Named after the French feminist movement Les Barbes and, of course, the fabulous Mary Beard, The Beard Society is the newest voice on the Cambridge feminism scene. Gathering in Peterhouse’s Parlour to discuss feminism has a wonderful air of subversion, not least because of its multiplicity of lusciously bearded portraits. Attending a Beard Society meeting feels like an act of subterfuge behind patriarchy’s lines, particularly as Peterhouse only started admitting women in 1985.

The society has an impressive track record of speakers considering how new it is. Already host to Lynda Nead and Camilla Long, their latest speaker is their namesake Mary Beard. Peterhouse Parlour makes feminist discussion feel seditious, but it is also tiny and as I enter “Beard”, as she monikers herself, is surrounded on all sides by people sitting at her feet, as though she were some manner of Guru. She speaks fondly about her early forays into left-wing politics, but says that it was more intellectual than practical:“until I was 18 it never struck me…that you couldn’t do something because you were a woman.” Her feminism is rooted in those formative encounters with the political world, but it is buttressed by 58 years of experience, both in her private life and as a public figure. She openly told those gathered that: “I can’t understand what it would be to be a woman and not to be a feminist”. 

Beard speaks warmly of the advances that the University has made in terms of equality for women, pointing out that when she came up 12% of undergraduates were female and that the figure is now nearing 50%. However, she retains some of her early frustration with the system: “Cambridge…is part of a world in which language, culture and society’s worldview conspire to make it tougher to be female than it is to be male.”

She acknowledges the difficulties of being a feminist academic with a considerable level of administrative responsibility, saying that she herself has been complicit in the non-hiring of women. Never one to shy away from controversy, she is blunt about the role that erotic capital plays for women in such a male-dominated environment: “I think that any woman who does well in this University has found a way of making her gender work for her…they wouldn’t be there unless they were, to put it bluntly, a collaborator in some way”.  She is modest about her media profile, describing herself as “a minnow of a public figure” but is also clear that she has an important role to play as an older woman in the public eye and within the university. The balancing act may be difficult, but Beard sees it as necessary and her priority is clear: “I’m most of all interested in making women feel they’re clever”.

A woman of great poise, self-deprecation and wit, Professor Beard addresses her critics with the dignified air of someone who is able to rise above the mudslinging of those beneath her. Her approach to critics at all levels, whether they are employed by The Sunday Times (she said of AA Gill that he was “just a lad who needs his bottom smacked and told to shut up”) or are running grotty little websites is to laugh at the idiocy of little boys. Unflustered by media storms, bitchy tweets and “silly” commentators, she really is Cambridge’s coolest matriarch.