Beard alludes to Homer's The Odyssey along with several other ancient texts to trace her argument that women are not welcome in the public sphere back to ancient Greece. She identifies Odysseus's son Telemachus telling his mother Penelope to leave public speech to men as the first recorded instance of a woman being told to shut up. From The Odyssey, Beard then systematically produces moments from literature and myth that reinforce her argument that women have not and are still not welcome in the public sphere.