Trigger warning: sexual assault
Medusa didn’t seduce Poseidon. Reading in between the lines of the story and in between the lines of history in general, we can see that many times, the beautiful seductress was never an evil, selfish villain but rather just a woman. The fact of the matter is that Medusa was just some girl before a guy covered in seaweed and holding a big fork decided that he wanted to piss off the goddess of wisdom by sleeping with the hottest priestess. A lot of women, like Medusa, were just innocent priestesses before they were crushed under the weight of the patriarchy.
It is time for society to re-interpret mythology and folklore to what some call the female eros. The female eros is, as Audre Lorde says in Sister Outsider, the “assertion of the life force in women, of creative energy empowered.” As John Berger points out in the third essay of Ways of Seeing, the patriarchy takes social presence by forcing everything around the male social presence. The term “female gaze” was created to counteract that: to humanize women in popular culture and make them feel seen and not objectified.
However, I digress; such terminology in reference to the non-male spectator is misleading. Because society revolves around men and the patriarchy, and because gender is indisputably a spectrum, the deconstruction of the male gaze being referred to as the female gaze does not account for the fact that women are not the only ones that the male gaze harms. Nonetheless, I will resort to calling this phenomenon the female gaze because I have not come across a better term.
Let’s first retell Medusa. Picture this: You’re a devout priestess of a goddess that you have loved and admired all of your life. Despite being beautiful and sought-after, you gave up your entire life to live at this temple and worship. One day, however, another god who is an enemy of your goddess shows up on your island and violently assaults you in a chauvinistic display of power. This angers your goddess, but instead of waging war against him and retaliating, she turns on you instead. She turns you into a monster whose gaze can turn people into stone and makes snakes grow out of your hair. Because of her stubborn nature and hubris, she refuses to admit that she was wrong for failing to protect you and accuses you of seducing him. Millennia later, people still believe that you seduced him, even though you’ve long met your torturous demise after being isolated from society in a cave. That is Medusa’s tale.
Poseidon’s actions were a classic example of violent male power. By assaulting a helpless priestess, he asserts control over Athena at her very own temple, placing a mark in her territory and basically giving her a metaphorical “F*** You.” In the process, he did something disgusting and vile, harming an innocent creature and making her into a monster. But like all men who do what he did, he did not consider this at all because, in his eyes, Medusa was not a person but an object for him to control.
As Berger said in Ways of Seeing, “men do to simply look; their gaze carries with it the power of action and of possession.” Medusa was gorgeous, yes, but that was not why he committed the crime. This acknowledgment of her assault as an act of asserting power and not an act of mutual desire contributes to our conclusion that the depravity of the male gaze is oppressive in nature, as mythology is symbolic, especially the tale of Medusa herself. Her head, the aegis, is seen as a symbol of female sexuality, but it is a shameful symbol that contributes to one’s shame in their own sexuality if one is not male.
Asian mythology’s most popular female sexuality symbol is the fox spirit. Present in the myths of many East Asian cultures, the fox spirit takes form in the huli jing, the gumiho, the kitsune, and so on. They are often depicted as sly, seductive creatures. It is worth noting that, however, while kitsune were majestic, noble beings, huli jing were portrayed as man-eating demonesses. Huli jing could become celestial beings at a certain age but were still regarded as terrible creatures. Fox spirits were symbols of both power and fear, which shows mankind’s fear for powerful women, especially those who are confident in their sexualities. Ancient Greece and Rome also employed similar powerful and formidable female creatures to carry out the biddings of the gods. The furies, for example, were loyal to Hades and always sent to do his bidding. They were nasty creatures that resembled shriveled old women with claws. It’s almost as if women are perceived as disgusting regardless of whether they are beautiful or ugly.
What’s worse is that these symbols don’t just affect women but everyone who presents in any sort of feminine way. Femininity has been demonized for centuries, and mythology is a direct reflection of that because, in many ways, it is a direct reflection of our society. Fiction is a powerful tool for those who want to send a message.
Food for thought: How can we reshape folklore to combat the patriarchy?
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