first post!

This is the inaugural post of speculum mendax, a blog about women, gender, classical and other literatures, academia, and the interface between self and other. And anything else I care to write about.

On the name: Ovid, Tristia 3.7.37-8 :

Cumque aliquis dicet "fuit haec formosa" dolebis,
et speculum mendax esse querere tuum.

And when someone says "This woman was beautiful", you'll be sad,
and you'll complain that your mirror (speculum) is lying (mendax).

I haven't yet worked out all the implications of this choice.