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Medea: Rejecting the Patriarchy
Earth mother becomes wicked witch
Matriarchs & goddesses
Amazons & princesses
Us and Them: Fear of Otherness
Yin-Yang: Non-polar thinking
Female Bonobos rule
Resources for women
A warrior's boast is painted on a vase, sung by the poets, interpreted by the historians, and enters a nation's mythology. This may have been Medea's fate in a culture where good women were supposed to stay home and let the boys rule.
The Larousse World Mythology (1989 edition, p. 98) says:
When the Hellenes came to the shores of the Mediterranean, they
were confronted with deities and cults that they could not
understand. They already had gods with distinct individual
personalities, and they instinctively sought to “recognise” these
gods in the new religious world around them.
Medea may have been an aspect of the earth goddess in Asia Minor. In the Greek pantheon, she became a sorceress, like her aunt Circe, descended from Uranus (the sky)
and Gaea (the earth) through the sun god Helios.
In Thomas Bulfinch's summary of the myth, when it was time for
Jason to succeed to his father Aeson's kingdom in Thessaly, his uncle, Pelias,
then ruling in Aeson's stead, sent him on a quest for the Golden Fleece,
which was in the kingdom of Colchis, on the western shore of the Black Sea. Aeetes, king of Colchis,
hoped to stop Jason by setting him three dangerous tasks. Jason,
however, persuaded the king's daughter, Medea, to help him by
swearing to marry her.
With her magic, Jason stole the fleece, and they fled. Medea then killed her younger brother, Apsyrtus, and scattered
his limbs in the ocean, so her father would stop his pursuit to
recover them. On returning to his kingdom, Jason pleaded with
her to extend his father's life by taking some years off
his own. With magic and prayers, she restored Aeson's youth
without shortening her husband's life.
Pelias's daughters wished her to do the same for their father.
She, however, took this opportunity to avenge Pelias's wrongs
against her husband, and tricked the daughters into killing their
father.
She fled with Jason to Corinth, where, after some years together, Jason informed her that he wanted to
marry the princess of Corinth. Enraged, she killed the bride
and her father. She then killed her sons and escaped in a
magic chariot to Athens, where she married the king, Aegeus.
Aegeus had a son, Theseus, who had grown up with his mother Aethra in Troezen. When Theseus came of age, he was instructed by his
mother to retrieve a sword and shoes that his father had left for
him, and to go to Athens. On his arrival, Medea, knowing who he
was, and afraid of losing her position with the king, tried to
trick Aegeus into poisoning his son. Aegeus, however, recognized
the sword that Theseus carried, and once again, Medea had to
flee.
The Greek playwright, Euripides, in his retelling of the myth in
431 B.C., has Jason justify his betrayal of Medea in Corinth by
claiming that in taking her from a barbaric country and settling
her in Greece, he has improved her life. According to Moses Hadas (Ten Plays by Euripides, 1966), Euripides, presented by
his contemporaries as a misfit and (unfairly) as a misogynist, had
expressed disillusionment with Greek sociopolitics by leaving
Athens for barbarian Macedonia. His play mocks Jason's arrogance
and criticizes Greek law for its denial of rights to women and
foreigners. The king of Colchis will have Medea banished from
his kingdom. As a husbandless woman of Asian origin, Medea has no
legal rights and her sons will not be considered citizens.
Threatened with shame and homelessness, she is in despair. Her
ultimate revenge on Jason is to deprive him of heirs by killing
her sons and his new bride.
References
- Bulfinch's Mythology (first published 1855)
- From the Perseus Project, you can read the text of Euripides's Medea, the
story and sequel from Apollodorus and Pausanius (who records Medea's claim to the Corinthian throne), the version by Herodotus that they didn't want you to know, and her family tree in Hesiod's Theogony.
For images, look in the Harvard and London E224 collections of Greek vases.
- The status of women is described in Thomas Martin's Overview of Classical Greek History, Sections 5.15, 5.27 to 6.0, and Section 11, also from the Perseus Project.
- A timid young woman falls overwhelmingly and secretly in love with a dashing adventurer. She grants her sister a terrible favour and reluctantly helps the stranger and his companions evade her father's deadly wrath. When Medea understands that she has set off a chain of violence around herself, she hardens her will and takes control of the forces determining her destiny. This story begins in Book III of the Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius.
- “Introduction,” by Moses Hadas, in Ten Plays by Euripides,
translated by Moses Hadas and John McLean, Bantam Books, 1966
- Michael Grant, Myths of the Greeks and Romans, 1962
- According to Barbara G. Walker in The Woman's Encyclopedia of
Myths and Secrets (Harper & Row, 1983) “Medea”
means “Wise One,” related to the Sanskrit “medha” for “female
wisdom.” In Ireland, she may have been the
goddess Medana, associated with a sacred tree and regenerative
well. Walker's encyclopedia catalogs the ancient goddesses whose
names, aspects, temples and rites have been echoed, adapted or
co-opted by many cultures and religions, including Christianity.
- Diotima has an extensive collection of resources on women in the Classical Age.
- Classics and Mediterranean Archaeology has links to many, many topics.
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Archaeological excavations in Europe and West Asia have uncovered female figurines from as early as 30,000 years ago. Based on these images, women have revived the earth goddess in religions that borrow
from many traditions and that create an alternative mythology of
peaceful matriarchal societies.
Feminist spirituality is not
without its critics, but in contrast to its misogynist
patriarchal counterparts, the mythology of the goddess provides
images of women that are woman-affirming and woman-celebrating.
Cynthia Eller in Living in the Lap of the Goddess (1993)
suggests that women find in these religions based on the primacy
of the goddess, an experience of power that is not present in
their daily lives.
Legends such as that of the Amazons and of the Greek matriarch,
Clytemnestra, suggest that matriarchy and
matrilineal succession may have been resurgent
threats over which the Greek partriarchal order had to assert
itself time and time again.
Mao Tse-Tung in speaking of the pendulum of revolution and
counter-revolution was well aware of the continuity of power
struggle and change.
Resources
- Goddess religions
- An archeologist discusses the findings at Catal Hoyuk. Images of the goddess and shrines.
- Female figurine from Mesopotamia
- The Serpent goddess may have been the supreme deity in Crete before 1500 BC. Figurines and frescoes indicate that women were active participants in the religious and social life of this possibly matrilineal society. Follow the Women in the Aegean link for this discussion.
For more Minoan art, you can see images from the Iraklion Museum, the Palace of Knossos, or Wondrous Realms of the Aegean, from the Lost Civilizations series by Time-Life Books (1993).
- Chris Witcombe also shows how the patriarchal culture of Western archaeology mocked the feminine in naming the “Venus” figurines from the paleolithic age. Go to the Images of Women in Ancient Arts home page and select Women in Prehistory for more images.
- From Sacred Source, you can also find images of the paleolithic goddesses beginning with the Willendorf and Acheulian figurines. Search the site for the Cycladic and Santadi nudes. Go to the Home Page to read about the goddess religion in Sacred Sexuality.
- More on paleolithic figurines
- This essay from the Institute for Ice Age Studies by Randall White reflects on the possible meanings of paleolithic imagery. There are pictures here as well.
- Bibliography on goddesses and matriarchs
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In Amazons: A Study in Athenian Mythmaking (1984), William Blake
Tyrell discusses the opposition of feminine to female in the Greek patriarchy.
The Greek mytho-historians assumed there were just two
alternative social orders: rule by men or rule by women. So they
constructed a history in which rule by women always led to self-destruction or social chaos. The juxtaposition of a victorious
Athena (warrior goddess of Athens, born from the forehead of
Zeus) with the annihilation of the Amazons demonstrated that
women could be worshipped as long as men remained in control.
- From the Perseus Project: Herodotus and Strabo on the Amazons, and images
- Recent archaeology on Warrior Women of Eurasia
- Women Warriors of Japan
- “Vous duc de bedford la pucelle vous prie et vous requiert que vous ne vous faictes mie destruire / se vous lui faictes raison encores pourrez venir en sa compaignie lou que les francois feront le plus bel fait qui oncques fust fait pour la xpiente [i.e., chrestiente]. / Et faictes response se vous voulez faire paix en la cite dorleans Et se ainsi ne le faictes de vos bien grans domages vous souviengne briefme[n]t. [You, Duke of Bedford, the Maiden begs and requires that you will not cause your own ruin. And if you will do right by her, you could still come in her company to where the French will do the finest deed which has ever been done for Christendom. And reply if you wish to make peace in the city of Orleans; and if you do not do so, you will shortly remember it by reason of your great misfortune.] Jehanne”
In 1429 and 1430, a teenage girl, Jehanne Darc, led a French army against the English invaders and established a united France under Charles VII. She was eventually captured by the English, who in 1431, fearing her popularity with the French people, burned her at the stake on a trumped-up charge of heresy.
In the preface to his play Saint Joan, George Bernard Shaw wrote that Joan of Arc was burned “essentially for what we call unwomanly and insufferable presumption....When she was thwarted by men whom she thought fools, she made no secret of her opinion of them or her impatience with their folly; and she was naive enough to expect them to be obliged to her for setting them right and keeping them out of mischief.” Shaw argues that her comrades in arms and her king did not save her when they could, for, like the English king, they “were equally glad to be rid of her.” She was certainly...heretical.
The 1999 CBS movie Joan of Arc is reviewed here.
- Links to resources for Amazons, including Xena fans
...motherhood vs sexuality, deference vs assertion...
Since disobedient women upset the social order, the rebellion of
women can, according to the myth, be justifiably met with
violence. So the way a woman dresses, her lifestyle choices, her
self-assertion, or her ethnicity, can be called aggression
and is a provocation that can be held by our own courts as a
defense for men's violence.
A man's mind...has always the advantage of being masculine...and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality. (George Eliot, Middlemarch)
In the fairy
tale The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Anderson, the real princess must prove herself by detecting a pea (dried, I guess) under 20 mattresses.
- What happens when the princess grows up and becomes a woman? The BBC interviewed Princess Diana in 1995. Rest in peace.
- “Feisty little women” in the House: FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) examined media treatment of women politicians in the 1992 US election.
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Into the cauldron
Thomas Bulfinch (Bulfinch's Mythology) suggests that the witches of Shakespeare's MacBeth
recall the image of Medea at her cauldron, brewing “hoar frost
gathered by moonlight, a screech owl's head and wings, and the
entrails of a wolf.” This, of course, was the youth potion Jason
begged for his father.
Women have reclaimed the witch as a symbol, for example, in the
Crone as the third aspect of the Triple Goddess, in the acronyms
for various groups, or in the bumper sticker that goes “My second
car is a broom.”
Asian babes
Funny how a search for Asian goddesses on the Web can turn up so many sites
offering pictures of nude women. Here's my gallery of Asian
babes.
- “Genuine tolerance requires an active effort to try to understand the point of view of others; it implies broad-mindedness and vision, as well as confidence in one's own ability to meet new challenges without resorting to intransigence or violence. In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth women are not merely ‘tolerated,’ they are valued. Their opinions are listened to with respect, they are given their rightful place in shaping the society in which they live.”Aung San Suu Kyi, NGO Forum on Women, Beijing '95
In Burma in 1990, the National League for Democracy won the general elections with 82 percent of the seats; the ruling military junta refused to recognize the results of the election. As general secretary of the NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest from 1989 to 1995.
More interviews and speeches, as well as other women peacemakers
- Li Ch'ing-chao (1084-1151) and her husband were poets and scholars in Sung China. In 1127, they were driven from their homes by Chin invaders. After her husband died in 1129, she lived alone. Her work reflects the periods of her life: marriage, loss of her husband and loneliness in old age (Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung, Women Poets of China, 1972). Here are her poems.
Click the China the Beautiful link at the bottom of the page for more on the arts of China.
- Also from the China the Beautiful site, the legendary Mu Lan
- Wu Tsao (1800s) “was the daughter of a merchant and the wife of another, both of whom treated her with scant sympathy or understanding and she soon lost interest in males. She had many female friends and lovers, and wrote erotic poems to several courtesans. About 1837 she moved to a secluded place and became a Taoist priestess.” (ibid.)
- Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. “The princess of a small nation tries to stop other warring nations from destroying themselves and the only means by which their world, devastated by a holocaust called The Seven Days of Fire, can be saved from the spread of polluted wastelands.”
Nausicaa creator, Hayao Miyazaki, talks about the reasons for and implications of the girl protagonists in his work.
For more anime sheroes, continue here with Nadia.
Should Jason join a men's group?
Colour and destiny
- Waldorf school founder is racist!
Waldorf Schools are thought of by many as kinder and gentler alternatives to the public schools. The writings of founder Rudolf Steiner raise questions about what is being taught and how children are perceived in the Waldorf school system.
The Research Bulletin on Racism and Waldorf Education by Ray McDermott and Ida Oberman discusses the implications in the classroom. Steiner's beliefs are not merely “unfortunate” or “insensitive,” they are unequivocally racist.
- bell hooks on gangsta rap and The Piano
- Stephanie Han on myths about Asian women
- Oriental women in literary fiction
- On being white in America: a discussion on racism
- Identifying racial prejudice: a school project
Anti-racist resources
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Humans are supposed to be innovators, toolmakers, inventors of culture - are we able to create a future for ourselves?
- Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade (1987) has been faulted for its historical inaccuracies. But Eisler and her reference, Marija Gimbutas, can be seen as pioneers in establishing a woman's viewpoint in archeological interpretation. In the history of humankind as we now see it, the supreme deity was not always male, nor were women always subject to the control of men. Eisler's partnership model projects an alternative future for our universe.
An interview with the author of The Chalice and the Blade, The Partnership Way (1990) and Sacred Pleasure (1995), Riane Eisler
- Gender wars or utopia.
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Since evolution became an established fact for most people, many
have studied animal behaviour and concluded, sometimes wrongly,
that humans behave in much the same way. Ape societies can teach
us something about ourselves, but are we, really, just animals?
We share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. That could mean that we
are basically chimps, or, that the 2% makes a crucial difference.
We have literature, art, music, philosophy, science.... We
do not have a greater right to existence, but we should be able
to think our way through to our future... maybe.
She: I've just finished reading The Origin of the Species.
He: So how does it end? All the monkeys turned into men, right?
She: No. All the men turned into monkeys.
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“Dialog is not merely an exchange of views with one another, or
an effort to become more open to other positions, but an
opportunity to clarify one's own level of perception, to make it
an object of examination, to break through the boundaries of
one's position, each time to a new level of awareness.”*
* If you know the source of this quotation, please write me. I think it's by Paulo Freire.
Created Summer 1997. Last update January 2001. Text, design, illustrations by Medea Desktop Publishing. Copyright 1999/2000.
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