Medusa and Mirrors
Medusa is often mis-archetyped - especially in the feminist sense. She is cast as a misappropriated symbol of feminine power, because of the story that she became "ugly" as a consequence of being a rape victim - her punishment unjust at the hands of a jealous Athena. And so it goes, she is the vengeance against men.
The problem is, the rape story is apocryphal - told by Ovid, while her actual story predates him. And then there is the irony that she - the symbol of woman-defeating-man - was unjustly created/punished...by another woman.
Why am I writing this? I can relate. I see women revelling in the Medusa myth - the misappropriated one. Casting men as stony things, monsters, to be moved through and destroyed, only to then point the finger of blame at them for their victimization.
It is further ironic that the original story has it that Medusa turned anyone who looked at her to stone - not merely men. It is too ironic that women who fix Medusa to their personage like Athena fixed her to her shield, are guilty of victimizing people indiscriminate of sex - and often times those victims are their sisters.
No, Medusa-redux, you are not a god. No one wants to possess you or recreate you. Sometimes people just want to love you and be loved by you. And if they mishandle you, theirs is not to be a fate of stone and iron. The trail of bodies, including women - the stolen things, the weaved lies, spewed like venom of snakes are a trail of culpability that leads to your own footsteps.
There are some people who have the ability of Perseus - to confront Medusa and not turn to stone. Their greatest weapon? A mirror. I think they can see through the ugliness and find something to love. Immune to the glares and snakebites. But Perseus is also her antithesis - and the one who ended the reign of terror. Both, the lover and the killer were one thing: the hero.
The problem is, the rape story is apocryphal - told by Ovid, while her actual story predates him. And then there is the irony that she - the symbol of woman-defeating-man - was unjustly created/punished...by another woman.
Why am I writing this? I can relate. I see women revelling in the Medusa myth - the misappropriated one. Casting men as stony things, monsters, to be moved through and destroyed, only to then point the finger of blame at them for their victimization.
No, Medusa-redux, you are not a god. No one wants to possess you or recreate you. Sometimes people just want to love you and be loved by you. And if they mishandle you, theirs is not to be a fate of stone and iron. The trail of bodies, including women - the stolen things, the weaved lies, spewed like venom of snakes are a trail of culpability that leads to your own footsteps.
There are some people who have the ability of Perseus - to confront Medusa and not turn to stone. Their greatest weapon? A mirror. I think they can see through the ugliness and find something to love. Immune to the glares and snakebites. But Perseus is also her antithesis - and the one who ended the reign of terror. Both, the lover and the killer were one thing: the hero.
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