood her ground. Shameless. I see her triumphant, one woman in a room of men.
40. But probably she didn’t feel so triumphant—one woman in a room of men. Maybe she feared. For her life. Maybe she went home—wherever that was—and cried. Maybe Crates said ‘Don’t worry, things like that happen to me all the time.’ But they didn’t.
Notes on the Unsilent Woman
(excerpts)
- ‘When it comes to silencing women, western culture has had thousands of years of practice.’ Mary Beard, Women and Power. What is a woman? What is culture? What is silence?
- Silence isn’t always not speaking. Silence is sometimes an erasure. We don’t know much about her, but we know she spoke. Sometimes, like today, I don’t want to leave the house. I don’t want to speak. I don’t want to write. I don’t feel like saying anything, so much, too much, has already been said. We all know what someone who speaks looks like, someone who should be taken seriously.
36. Maybe my favourite part of this story is when Hipparchia went with Crates to a dinner party. There she meets her nemesis: Theodoros the atheist. ‘Who is the woman who has left behind the shuttles of the loom?’ he asked, affronted. Anti-Penelope. Unnatural monster. She replied, ‘I, Theodorus, am that person. Does it seem wrong to you that I devote my time to philosophy rather the loom?’ And maybe that same night, or perhaps another, she said ‘Whatever you do cannot be said to be wrong, and so if I do it, it can’t be wrong either. For example, if you hit yourself, it wouldn’t be wrong, so if I hit you, it wouldn’t be wrong either.’ I guess he lacked a decent comeback: he tried to pull her cloak off. Exposing her body. She stood her ground. Shameless. I see her triumphant, one woman in a room of men.
40. But probably she didn’t feel so triumphant—one woman in a room of men. Maybe she feared. For her life. Maybe she went home—wherever that was—and cried. Maybe Crates said ‘Don’t worry, things like that happen to me all the time.’ But they didn’t.
