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George Rosales
ENG 11000 Freshman Composition
Prof. Lisa Diomande
Critical Analysis Essay
3/29/2015
Gender Inequality and Review of The Troll Slayer
When I look at gender roles, I see an inequality in the roles of men and women.
Back in colonial America women served as homemakers, taking care of the housework. They
werent allowed to participate in the workforce. Meanwhile, men worked to provide for their
families, and thus, had higher authority over women. It wasnt until wartime (World War I) when
women were encouraged to participate in the workforce and war effort. Women have come a
long way to gain respect in modern society. However, The Troll Slayer, by Rebecca Mead
helps demonstrate that inequality in gender roles still exist in society.
The Troll Slayer, an article in The New Yorker by Rebecca Mead, takes on the
issue of gender inequality in modern society. It tells the story of Mary Beard, a classics professor
at the University of Cambridge. She is an author of many books, essays, and delivers many
speeches regarding various controversial topics, such as immigration and feminism. She also
made several television appearances on BBC (British Broadcasting Company) to promote her
work. However, she was faced with abuse and discrimination by men around the world,
including on social media. However, she dismissed all of the abusive remarks that came her way
and used it to promote feminism. She gained a lot of publicity and was seen as an active role
model for young women around the world.
The Troll Slayer starts off by including a speech by Beard. Her speech, entitled
Oh Do Shut Up, Dear! takes on men who have been silencing women for trying to speak out
and have their voices heard. She begins with examples from ancient history on the poor
treatment of women. Mead stated: She began her talk with Odyssey, and what she referred to as

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the first recorded instance of a man telling a woman that her voice is not to be heard in public:
Telemachus informing his mother, Penelope, that speech will be the business of men and
sending her upstairs to her weaving.
Mead then transitions to talking about her experiences on social media. She would
often post tweets related to advocating for women but would receive threats from men on twitter.
She stated: It doesnt much matter what line of argument you take as a woman. If you venture
into traditional male territory, the abuse comes anyway. Its not what you say that prompts it
its the fact that you are saying it. Here, she is saying that whenever a woman is able to be in the
same position as men, men will often try and denounce them to make them feel less powerful.
For example, she says: A. A. Gill, the television critic for the Sunday Times, greeted [Beards]
Pompeii series by remarking, Beard coos over corpses teeth without apparently noticing she is
wearing them. . . . From behind she is 16; from the front, 60. The hair is a disaster, the outfit an
embarrassment. Gill dismissed Meet the Romans by declaring that Beard should be kept away
from cameras altogether. Most of her tweets would receive negative feedback, with heckling,
rape, and death threats from men online. Mead then gives examples of other powerful women
who received similar threats for tweeting remarks that advocate for women. She says: After
Caroline Criado-Perez, a thirty-year-old activist, launched a campaign last spring to have an
accomplished woman represented on the British ten-pound note, she was subjected to multiple
threats of rape and murder via Twitter. Men have problems with women standing up for what
they believe in, especially on social media. This is most likely because history has shown us that
men have more power over women, considering the norms in colonial America and how Women
had to fight for their rights through the Womens Rights Movement. Men would always provide
for the family and thus had total authority, thus they are not used to submitting to womens
authority. They would feel threatened if they see women rising up to their standards, speaking for

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themselves, and being independent. If strong women are able to speak out their minds, there
would be men out there whose unacceptable behaviors would be exposed to society, making
them feel inferior.
Beard had been seen as a role model for young women and feminists. She
received multiple emails from young women who listened to her speech and looked up to her.
For example, Mead says: Among those in the audience for Oh Do Shut Up Dear! was Megan
Beech, a student at Kings College, whose spoken-word ode When I Grow Up I Want to Be
Mary Beard was posted on YouTube last summer. As mentioned, Beard was subject to
offensive tweets online. However, she did not intent to embarrass those who would send her
offensive tweets. For example, Mead says: In another highly publicized incident, Beard
retweeted a message that she had received from a twenty-year-old university student: You filthy
old slut. I bet your is disgusting. One of Beards followers offered to inform the students
mother of his online behavior; meanwhile, he apologized.

Instead of receiving support from

men on social media, she would She explicitly said that she wanted to educate women about the
kind of opposition that they would face when they fight for respect. Beard continued to write
several essays, books and deliver speeches to get her voice heard regarding big topics in the
world, no matter the opposition. The article ends with Mead stating: The lecture was itself an
instance in which a womans voice was resoundingly heard, as Beard acknowledged from her
privileged place behind the lectern. She is affirming that Beards speech is an example of a
woman speaking her mind without fear and her voice was strongly heard by people around the
world. Beard refuses to pay attention to the abuse she gets
One strength of The Troll Slayer is that we are able to view the story of Mary
Beard very well, along with the discrimination she has faced and how it relates to the history of
gender discrimination. In fact, She has excellent credentials. She is a classics (old history)

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professor at the University of Cambridge. Her work is well known around the world, especially
in the United Kingdom. She became famous from advertising her feminist ideas on television
and on social media, despite the abuse she received.
Another strength of The Troll Slayer is that we are given multiple examples of
the experiences of other powerful women on social media, such as Caroline Criado-Perez, an
activist for feminism, and Stella Creasy, a Member of Parliament who supported Criado-Perez.
They are threatened with death and rape for voicing their opinions on important topics in society.
On top of that, as mentioned, Beard does not publicize those threats to embarrass people who
tweet them, but to educate the young women about how to maintain their pride and not let men
put them down.
Oxford University, one of the most exalted educational institutions in the world, is
located in the city Oxford in England. According to an article written by Naomi Alderman
entitled The sexist spires at Oxford University?, one third of the students enrolled in the
university would be women and two thirds were men during the mid 1990s. Further in the article,
Naomi examines how poor female students used to be treated in the university. She says: Stories
were rife of male tutors making inappropriate advances to their female students, or of the old
guard failing to conceal their distaste for the idea of female undergraduates. Male students often
ended up taking on these attitudes., which shows how male students opposed women having the
opportunity to receive their education at the university.
She also brings an example of how a female student answered a question
regarding studying womens history and how a question regarding the importance of women was
asked by women. She says: Annie Smith, who read history in the early 90s, told me how she
attempted the question "Is there a need for a separate study of women's history?" in her first-year
exams. She opened her essay with a quote from a radio interview with a senior fellow in the
Oxford history department, in which he'd said that he could "tell which exam scripts were written

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by women by their handbag-shaped vowels", and never gave women firsts because they weren't
to be the breadwinners. Her essay received a double gamma minus, taking her total result from a
first to a third. The term breadwinners means one who earns income for a family and is
depended on for survival. This can be related to Mary Beard in The Troll Slayer because both
Beard and Smith were put down by people around them because of what they stood for. Both
also have attended some of the most prestigious universities in the world in Cambridge and
Oxford.
Women have come a long way to gaining power and respect in society, but remain
unequal in power and status. They went from being homemakers and having no power over men
in the past, to having great opportunities. However, men in modern society still have the
mentality that they have higher authority over women, and thus, gender inequality still exists
today. In fact, it was recently reported that in 2013, for every dollar a man made, a woman made
78 cents. On average, they earn less than men in almost every single job, and women make up
half of the workforce. (IWPR, par. 1) Gender inequality exists in so many forms, including
violence, work, pay, having their voices heard, and so much more.

Works Cited
1. Alderman, Naomi. "The Sexist Spires of Oxford University?" The Guardian. N.p., 20 Apr.
2010. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
2. Mead, Rebecca. "The Troll Slayer." The New Yorker. N.p., 1 Sept. 2014. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.
3. "Pay Equity & Discrimination." Institute for Women's Policy Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 28
Mar. 2015.