Women In Mythology
Women In Mythology
By Louise Angrilli
It infuriates me that that female strength and energy have been vilified and suppressed by a reign of male dominance. Medusa, once a goddess of renewal and the cycle of life, a celebration of the menstrual cycle, has been distorted into the monstrous hag of Greek mythology who turns men to stone when they gaze unto her. Christianity is wrapped firmly in the belief that all women are responsible for humanity’s suffering and despair because Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Through so much myth, stories told generation after generation, there has been the tone, the implication, that woman is either mother or harlot, wife or witch. The villain or the passive victim waiting for a man to rescue her. It makes me angry that women were reduced to such contempt and novelty.
Even with a portrayal so damning, within the myths there is still a sense of something beyond the distortion of male ego. It seems that behind the heroic man and mighty gods there is much room for interpretation. In the epic tale of The Odyssey, the hero Odysseus is pounded as the noble king with such courage and wisdom that the gods favour him so. If Odysseus is of such magnificence, why does the goddess Athene need to lead him so frequently? The Amazons, the famous tribe of warrior women, were once viewed as abnormal, a deviation from nature, but now they are a glorious representation of female solidarity. And what about Lilith? She was the first wife of biblical Adam who was created from the dust like her husband, distinctly unlike the creation of Eve. She refused to submit to Adam’s domination and so claimed her independence leaving the Garden of Eden, only to be demonised by patriarchal propaganda as a seducer of men. It’s all right there. Beneath the veil of misogyny there is a spark of feminine power to embrace and send spiraling to the stars.
It makes me cringe to think that for thousands of years women were pushed into submission and convinced that they were inferior, or even evil. It’s terrifying that there was a time that after a man raped a woman he would blame her with the accusation that she had ‘bewitched’ him. I guess that hasn’t really changed, but instead of the justification of sorcery, a rapist will use a women’s clothing and behaviour against her. It seems to have taken so damn long for women to find a voice. Feminism of the 20th century is such a small drop in an immense pond of time. I realise that today the situation is freer than ever recorded before for women. Just looking back 150 years and things seem barbaric, but that doesn’t mean that now things are peachy. There is so much awareness yet to awaken. So many ideas to reclaim. I doubt I will ever feel safe in this world and that sends a pang of sadness vibrating through my heart.
Through ancient legend there is strength to find, but there are so few heroines of the modern-day myth that flare my imagination. I guess I am just stubbornly unwilling to interpret the positives of a scantly clad woman shrieking with fear while running in the wrong direction. I’ll just have to be content with the image of Ellen Ripley killing an acid-bleeding alien to tide me over while I create my own tales. There is power in stories, in myth. They have the ability to make a person feel inspired, enchanted, saddened, resentful, lonely, empowered, goofy, angry, lost, and the infinity of other emotions. I wouldn’t let anyone strip them from me. My dreams help me hold the courage to face the world without it crushing me. Despite the claim of equality, this culture still has a long journey in front of it, a journey that perhaps will never end. The strength of women is just as fierce and passionate as that of men and I refuse to have it denied.