I am often asked how I broke through this particular glass ceiling. And the correct answer is that I do not really know and I cannot reconstruct in any detail what changed. Some female solidarity certainly helped. At seminars, the few women in the room started to get together and agree that we would never allow there to be one of those awkward silences. We would leap in and say, “That’s a really useful point,” and run with it for a bit. That lessened the embarrassment.

I suspect that getting older helped, thickening the skin and adding a bit of boldness. I remember one time, before I regularly opened my mouth, asking one male friend after a meeting if he had actually noticed that it was only the men who spoke. Of course, he hadn’t; it just seemed normal.

But the big change for me was something quite different. When I hear myself speak now, I really do hear myself. Sometimes I’m being smart, sometimes I wish I hadn’t said it, sometimes I think I could have chosen my words better – but, whatever, it is me that I’m hearing. During all those years when I couldn’t open my mouth, I think I was trying to speak the way I thought you ought to speak in public; and that, of course, was like a man, right down to the deep, husky tones. Of course, I felt awkward and disconnected from the words that came out of my mouth. I was acting a part, mouthing lines that belonged to someone else, not speaking – as I do now – in my own way.

“Own your voice”: Mary Beard on why women shouldn’t speak like men at work