The Medusa Myth
The myth of Medusa is one that was always interesting to me as a kid, but I never actually read into it when I was older. I never even thought about it until I saw a TikTok about a girl’s Medusa tattoo. The video had no audio but a song in the background and it was a video of her tattoo with text that read, "think you can hurt me? I tell people I got my Medusa tattoo because I think it looks cool." I did not understand the video, so I looked up what a Medusa tattoo meant. In what ended up being a lengthy Google rabbit hole about Medusa, I found that her story is not what we generally hear.
In elementary school lessons about mythology, we got what I thought was a rudimentary understanding of mythology, but simply ended up being an entirely incorrect storyline. The common story is that Medusa was a beautiful but vain woman which led to her being punished by being turned into a hideous monster. Different versions of the story state that she was punished for being seductive with her beauty and leading men astray. These are all patriarchal manipulations of the story. There were actually three early versions of the real Medusa story.
The original story was written about a mortal woman who was raped by Poseidon and turned into a monster. Another version was that Medusa was raped by Poseidon and caught by Athena who became angry with Medusa, not understanding that the interaction was against her will, and turned her into a monster. A third version was that Medusa was raped by Poseidon and Athena gave her the power to turn the male gaze against itself to protect her.
I think all versions of this story, and the very fact that we transformed the story to suit different narratives in society, make important statements about the way we treat survivors today, so the story of Medusa continues to stay relevant. In creating a storyline where Medusa is vain and that is her downfall, we erase her story and her history which are the very things that shed light on rape culture; we erase the male accountability for her being turned into a monster. In portraying Medusa as purposely seductive, we make it seem like she wanted or asked for what happened with Poseidon and put the responsibility on her rather than on Poseidon. In other versions, Medusa receives consequences, by literally being turned into a monster, for her own rape. The myth of Medusa was that she was the monster in the story.
These are all very real things that happen to women who come forward and speak about their sexual assault experiences. Stripping a man of his responsibility when he sexually assaults a woman is unfortunately extremely common. We see statements absolving men for blame simply because they are men and thus cannot control themselves all the time; “boys will be boys” is too often used to excuse sexually inappropriate behavior towards women. Asking a woman what she was wearing or saying that she asked for it is another way society puts the blame on women in a way that is extremely common to the story of Medusa. In addition to this all, often when men are accused of sexual misconduct, society will protect his future over the woman’s safety. We see statements such as “but he’s young” or “he’s an athlete” or “he’s a bright kid” and “we can’t ruin this young man’s life and future” when a woman comes out with her experience and it comes down to demonizing the woman for speaking because she is “destroying” the man’s future instead of the other way around. The woman effectively becomes the monster.
This is why the story of Medusa is so important to understand because it stays extremely relevant to how society continues to treat rape survivors. We need to stay cognizant of the way we repeat pattens that reinforce rape culture like rewriting and questioning survivor’s stories and try to stay clear of doing that.
In elementary school lessons about mythology, we got what I thought was a rudimentary understanding of mythology, but simply ended up being an entirely incorrect storyline. The common story is that Medusa was a beautiful but vain woman which led to her being punished by being turned into a hideous monster. Different versions of the story state that she was punished for being seductive with her beauty and leading men astray. These are all patriarchal manipulations of the story. There were actually three early versions of the real Medusa story.
The original story was written about a mortal woman who was raped by Poseidon and turned into a monster. Another version was that Medusa was raped by Poseidon and caught by Athena who became angry with Medusa, not understanding that the interaction was against her will, and turned her into a monster. A third version was that Medusa was raped by Poseidon and Athena gave her the power to turn the male gaze against itself to protect her.
I think all versions of this story, and the very fact that we transformed the story to suit different narratives in society, make important statements about the way we treat survivors today, so the story of Medusa continues to stay relevant. In creating a storyline where Medusa is vain and that is her downfall, we erase her story and her history which are the very things that shed light on rape culture; we erase the male accountability for her being turned into a monster. In portraying Medusa as purposely seductive, we make it seem like she wanted or asked for what happened with Poseidon and put the responsibility on her rather than on Poseidon. In other versions, Medusa receives consequences, by literally being turned into a monster, for her own rape. The myth of Medusa was that she was the monster in the story.
These are all very real things that happen to women who come forward and speak about their sexual assault experiences. Stripping a man of his responsibility when he sexually assaults a woman is unfortunately extremely common. We see statements absolving men for blame simply because they are men and thus cannot control themselves all the time; “boys will be boys” is too often used to excuse sexually inappropriate behavior towards women. Asking a woman what she was wearing or saying that she asked for it is another way society puts the blame on women in a way that is extremely common to the story of Medusa. In addition to this all, often when men are accused of sexual misconduct, society will protect his future over the woman’s safety. We see statements such as “but he’s young” or “he’s an athlete” or “he’s a bright kid” and “we can’t ruin this young man’s life and future” when a woman comes out with her experience and it comes down to demonizing the woman for speaking because she is “destroying” the man’s future instead of the other way around. The woman effectively becomes the monster.
This is why the story of Medusa is so important to understand because it stays extremely relevant to how society continues to treat rape survivors. We need to stay cognizant of the way we repeat pattens that reinforce rape culture like rewriting and questioning survivor’s stories and try to stay clear of doing that.
Sources:
https://historyofyesterday.com/medusa-how-we-made-a-rape-victim-into-a-monster-6cd79a12ce00
https://thewhitonline.com/2019/10/features/herstory-medusas-story-isnt-so-different-than-todays-rape-victims/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvxwax/medusa-greek-myth-rape-victim-turned-into-a-monster
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