91: On Greek Mythology Misogyny... Mythogyny

Alison is joined by bestie Nick to talk about ladies of lore and the problematic retelling of their stories. Medusa: assault survivor. Arachne: pro weaver pitted against Athena. Circe: just wanted to chill as an island witch. Artemis: turned a gross man into a bambi. Pandora: set up to fail à la garden of eden. Enjoy!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Hello, and welcome to Sad Girls Against the Patriarchy. I'm
Alison and Nick and we are your sad humans. Once again,
there is a male voice in your ear. My, dear listeners.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm so sorry, so sorry, listeners.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
So he's sorry that he exists. So it's okay, Wait,
that sounds really bad. How do we say this a
little better? I love you put it this way. Nick
is one of those people I do consider an ally,
but who would also not go out into the world
saying I'm a male ally feminist.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
No, that's too cringe.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
It's very cringe. Yes, he's also a mod on our Discord.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
So yeah, in case if anyone's wondering, I don't do
a lot these days, but if you ever need a
problem solved, just to me up.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, I've been doing a lot on Discord either, So
it's there, it's available. There are sad girls on it.
There are sad boys too, And as we've talked about
many times on this podcast, we do want men to
support the cause and we do want them to advocate
on our behalf. And I can vouch for Nick not
being a gross creepy dude.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
And I'm also a sad boy.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
You were very we are. We are sad all around,
but I try to keep a good attitude about it
because that's more fun. So today we are going to
talk about Greek mythology. We're going to talk about misogyny
that comes up in Greek mythology, because somehow, thousands of
years later, we're still telling these stories that often begin like,

(01:43):
well she was asking for it, and you know what
was she wearing? So I'm going to do for sure
talk about Medusa and Pandora, and then we'll see if
we have time for a third goddess. What about you?
Who's on your docket today?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
So I want to talk about Arakney, which is similar
to the Medusa story, and then I also wanted to
talk about Athena because she's a very central prominent figure
in both the Medusa story and the Rackne story. And
also I just wanted to preface neither of us are
Greek mythology experts. I'm definitely not. She didn't ask me

(02:19):
to be on this episode because I'm like, you know,
I majored in this. I do. It's more of a hyperfixation.
But I just want to state that right off the bat,
right now, that I'm not an expert and also mythology,
especially Greek mythology started out as an oral tradition, so
the original stories have been retold many, many times, so

(02:40):
there's no definitive version of these stories. But the ones
that we're telling are probably considered the more popularized versions
of them, and we might get into that a little bit.
We'll see. There's a few notes I had where I
noticed differences between different versions of the story. I thought
we're we're talking about because they kind of changed the
entire context. So we might get into that briefly, but
just know, these are the ones that we like the best,

(03:01):
basically the ones we want to talk about.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, I was more focused, and I think our focus
is more on discussing the feminism of it all, yeah,
rather than the details. But very true, they have evolved
over the years. I'm going to go into Medusa first,
and then I think a Rakney would be.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
A great starting off with a classic everyone's favorite snake lady.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
I was her for Halloween a couple of years ago.
It was very fitting Medusa, the girl boss to monster
pipeline as they do, as you do, as we all have.
Before she became a monster, she was a beautiful woman,
a beautiful mortal woman, so beautiful that she caught the

(03:43):
attention of Poseidon. And by caught the attention, I mean
that he raped her in the Temple of Athena, just
full on assault. Is that in every retelling you are
aware of? Is it always non consensual? Is that a
key element?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
I'm actually glad you asked the career. So that version
of the story is more a more modern in quotations
version of it, and that comes from Avid. I think
it's pronounced Avid. It's ov Id. He was a Roman
author who wrote a book called Metamorphosis, and it not
the friends cough cut one.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Don't not to be confused, no different things.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
But yeah, Metamorphosis was a really prominent book for Greek
mythology because it was this Roman guy who like grabbed
all these old stories from Greek mythology and retold them
and wrote them all down, and that sort of cemented
these more definitive like in quotations again, these more definitive
versions of the stories. So the original version of that
story before Avid retold it was and this this is

(04:40):
really wild because I remember men are just telling these stories,
so obviously they want to paint in a good light
so and the original version Poseidon seduces Medusa. Wow, that
is a sentence, seduces Medusa and they consentially have sex
in a beautiful field of flowers. So it's like super
romantic and so romantic in fact, it makes me think,

(05:02):
like did a man actually say this? That seems like
way too like cute, like for like a Greek man
back then to be like, and they made love in
the flowers and tossed, you know, flower petals at each other.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
But then why would Athena have punished Medusa, which is
where we're going.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Next, because Athena was jealous of her beauty and also
because Medusa was a priestess of her temple. Yeah, and
Athena is one of the three virgin goddesses and like,
these are very important in the Greek patheon because most
of the goddesses and gods were sluts, like they had
sex with everybody, like all of them, and especially Zeus.

(05:40):
I want to point that out. But there were three
notable ones that were chased their entire careers as gods,
and that was Athena, Artemis and everyone's favorite forgotten one, Hestia,
goddess of the Hearth. We love Hessia, but no one
worshiped her because she was boring.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
That's fair.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
But Athena, you know, she was a virgin, so her
priestesses had to be virgins too, because that's a big
deal for men to prioritize that on women's bodies they
never have sex and if they do, then they're impure. Yeah,
so because she had sex with a god or just
in general, had sex, she punished her. But also it's
mentioned in the story that she was jealous of her beauty.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
That sounds like something a man would write. Yeah, she's
mad because another girl's pretty. That's not how it works.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
So it seems like it was like a lot of things.
But like she claims, like in the story, Athena claims
that she does it to punish her for having sex
and defiling her like her like, you know, patron in
her temple or whatever near her temple. It wasn't even
in her temple. Original it was in a flower fuel.
But yeah, in the version you're telling.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, you go on, yeah, yeah, the story has morphed
then and this version she was assaulted by Poseidon. Instead
of punishing Poseidon, then Athena punished Medusa, who had done
nothing wrong other than every woman's cardinal sin existing. So Medusa,
she was turned into this hideous monster, terrifying and just

(07:06):
looking at someone would turn them to stone. The gaze
looking upon Medusa's face turns them to stone. So King Polydectes,
who was another rapist, at least in the retelling I read,
wanted to force himself on Perseus's mother. And Perseus was
a demigod who was the golden boy of the time.

(07:28):
We liked Persia.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, can it real quick? So it's funny that you
say he's the golden boy. Yeah, because he is the
product of Zeus having sex with his mother. But he
took the form of a golden shower maybe to have
sex with their and it wasn't consensual. Once again, it
was rape.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Golden shower to me means urinating on.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Something no I know, And that's that's hilarious. But also
like that's literally in the myth, like Chrissius's mother locked
her up because he was afraid of her beauty tempting people.
He didn't want anyone to have her, and Zeus wanted
her super bad, so he locked her away to keep
her away from like everybody, and then Zeus took the
form of a gold shower, it says in the myth

(08:06):
that doesn't specify how he got in as a gold shower.
It just says that he just manifested in the room
as a golden shower and rained upon her.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Okay, so I guess it was.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
I don't know. I mean, it's still rape, but it
was like, I guess she just got like wet, and
she's just like okay, and then she was pregnant. She's like,
what the fuck.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
It's kind of a Jesus Asque story here, so literally,
golden boy, yeah sang, okay, Well there we go.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I thought you were going for no.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
I wasn't when I thought that he was like a
well liked demigod at the time who was then sent
to kill Medusa so that Polydectes could get with Perseus' mom.
The layers of it all, so Percy has used a
mirrored shield so it wouldn't have to look directly at
Medusa and chopped off her head in her sleep. What

(08:50):
a hero, What a true hero.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
And something else worth mentioning too, is so when Athena
punishes Medusa and curses her with by turning her into
her and her sister's also by the way into Gorgans.
It states that anyone who gazes upon her will turn
to stone, but it never says in any version of
the story that she goes around terrorizing people. Right as
far as Prochr Yeah, as far as we know, she

(09:14):
just stays in the temple and people that harass her
gets turned to stone as punishment. But that's enough to
prompt Athena to give Perseus this quest, even though she's
the one who created this monster in the first place.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
So you're saying, in most versions, it's not the king
who gives Perseus the quest, it's Athena.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Well, the king sends him on like a quest to
slay the monster, but then Athena is like all into it.
She gives him the mear shield that he needs to
reflect her vision so it can protect him. And then
I think a Festus gave him a sword that can
cut her head off because she's like a Greek monster,
so it's not that easy to kill her.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
And then even after Medusa was dead, she could still
turn people to stone, so then he carried her head
around like this twisted chanel handbag as a weapon. And
then this curse that Medusa had as a living woman,
was no longer seen as a curse. But now it's
a useful ability. It's a tool, it's a weapon, but
only because it was wielded by a mun.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, and I think that's a very interesting thing to
talk about too, the fact that her own power, which
was monstrous in whoever's hands it was in, she didn't
use it for monstrous things. Yep. She minded her own business.
But then suddenly when a man appropriated her power and
made it his own, he turned it into a weapon.
He weaponiz is something that was not necessarily dangerous, like

(10:36):
in the right hand.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
So it's literal objectification. He has turned her head detached
from her body, into an object that he is using
as a weapon.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
And by the way, this entire story was just made
up to explain where the gorgon on Athena's shield came
from oOoOO, because Athena's always depicted as having a gorgon
head on her shield. And I guess one day, a
lot time ago, some Greek was like, Hey, what's that
thing on her shield? And she's and like, I don't know, like.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
In that voice.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, that's how they all talk. Hessioid or whatever. Dialect,
and I guess like Hessioid or like whatever author at
the time was just like, oh, that's a gorgan. What
what's a gorgon. It's like, well, you use it to
kill monsters, and it's like, what's their story? And then
he just made up a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
That's funny. Reading about these I started thinking they're real,
but in a way, I mean, I know they're not,
but it starts feeling kind of real as you see
how they interplay, like all these characters coming up through
all the different stories, like Athena popping up all the
time she was Was she considered the most powerful goddess
of the time. No, I would say probably harah hmm,

(11:46):
Zeus's lady.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, I mean Athena was really strong and also very
popular in mythology, like people loved her, right, but again
I would I do want to point out that the
most popular female goddesses at the time were the virgin ones,
well minus Hessia. But no one had anything bad to
say about Hestia, like like I said, she was boring.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
She's boring, but just out of the hearth, yeah, and
like tending home yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Like well, like the specifically, like I think like the fireplace,
but like she's like the goddess of like home and
like hearth.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
That's so funny. It's like, I'm the goddess of this pot.
I'm just this object in the house.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
You know what. I love Hestias. Okay, She's she's just
doing her best. She's staying out of conflicts. You know,
She's she's just like I'm just tending the fireplace. She's
the underdog.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
The goddess is well, we see it a seena. I
see her as this you know, iconic like goddess of war.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
Right, like she's got us of wisdom?

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Actually, who's got us of war?

Speaker 2 (12:38):
That's aries geez.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
See. This is why this is why Nick is here,
and this is why I'm letting I'm not. I hope
our listeners don't feel like, ah, like Nick's just stand
all this stuff and Alis is just listening for once.
But it's because I don't know this stuff. And I'm
glad that you do. And that's why we're doing this.
Because even if it wasn't your major or something like
you gotta you got shit to say.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
But you're you're not wrong in thinking that she's the
goddess of war, because she is sort of a war
goddess in a way. She's the goddess of wisdom and counsel,
so she's like kind of like a strategy god of war, Okay,
and she's a warrior herself, like she fought in many
battles and she's got a lot of epic stories around her.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, I think when people have any knowledge of Athena,
they would think of her as this like kind of
iconic woman who you would think would be supporting other
women and even hearing like wisdom and counsel like that
to me sounds like she should be herself wise and
have a certain maturity that I realized the Greek God's

(13:35):
absolutely never had a smitch of emotional maturity. Nope, that
maybe Hastia our girl.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
They're like the they're like I guess back then there
would be the equivalent of like the Kardashians.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
I guess, like they're just really really petty.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Like insufferable celebrities who are only famous just for that
one time they like stopped like the apocalypse.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Sure, you know, well, I think it's very notable here.
I'm sure you'll agree that this female goddess who has
a lot of this stature, this presence this respect, she
is literally reinforcing patriarchy through and through interactions towards Medusa.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Well, I think that's interesting you bring that up too,
because she herself, even though she sort of represents this
like badass like girl boss figure and mythology, her origins
are more like male coded and it kind of takes
away her agency as a woman in an individual So
like most people will agree that the origin of Athena

(14:36):
was Zeus. Like I said, he's a big slit. He
sleeps around with everybody, cheats on his wife constantly. Harrah's
always getting mad at everyone else and not him, which
is also kind of problematic. You should just dump that
chump and be a girl boss on your own. But regardless,
that's not about her.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
She's like a battered woman kind of vibe codependency.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Perhaps she's never portrayed as that though, she's always portrayed
as very comp and villainous, So she's she's kind of
a fun character because she's like evil most of the time,
like or just, but she's also petty like the rest
of them.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
She has her own lovers, right, yeah, but not as
much as no one does. And also you could argue
that like Zeus sort of started it, you know, like
like she might just be trying to get back on them.
But at any rate, so in most versions of the story,
Zeus cheats on his wife with Metis.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
I think that's how it's pronounced. I apologize that's not
but Metis is like a lesser god. Worry about her.
She's like sort of like a lesser wisdom god. And
he has sex with her most of the time. It's
non consensual because of course it's not, because it is
Greek pathology. And then when Metis gets pregnant, Zeus receives
a prophecy that the child of Metis will overthrow him
and be a better god than him. So obviously Zeus

(15:49):
can't let that happen. He's got to be head honcho.
He's he's the big dog. He's a big man. So
big man eats his baby mama, like he just ate her,
and that ratural male ego. I know that was his solution,
which is insane. He just eats her and then then
he's like, all right, everything's cool now. But then he
starts complaining about headaches, and so he got and like

(16:12):
this isn't literally what happened, but like I imagine he
went to go see his pharmacist or doctor in the
sky and mountain Olympus and was just like, huh, what's
going on with me? And I'm pretty sure it was Hephestus.
The most version of the story, I think Hephestus like
cracks up in his head to find out what's going
on in his brain, and then fully fully grown human
or godly woman comes out of his head and that's Athena,

(16:35):
sure And from that point on, Zeus was like, well,
she couldn't ever throw mean, she's a woman. The prophecy
made it seem like it was going to be a male. Yeah, yeah,
that's sure enough. She never did. She was his best
attendant and like his like best companion, like throughout the
most of the stories, like Athena is very supportive of
her dad and gives him good counsel. And I think

(16:56):
that's very interesting that they mentioned that, you know, this
woman is giving good counsel to a man and like
helping him lead better. But she couldn't even come from
like normal circumstances. She had to literally be his kid,
like born from him, like in his head, especially like
she came out of his brain, which implies sort of
like Adam and Eve thing like you know women come
from the rib of Adam or like you know Athena,

(17:19):
Yeah she's great, but she came from the brain of Zeus.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
And then support them. That's the woman's job is to
support exactly, oh, build them up.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
So that being said, that might paint a different light
on Athena as a figure and all these stories, because
at first you would think, like, I don't understand. She's
a badass woman, like like like girl boss, Like she's
in charge of a bunch of temples, and like she
has like clout on Mount Olympus, Like why isn't she
helping elevate women instead of putting them down? But when

(17:46):
you think about that, it might make you think differently.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Let's take our first break and then we'll come back
to talk about well, let me let me wrap up
Medusa with a cute little bow, and then we should
take a break and we should talk about, well, there
are women in Greek mythology. But I was just seeing
that she became this symbol of power as being on
the shield and being turned into this weapon. But prior

(18:11):
to that, in her life, she was a monster, and
most people don't even know the concept that she was
only punished for being a virgin who lost her virginity,
or even for being assaulted. So it's a very dark
origin story and a dark ending too.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
Let's take a break.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Oh okay, no, it's on the end.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, it's because it's built like this. So I think
that's like a rakne.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, okay, all right, A Rakney's not a real word.
Arakne is what we're talking about next.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, So this is very similar to them his story,
and there's a lot of different stories that sort of
follow suit with a god punishing somebody for something kind
of trivial. So at least in the case of a Rackney, like,
I guess they added a little bit more reasoning behind
it and it wasn't just like she was a virgin
she had sex. Although there is a version of the

(19:17):
Rackney story where she has sex with her brother and
that's why she's punished.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Well, I mean it's not the best, No.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
It's it's bad, But also like it's like, what, yeah,
why is that a story?

Speaker 1 (19:27):
I met? Her brother wasn't punished, No, why would I
even think for a second that he would be.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
So back to our guy Avid in Avid's version of
the story. A Rakney is a weaver. So she makes tapestries,
and she's the best weaver in the world. She makes
beautiful tapestries, brings people to tears like.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
A spider might weave.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Well, I guess we'll have to see where this is going.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
The spoilers.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Some of you who know Latin based words might know
where this is going. But yeah, so she was an
excellent weaver. And and here's a little information that I
guess I should include at the beginning of this. So
Athena is known for a lot of different things, like
I said, like being the goddess of wisdom, and like
counsel and stuff, and also war stuff sometimes. But also

(20:14):
she's apparently a really good weaver. And apparently, according to
some stories, she taught weaving to humanity.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Athena rackne Athena.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Oh yeah, so apparently Athena has a lot of feelings
associated with that, because you know, she introduced the concept
of weaving to humans, and humans only started weaving because
she taught humanity how to do so. And now here
comes this woman, a mortal woman who is so good
she's claiming to be better than Athena herself. Because and
like I do want to preface this. In the story,

(20:43):
people will come up to a Rakney and be like, oh,
you're such an amazing weaver. You must bless and think
Athena every day for having been born with such a talent,
and then actually like, no, I bless myself, like I
don't get it from a god. I get it from me,
Like I'm good at this, this is my thing. But
Athena didn't like that, because Athena is like, how dare
this bitch not give me credit for giving her the

(21:05):
ability to weave?

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Okay, so Arakney wasn't giving credit to Athena. Yes, like
this is actually my thing, you bitch.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah. So Athena like at first, she's like, okay, I'm
not gonna overreact. I'm gonna I'm gonna then, I promise
this is not an overreaction. I'm gonna disguise myself as
an old crone, a human crone, and walk up to
her and try to get her one more time, prompt
her to think Athena. And so she does that. She
disguises herself as an old woman and is just like
it's just like, oh, but don't you think.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Deserves some credit?

Speaker 2 (21:34):
And interact and is like, nah, it's all me. Athina
has nothing to do with it, and and she even
says like, in fact, I bet I'm a better weaver
than her. And that's when Athena goes like, all right, bitch,
that's it, and she reveals herself and says like, you've
disgraced me and dishonored me. If you think you're a
better weaver than me, then we're gonna have a contest
right now to see who can weave a better tapestry.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Let's go.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
So they do that, and even though this is literally
just two people makeing a tapestry over like hours, I
would imagine, Yeah, it's described as being pretty epic.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Like thousands of people screaming. Ladies just weave.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
So they have their weave off, and they both want
to tell different stories in their tapestries, because that's a
big part of weaving, is like depicting events. So Athena
goes first by depicting you know, several examples throughout mythology
of different mortals comparing themselves to gods or saying that
they're better than gods and being punished for it. So

(22:30):
there's a lot of different examples of that in this tapestry.
I'm not going to get into all of them, but
in the version that I read specifically for this, it
did state that this was like her petty way of
just being like, hey, look at this that I did,
and you see that that guy get turned into a goose.
You want to be a goose and maybe be more humble.
So and then Aracne she makes hers about how the

(22:52):
gods are all liars, abusiers, rapists and specifically to women,
and not worth worshiping or giving any acknowledgment too.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
It sounds right to me.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
So I was reading this and I was and like, again,
this is written by Avid who was a man, and
this is interesting that he writes these two different perspectives,
and like it includes the fact that like this human
woman is acknowledging these gods or shitty and they're horrible people,
like they abuse people, they rape people.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
That means he kind of knows he's writing both, but
he must be aware of that reality in his stories.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
When I looked into him, I did discover that he
was very anti authoritarian ooh. At the time. He was
actually exiled from Rome by the Emperor Augustus at the
time because he was very outspoken about hating the emperor
and hating like politicians and empires in general.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
And the gods are authority figures.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
And I do want to say he was exiled, not executed.
So he was very outspoken and called everyone out for
their shit in a position of power and was not
murdered for it. He was just banished.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
So I was wondering if a woman in that position
would have been exiled. But also maybe they're valued more
so historically for their ability to make bait.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
I know that women were still punished pretty egregiously regardless,
but I guess because they were objectified in that way
that maybe they wouldn't have been so quick to murder
them exactly.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, that's like there are fewer women diagnosed as sociopaths
or antisocial personality disorder, even though sometimes they should be
justice for women who are psycho bitch as.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Oh so back to Arachna. So she leaves this really passive,
aggressive fuck you Athena tapestry, and after she's done, Athena
was basically the judge of this contest, and even Athena
was like, not gonna lie, it's.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Pretty good tad slaps.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
That's that's an amazing tapestry, but I'm really pissed at
you for being really mean to me.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
In the tapestry, A Racking must have been talented as fuck.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
So oh yeah, and this is where the story gets
a little weird. So Athena admits that, like her tapestry
is better, but then she's like mad about that, and
like she doesn't know how to react, I guess, so
she just beats her with her shuttle. And a shuttle
is like a it's like a tool that you use
to like hold the thread that you're weaving. You know,

(25:04):
it's you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
No, no, it's it's not a weave.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
It's it's kind of like a spool. But it's like
an older version of that, for like when they would
weave stuff.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Is it big and clownkying good for bludgeoning?

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah? No, you could fuck someone up with this thing. Okay,
if you look it up, do you see what I'm
talking about. So she just rips her shuttle off of
her weaving device and just like beats her acne with it,
which is so funny because this is a god who
could do anything. She could turn into a cloud and
have her disappear, but she she just resorts to violence.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
And fists the roles she wants to feel it.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
And then then it gets like sad, like it's no
longer funny and enjoyable because after she beats this woman,
a Rackne feels shame from having being beaten and then
commits suicide by hanging herself. So Rakne hangs herself, and
then and then and only then after all of this,
Athena feels kind of bad.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Well that's good. Yeah, she's kind of a tyrant, she is.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
She has a little bit of a conscience, I guess
somewhere deep inside little Jimney cricket that's in ocage and starving.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Sure, crying out for love and hell.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, So she realizes she might have been too harsh
slightly and feels bad for her acday because she realizes
that by feeling jealousy towards this woman and not supporting
her for her natural God given talent. Literally, I guess
she has taken her away from the world, so she
can no longer weave for the world. So she wants
to do something nice for her in her eyes, and

(26:27):
she can't bring her back to life apparently, which I
don't know why she didn't just do that, but she
turns her into a spider. So there's this hanging image
of a woman who's hung herself, and that silhouette turns
into a spider now on a web, and now she
can weave for all of time, weave her beautiful little things.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
And that's where spiders come from.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Arachnephobia.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, I've heard. I've heard a few words like that.
I don't know my Latin, but I see.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, it makes sense because like Latin was like the
base language, and then Greeks sort of took a lot
from them, so it all makes sense. But that's always
a cool thing. And you're like, oh, that's where we
get a racket.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Do we know approximately when these stories were being told
and recorded?

Speaker 2 (27:08):
So it was definitely ancient history. The OVID version was
after I was eighty for sure, though, because that was
after the supposed birth of Christ and like the early
days of the Roman Empire. Okay, but like I said,
like it's hard to pinpoint when they started because it
was an oral tradition, like they never wrote these.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Down until someone finally did, until someone did.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
But like the versions they have were like a game
of telephone. Yeah, even in the imacting story, there's so
many versions of it. There's like a version where she's
not even a weaver. She just has sex with her
brother and then Nathenas mad at her for doing that
and turns into a spider. And it's like, it's like,
that's not that doesn't even make sense, Like it's not
even like a like an ironic punishment or anything like.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Like a monkey's pot curse or something.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, it's just that would be like turning someone into
a duck just because they like cut you off in traffic.
It's like what I would do that though.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, well it's interesting. It sounds like the takeaways shouldn't
be the looking at the inner world and logic of
Greek mythology, but instead looking at the climate of the
times when it seems like rape culture would have been
very normalized, this treatment of women, and then this also
sense that like women are constantly battling with each other,

(28:15):
which I think is something women are told to do
so that they can stay suppressed. It's like you don't
want us too powerful.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah, no, that's a good point. Actually, men perpetuating this
like concept and story that like women shouldn't work together
because if God forbid, if they did, they would conquer
the world. Yeah, and men are scared of that, so
they want to keep them in their place.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
We tried to talk about the origin of the concept
that women are supposed to be submissive. I don't remember
what episode it was in, but we really tried to
get to like where did this start, and we just
saw it was forever. It was everywhere, this concept of
men being superior, which is very chilling except for the
very few examples of matriarchies, but there's like, you know,

(28:57):
you can count them on one hand kind of a thing. Yeah, well,
still like that episode.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
I listened to that.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
One the major camp said was great, everyone should go
back and listen. I edited it while I was in Europe,
so maybe it has a special little something infused, and
I definitely want to do a part two.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
If you listen closely, you can hear the tiniest little
beret on each.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Sentence, many bagettes. I was in Finland, but sure, oh.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
I thought that wasn't even friends.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Sorry, just so global. No, I don't know a Finland thing,
so I don't know either. Okay. Was there more to
say about a Rakney or do we feel good about her.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
I mean, yeah, I've I've said everything I feel like
I need to say about it. I liked being able
to tie it in with Athena and yes because they're
very similar.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, okay, then I'm going to go to Sirrus next.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Would you rather do Secly or Pandora? Because I think
Pandora is like a more poignant story to tell for
this topic.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Is it Sirus?

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (29:52):
You know it might be.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
I thought I've always I've always said Circe, but again,
you know, create it like I don't speak it.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Yeah, Pandora. No, you're right, Pandora is a good I
kind of want to close with her. We can because
I think, yes, you're right, she has a good.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Okay, we can get through Sirci. It's fine.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Okay, So she is wow. I wrote that she's the
original crazy act, but she's kind of not the original
like crazy old woman in the wood switchy vibes. So
she is part of the story of the Odyssey, which
my TLDR is that Odysseus is trying to get home
after the Trojan war. The gods keep throwing obstacle in

(30:31):
his ways, so somehow it takes in ten years of
traveling because we know men have a terrible sense of direction.
It's the worst road trip ever serious, Well except for
the part where he gets to like live on an
island for a year having sex with the goddess. Well
maybe she was more like a witch. Was she a goddess?
Was serious? She was born from a god?

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Right, she's like considered a demiguide.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, Helios and Percy, which was an oceanid. Oceanid.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah, the Oceanids were a whole like line on the family.
They were like those like weird redneck cousins that live
out It's like, we don't talk to the oceans.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Helios I've heard about before the sun God. Yeah, but
uh Odysseus, who I'm gonna call Odie because it's shorter
on my notes and it's funny, and I think he's
a bit of a scoundrel. So I think calling Odi.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
All Greek men in these myths are scundrels. I don't
think there's a single one that's not a shitty person.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
And maybe that's like interesting commentary too in that was
that known at the time, Like were they like, yeah,
men are awful, but you know they're in power, So
let's record that.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
I do think it's interesting that, like all of the gods,
including the male gods, are all portrayed as being petty
and like awful, Like they all have the same personality
quirks of being like horrible celebrity douchebags. But regardless of that,
it's just like fascinating that, like the women still get
so much abuse.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
In these story they're almost rewarded for it.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, well, yeah, men are definitely preferred, like they're a
preferred protagonist. They're always the heroes.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
And they're awful.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, they're just they're horrible, they're worset the worst.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Ones imitates life. You might say, write what you know,
I think that's what was happening. So Odie is trying
to get home, he's fighting monsters, he's sleeping with witches
on islands, generally acting like a chaotic manchild. Well, his
wife Penelope holds down the fort at home, and I

(32:20):
don't know is she sleeping around or just Odie.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
No, actually she was propositioned by every man.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
That's right. She was fending him off.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, she was fighting them off with a stick. Basically,
she's like she's like, no, Odysseus will return and we'll
be together, we'll be happy. But meanwhile, Odysseus is like
on like an island, drinking the pinut colada.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yeah. Well, Seus's backstory seemed a little fuzzier because she
is actually just a pit stop in Odie's story, which
is a little disappointing for what a cool character she is.
She ended up exiled to the island, which is spelled
all a's and e's a aa.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
I think it's ee.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
That's how it looks. She's exiled to this island because
she has witchy powers and she may have turned someone
into a monster. That was her thing. She was really
good at turning people into beasts into animals, and so
she was sent away. She was living alone on this island,
and perhaps even earlier sailors than Odie had already turned up,

(33:29):
and she'd turned them into animals too.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
I think in the myth every animal on the island
was not a natural animal. They're all like men who
came to the island and were cursed by her.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Which she's painted as this like evil witch, but I'm
pretty sure it was self defense because she's like alone
on an island, and then strange men are showing up
on a boat to I don't know what they were doing,
but I don't trust them. It never gets into it.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
But from my experience with the Week mythology, almost every
single time a man sees a woman, he tries to
rape her.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
So I wouldn't be surprised if Seirusly was like, zap
your dog now.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
But also even if she wasn't like harrassed, like this
is her fuck island.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
I know they alone. That's what I was feeling too.
What's the meme that's something about like nymphs or someone
some of the like mermaids or whatever portrayed as like
sirens that are calling in men, but really they're just
like singing and then dudes are like horny, yeah, and
they crash.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Well, I say, the sirens are not responsible for the shipwrecks.
That's rubber necking. That's the exactly that's going, Like, oh man,
look at that babe.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Oh no, So seriously, I'm feeling the same thing where
she's like just trying to exist on her island. And
then Odie shows up and she turns his men into pigs,
which it was kind of termed like, oh, she like
tricked them with a potion. But they were armed. I
think they were definitely uninvited, perhaps aggressive. There were these

(34:55):
soldiers right who just fought a war, who had been
on this long journey, and yeah, maybe she's just like,
don't come to my house like this. It's very rude, pig.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
And some versions of the story, she like she welcomes
them and she's like a good host.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
She's like, welcome, travelers.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
I made you a feast. I knew you were coming,
and they're just like, I won't question this at all.
And then the food was tainted with this magical potion
she created that turns them into pigs.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Perhaps she was tired of all the past sailors who
had tried to assault her already, so it was like,
you know what a better strategy would be, I'm just
gonna be nice and then I'm gonna deal with him.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Also, I think it's kind of implied that the feast
was a lot of pork. I I'm just saying, I
think she's turning men into actual pigs and then like
eating them or and feeding them to other men, which
is pretty fucking awesome.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Like, yeah, it's funny.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Else it's very funny, and it's a fitting punishment for
male pigyg.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
So Hermes had given Odie a special herb already that
would help him resist spells. Good call a good car,
Yeah yeah, somehow, so Odie is not turned into a pig,
perhaps in his heart, but not in form and which
I also feel like the fact that it was pigs

(36:12):
kind of reinforces the idea that seriously was doing something
that she needed to that was a reaction to her
impression of men. I know, I'm like psychological psychologizing, psychologizing
this character in this story, but it's really more about
getting into the origin of the stories, like why was
this written, what were they thinking? What did they think
of women at the time. Yeah, so maybe it was

(36:33):
that she was manipulative, or maybe it was that this
was her form of self defense since all of these
characters are rapists.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Well again, and that's the beauty of storytelling is when
you're the storyteller, you decide the motivations of the characters.
So I think it's pretty a safe bet that Homer
probably wasn't a great dude to women, just based on
a lot of stuff he.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Wrote, and he wrote Odysseus.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah, well yeah, he wrote a lot of shitty people.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
But sorry, the Odyssey.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, well I mean, well, no, he did
write Odysseus like he's a character in his story.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Right, but it was, Yeah, he was the author. I
just want to make sure.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
But I'm not sure how to pronounce it. But I've
always heard sarace sometimes I might say seriously because a
Game of Thrones. I think that she was written initially
to be an example of like an untrustworthy woman, like
a female figure, And this is a common thing that
comes up in Greek mythology as like a moral to

(37:26):
like warn people about dangers. So like she's sort of like,
you know, foretelling of like, oh, don't trust women. They're
very manipulative. They'll use their their feminine wiles and their
guile to outsmart you and like turn you into a
pig or make you a lesser less than a man,
you know. So like it's basically saying, like, you know,
don't trust no dames is basically what he's saying. But

(37:48):
I do like your interpretation better. I like the idea
that these men are coming harassing her in her island.
She's just turning into pigs and probably eating them too.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yeah, well, there's not a lot to eat on an island.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
The other other white man.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
So so Odie is able to resist the effects and
confront her about what's going on, and she's kind of
into the fact that her usual tricks are not working
on a man, so she invites him to stay with
her on her crazy witch island for a full year.
This married man it's hanging out with seriously, and then
he needs to continue his journey, so she helps him

(38:22):
and then he leaves her, which is problematic too.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
It's also worth mentioning that they definitely went to Poundtown.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, so I think so, yeah, it was
like maybe he was in her bed. Of course, he's
hanging out with her for a year. So first we've
got the dangerous woman alone in the woods trope, because
there's you know, the Witch's had Hansel and Gretel, like
we've all heard of it. You encounter a weird woman
in the woods. I don't know how weird she was.
You encounter any woman out in isolation. There is an
assumption that she's not just like a homesteader, she's probably

(38:52):
a witch, which she was. Yeah, but she's described as
beautiful too.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
That's que noning, which is why it's easy for her
to manipulate men and to you know, eat her poisoned food.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Classic. Yeah, but she is independent. She has sexuality in
her story or is all the truest power of all
and that means, according to legend, she has to be
taken down a peg, like she couldn't just be that character.
She's framed as being deceptive, and while male gods do
all sorts of tricks and are assaulting people all the time,

(39:24):
no one seems to think that's an issue, except when
she does it and then turning men into animals. Honestly,
it sounds like a self care strategy in my mind.
And the moment that she has control over men's bodies,
there's this villainizing of her. And how is she tamed
through a heterosexual relationship with a man.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
This always bothered me in the story, Like, so she's
described as like just like not liking men, which which
is fine. I kind of like that archetype, you know,
like it's like, yeah, fuck them, like turn them into pigs.
I don't care. But then but then the author wrote
himself into a corner because he's like, oh, fuck, they're
all pigs. Odysseus isn't a pig, but like what am
I gonna do? Is like he can't like beat her up.
That's not very heroic. Maybe lives she's asleep though, he

(40:08):
chops her head off, and chops her head off, that's fine. Yeah,
but like I guess he was just like yeah, I mean,
like her power didn't work on him. So automatically, She's like, oh,
well that now, I just want to have sex with
you all the time. That's all love is is just
sex sex sex. I just that's what I want to
do with you.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah, And then we end up with this story where
she should have been this badass whitch but instead all
she needs is a good Mayan at home, and then
she just becomes this mechanism in his story just to
stop along the way, instead of having the independent myths
of her own that she deserved but never got.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
I also just want to point out during this year
that he's having sex with another woman that's not his wife.
His wife is fending off people propositioning her and is
being faithful and loyal to him and has no idea
that he is literally just spent. He spent like a
whole year of his journey just like having sex with
a beautiful woman on like a private island.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah yeah, there's somehow magically faced timing and he's like,
oh baby, I'm trapped. There's no one else here. I'm
just with the boys.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
This is a bit of a tangent, but this is
really cute. So when I was a kid, I think
a lot of my love for Greek mythology came from
reading like books and stuff that like adapted it or
like told these stories. And one of my favorites was
there's an episode of Wishbone where you know Wishbone, Right,
you don't know Wishbone.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
I don't know things.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Okay, So Wishbone was a series of books about a
dog that takes the place of different characters and literary stories.
So it's just like, you know, the Prince and the Popper,
but what if they were two dogs, or like you
know the Odyssey, but what if Odysseus was a dog
and like he talked and yeah know, he's just a dog.
And in the Odyssey version, which I didn't read the book,

(41:43):
but I watched the TV special for it, it was
so funny during the sarcy part. Obviously they can't get
into like the sexual nature of things, so you know,
he's just a dog leading a bunch of human men
to an island who get turned into animals and stuff,
and then she doesn't like fall in love with them,
but she's just like, oh, you're just so. And then
he spends like you know, like a year on the
island just getting petted and like it just it just

(42:04):
cuts to like a year later and he's just like
sitting in her lap and she's just petting him. Yeah,
and it's it's just so funny to me.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
That's how they goes to adapt it.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
And then he still goes home to his human wife
who's excited to see them. It's like he's a dog.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, that's funny. He could have a relationship with the wife,
but not with seriously, but it's like different because they're married,
so it's wholesome somehow. It's not beas reality if you're married.
Everyone knows that. Well.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Yeah. And also, I mean his son wasn't like an abomination,
so like, I like, he just looked like a normal
human kids, so I would imagine like he was adopted.
That's so funny, but that we don't have to include this.
I just thought that was a hilarious little cute story.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
I'll feel it out. There is a book called Sears,
that's the name of it. It's a fiction book and
it's written with her as the hero. And that does
if anyone, I really enjoyed it, if anyone wants to
read that, it fleshes out her story in a much
more pro seriously pro woman kind of a way. Let's
take car second break. Okay, Nick, what are you going

(43:20):
to talk about next?

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Well, since you gave me a perfect segue talking about
a badass lady in the woods, I'm also going to
talk about a badass lady in the woods who her
name is Artemis.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
I heard of her.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Yeah, Honestly, Artemis is probably one of the most badass,
coolest gods and goddesses in like the entire pantheon.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Is she the goddess of the Hunt?

Speaker 2 (43:39):
She's the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, the wild animals, nature, chastity,
and protector of children, especially young girls.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
Mmm.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah. And also in a lot of the story she's in,
she's very heroic and she like will rescue children, and
I think that's really cool.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yes, a virgin sounds like Yes.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
As I said before, there's the Three Virgin Goddesses we
talked about Athena, We've talked about Artemis now, So an
Artemis doesn't have a lot of well, she has a
lot of stories about her, but like a lot of
them are like kind of the same story, and like,
you're not gonna like this because it's like the same
story like multiple times. But I'm just going to tell
the most popular version of it. The most popular story

(44:19):
to tell about Artemis is a guy sees her bathing
in the woods and gets punished for it, or you know,
I'm sure guess where this is going, tries to rape her.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Never saw that.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yeah, So there's a lot of different versions of this,
and she always punishes them in different ways because I
guess because she had this status as like a virgin goddess,
people wanted to take that away from her and take
her power away from her, but no one ever did.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
So what if the value of the virginity isn't as
problematic as I would first think, But it's more like
these men are terrible characters and if they were to
interfere in a woman's life, for a goddess's life, it's
not that she loses value that she's been defiled by
a man, which actually puts them in a more villainous sense.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, and I think it's a power thing too, because
power because I mean, especially at the time, I think
the Greek mentality was that if you want to overpower
a woman, you take away her autonomy and ability to
say no and resist something like that, like if you
have sex with someone against their will, you have power
over them. And that's still true to this day. That's

(45:27):
a mentality that still carries through. Unfortunately, it's very lucky
and gross, but it is fascinating that, like, even as
far back as thousands of years ago, men were still
telling these kinds of stories and still had this warped
view on power in their heads where they were like,
I want to have power over women and the only
way to do that is to take them by force.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Right.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
So, but good news, guys, Artemis never got raped. She's
a goddess. You can't rape her. She's she's as fucking badass.
She'll turn you into things.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
Couldn'tnother god have tried to rape her.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
There are probably some stories where they attempted to do that,
but they never.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
Succeeded because she was such a bad ass.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yes exactly, But I will tell this a very specific story,
which I think this is kind of a fitting punishment
for this particular figure and his badass. But some versions
of it, it's like a specific man. There was one
where he tried to peep on her and she turned
him into a woman, which I thought was a really
fitting punishment. I didn't write down his name because it
was really hard to pronounce.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Well, it's saying that being a woman is punishment in itself,
well in a man's world, Yeah, which is I mean,
I get it, but it's just interesting that it sounds
like the careers of these stories were probably men because
they have that power.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah. And by the way, when I said it, I
thought it was a fitting punishment. I don't mean because
being a woman is a punishment, but it is.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
In a way, well like not for the reasons you
might think, I know, I meant, yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
Well no, I just just to clarify, I just I
just meant that, like, if you're going to watch somebody
get naked and like and like try to take away
something from them, you know, like then you yourself being
turned to a woman is fitting because now all of
a sudden, you were the object of your own like
desire and like voyeurism.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
And could now assault on you. Yeah, and now you.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Are suddenly in danger as well. Yeah, So I hope
that was I never found out what happened to that guy,
but I hope, I hope he learned his lesson, and
I hope and I hope he's living his best or
she's living her best life now. But anyway, so I
thought that was an interesting version of it. But the
one that we should probably talk about, which is the
one I think that most people are familiar with, is
the hunter Actaion.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Sure at.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
I'm just gonna call him Action, Okay. So there's a
lot of different versions of him, and some versions he's
companions with Artemis, because Artemis taught mankind how to hunt,
much like how Athena taught people how to weave, Artemists
taught them how to do something much more cool. So
she taught them about like the woods and tracking, hunting
and stuff. So in some versions, Acteon is her companion
that she taught. In some versions, he is boastful and

(47:49):
says that he's a better hunter than her, and she
punishes him. But and the one you'll probably hear the most.
He comes across her bathing in a sacred spring and
sees her naked, and then you know, in some versions
he does try to assault her, but in the one
that I prefer, he just sees her bathing naked and
it's probably thinking dirty thoughts, and her nymphs freak out
and try to cover her, but Artemis calmly like turns

(48:12):
around and sees him and just says, like, get a
good look and feel free to tell the story of
everything you saw today if you can, and she turns
him into a stag. And then from there he brought
a party of and this is what Avid and Avid's
version you wrote down, fifty hunting dogs with him to hunt,
which seems like overkill for one man to bring so
many dogs to hunt with them. And then the dogs

(48:34):
turn on him because he's a stag and they devour him.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Is it so a stag? Is that it's like a
deer or like a moose or is it like a partial?
What's a stag?

Speaker 2 (48:42):
A stag is like a male deer. It's just it's
just it's just a horr Yeah, because like you got
the dose and the stags, you know.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Got you. My Washington upbringing has failed me once again.
It's okay, we had deer.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
It's okay. I also know a lot about animals about that, like.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
Can I come back every week from now? No, You've
got a lot of good things to share, but.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, no, And I think that is my favorite story.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Why did he bring dogs?

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Well, they were hunting dogs.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Well, but he's a stag now No, but like he
brought them beforehand. Oh, they were already with him. But
like the way the story is written, it doesn't mention
the dogs until this point. That's what, he went out
and brought some dogs with it.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Yeah, it's it's kind of like the alloutor's like, oh, yeah,
by the way, there were dogs.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
Then the dogs ate them he ass.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, but I think that's a really badass punishment because like,
and the Artemis's reaction to it, at least in the
OVID version, was pretty cool because she wasn't like offended
or hurt. She's described as as calmly turning back and
going like, oh you like what you see? Yeah, well
I hope you like this next part because you're gonna
get eaten by your dogs.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Right, So she wasn't like yelping in fear, she wasn't running,
she wasn't covering she was just living in her body
and retaliating in a very un.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Calm manner and a very fitting punishment for a.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
Hunter exactly, yes, eaten by dogs.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
And like I said, there is a version where he
boasted he's a better hunter than her, and then that's
when she turns them into a stag.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
But I don't like that one because that just makes
her see pay it's more like Athena.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, that's more Athena, and I think Artemis is more
like more of a good embodiment for girl power, like yeah,
but uh yeah, And then also I guess I should
also mention there's another story with her relationship with Ryan,
who you guys might know him because he got a help.
He's a literal star, like he's a star. But yeah, no,
So Ryan was a hunter and in most versions of

(50:23):
this story, he was the only person Artemis ever fell
in love with, and she was tempted to even marry
him so that she could give him her precious virginity
and this, and this is as close as she's ever
come to getting to this point. But her brother, her
twin brother, Apollo, didn't like this and didn't want her
to be with Oriyan and also just I don't know,

(50:46):
maybe he just wanted to keep her sexual desires or something.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Weird for a brother to do.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
But I think it's kind of common though. You know,
there's a lot of weird relationships out there with like siblings.
Like I could see like like dads do that too,
you know what I was just they're like you, like
you better not have sex with my daughter.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
I'll kill you, which is like, well, excuse me, Like
maybe she's ready for.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
That quick tangent. My dad did this to my sister
in high school, right, Like so, my sister had like
a best friend growing up, and they were like really
good friends for a while, and then it slowly started
to blossom into like this like really cute romance. And
he was really sweet and he was a really good boy.
Apparently I barely remember him. I was like a kid.
But when like one day they like kissed and it

(51:28):
was really passionate. He told my sister he had a
crush on her for such a long time and like
like loved her and all this stuff. You know, it's
like young love, you know, it's really sweet. And then
he just ghosts her. And this is before like cell phones,
so and like my sister's like devastated, you know, because
it's like she just had her heart toyed with by
this guy and he like doesn't talk to her anymore
and like stops being her friend, and she feels like

(51:49):
so hurt and betrayed. Years later, she finds out from
him after it is all said and done, that like
the reason he stopped talking to her was my dad
went to his house and threatened to kill him. Yeah,
like and like, this is a kid, by the way,
this is like a sixteen year old boy, and my dad,
a big masha man, came over to like threaten him,
and that's why he stopped talking to her. And then

(52:10):
that blew her mind. She was like, oh my god,
that explains everything. And then you know, it's still hurt
because that could have been like a meaningful relationship for
both of them, but my dad took it away because
he had to take possession over his daughter, as if
you know, he owned her.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Yeah, we did an episode where we talked about purity
balls and which is like you go with your dad
to go claim that.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
You're Yeah, that's so weird. It's so weird, Like you're
getting your dad's permission to do that. Like, your dad
has nothing to do with you having sex.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
He shouldn't, he should have no.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Ideally, I don't want it to Yeah gross in bed, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
But I think it is. Yes, family members kind of
taking this ownership over a woman's sexuality because they, like
the guys is that they're being productive and care but
in reality that is just limiting her agency.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
I think there's this mentality for people to tell stories
like this, and especially with a Paula in this case,
I think there's a mentality of like this, like forbidden
attraction to a family member that you can't have or
act upon, but you don't want other people to have
that too, you know. And I think that's interesting from
a psychological standpoint, but very yuck yucky in general.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Yeah, there's a lot of Insatin Greek mythology.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Right there is, but fortunately not with Apaulo and Arnamis.
Although I don't know, maybe Apaula wanted to and just
never act upon it. But regardless, back to the story,
Apaulo didn't approve of her love for Orian, and like
they sound like a power couple because like they were
both badass hunters. He respected her autonomy and never tried
to take advantage of her, although some versions of the
story he does, but in the version I like, you know,

(53:39):
he doesn't, like he's just a child dude. Yeah. So
in this version, Apollo's mad and doesn't want her to
get married to him, so he tricks her. So one day,
while Orion is swimming in the ocean because it's something
people did back then, which sounds kind of crazy, he's
with his sister and they're really far away from where
Orian is. But Apaula says, hey, sister, I bet not

(54:00):
as good of a shot as I am with a
bow and arrow. And she goes like, I'm like the
literally the best archer in the fucking world.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
That's my whole thing.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
That's my whole fucking thing. And he's like, well, if
you're so good, could you hit a specific small target
that I point out And she's like, yeah, point it
out and I'll hit it. And he's like, how about
that that dot on the horizon in the ocean, And
she goes, Okay, she hits it. Guess what it's her love,
it's o Ryan. She killed Oriyon. Apollo tricks her and
she killed Orion, and because she's so distraught about losing

(54:26):
the only man she ever loved. She rewards that love
by turning him into a constellation so you can always
be seen in the stars, which I.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Think is very sweet.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
And also the riot. I like that version, not the
version where Ryan tries to rape her, because it doesn't
make sense because then after that she turns him into
stars and it's like, why would you turn him into
stars after he tried to assault you.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
That's a majestic ending for his story.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah, and I like that version better.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
No, that sounds that sounds right to me. That's really
how it happened in these very truthful stories. Do you
feel good, Artemis, you want to share?

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Yeah, I guess just closing thoughts and Artemis her stories
aren't the most interesting ones to talk about necessarily, but
I do think she's probably one of the coolest figures
in Greek mythology and like coolest like women, and she
has she's portrayed really well for the most part. Like
she's a protector of children, especially young girls. She's like
an advocate of like keeping their you know, chastity until

(55:22):
they're ready to give it willingly. Like she hates rape,
you know love that for her, she always pun she
punishes so many men for attempting to sexually assault various women,
not just her, but to like, you know, her attendance,
her nymphs. Like, she's a very well written figure and
it's very rare to see.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yeah, maybe her story, her origin was from a woman storyteller.
I know it was all oral tradition in the beginning,
but maybe that was to kind of counteract all the
horrible stories we'd had.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
I think that's a solid theory, honestly, Like, there's no
evidence to say that women didn't tell stories back then,
Like it.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Seems like because they didn't have as much power the
majority of them, and also the content of the stories
are very male centric here. But why can't we get one.

(56:21):
We're moving right along, We're going to talk about Pandora.
And I'm sure you know this already, Nick, But she
did not have a box.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
She had a jar.

Speaker 1 (56:29):
I mean she had the box between her legs. Yeah,
but that's different. Yeah, just a mistranslation. That was one
of the first things I saw in Pandora's box has
become so iconic in our culture. But also it was
I think in the fifteen hundred so that someone just
like got it wrong. And then now it's like.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
I think it was just literally just a mistranslation.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
I think the word for jar they were like JB box.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Yeah yeah, that sounds right. I feel like jars when
I picture Greek ancient times, I don't picture like cardboard boxes.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Well yeah, I mean that makes more sense, I guess
I have. When I was a kid, I used to
imagine like like an ordinate like wood in the box
or like a metal kind Yeah yeah, but I mean
they didn't really use a lot of boxes. They was jars.
They had pots.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
You know, yeah, I've I've played video games that featured that.
So she was the first woman, the first human woman,
as the legend goes, who was created by the gods
as a punishment, which is so funny when we were
talking about churning into a woman as a punishment. I

(57:33):
get totally get the idea of like, yeah, there is
a lot of negative elements of femininity and abuse and
the expectation that you're gonna be supporting it. I get that,
But the idea that like we're just gonna make a
woman just because we're mad at Prometheus, Now, like fuck
you guys, you got women.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Also, they already punished Prometheus, right, so they didn't punish mankind, right.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Prometheus was a big fan of humans. He was one
of the old gods, a titan, right, call those titans,
and he was very into humanity. So he stole fire
because you know mythology, you can just steal the concept
of fire. Gave it to humans. Made Zeus very angry.
So to punish Prometheus, they strapped him to a rock
and had his liver get eaten by birds every day

(58:18):
and then the liver grows.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
I think it was a specific bird, Like.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
What kind of bird I'm picturing an eagle or a crow.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
I think it was an eagle. I do know that
this bird had a name and he like I guess
he was immortal like he because like this, this was
a never ending punishment, so the bird was also immortal.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Yeah, Prometheus is still there, you know, if you go
to find the right place and I don't know, somewhere
Greek adjacent. Yeah, shows how much I know. But he
he gave fire to humans. Zeus was mad, so he
had Hephaestus sculpt Pandora as a punishment, and then each
of the gods gave her a little trait like some

(58:57):
good like charming music, but also curiosity. Importantly, also Athena tough.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Her had to weave classic just just to get back
to that, because like it's important, you know, Athena can
weave guys like of.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Course, oh yeah, first she was the first weaver a
racknet never heard of her, and they made Pandora beautiful
and they gave her a jar and they told her
don't open it. Her curious exactly intentionally. That was the
part where it's like you were set up to fail. Sure,

(59:31):
for a little while I could resist, but at some
point everyone, I feel like everyone is going to open
that jar, and out of it comes sickness and death
and suffering, and hope is the only thing left. And
there are two interpretations I can think of this, which
is one is that hope was trapped inside, which is

(59:52):
that humanity didn't get it. So it's like all the
evils flat in the world, but hope stayed locked away,
or hope was preserved for us, as in like it
stayed in the jar for benefit. At least we still
have hope, which is more generous, but it still implies
that hope is something kind of fragile, something that must
be kept apart from us. So, I mean, this is

(01:00:14):
pretty foundational misogyny here, that women are the root of
suffering and that when something goes wrong it's her fault.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Oh, actually, here's a quote by it. So this is
from like one of the earlier versions of the Pandora myth.
This is by the credit author Hesioid or Hesiod. I'm
not trying to pronounce it, but this is from his
book theogyny from her is the race of women, and
female kind of her is the deadly race and the
tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their
great trouble. No help meets in hateful poverty, but only

(01:00:45):
in wealth. It's basically saying that, like, you know, Pandora
is the reason that we have women because she was
the first woman, so all women and men as a
result or the product of that birth. And it describes
them as being deadly and causing trouble for men. And
the first trouble that they caused was plaguing humanity with
all these troubles and worries, anxiety, despare, pestilence, plague, you

(01:01:07):
know all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Right, And definitely yes, the parallel for Eve is that
those are both characters created by men who were written
to fail because they were almost tricked into it, and
now we can use them as a scapegoat for everything.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah, even more so in the Pandora myth, because like
Zeus like like actively said, like I'm going to create
a woman to punish people. Yeah, and like that, like
he knew what she was going to do the whole time.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Yeah, Zeus was driving that and God created woman are
Christian God.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
So this archetype that we have now through Eve and
through Pandora, I mean it's an archetype, but like stories matter,
Like obviously I'm taught I need a prince charming, I
need a beautiful wedding with a white dress. It's a
narrative that I've been told all throughout my life, and
these are stories that shape us and we have to

(01:02:00):
really work to come back to any kind of neutrality.
So Pandora is one of those stories that were chanting
throughout history that women are going to fuck it up
and it's all their fault. And that is why we
wanted to close on Pandora.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
It's a good way to close it. Even though she
opened the jar.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Ooh shit, but she couldn't close it again. What was
done was done. A box makes sense to open and close,
But like, did the jar have like a quirk? I've
pictured a stop her on it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yeah, it has to have had like a quirk, right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Or it's like a little teapot where are you like, Oh,
that would even the candle and then it pops out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
I'm a little teapot short Instead.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
I carry you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
I carry, I carry, I contain multitudes, I carry everything horrible.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Yeah, and also hope.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
I personally like the version where hope is inside of
all of us still, and it's not like a plague,
an outward external plague upon humanity, but rather it we
need to keep it inside of us because I don't know,
that's just a nice little sentiment to have that, Like,
you know, there's a lot of misery in the world,
and there's a lot of horrible things, but we still
have hope that things can be better.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
I agree, And I don't have much trope for taking
down the patriarchy, but I did enjoy talking about how
interwoven it is throughout these ancient myths, and we are
out of time, so I'm going to close it with
I am Missandris Memes on Instagram and we are sad bag.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Gap dot podcast. Want one more, surely sad Gap dot Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
I might leave in the edits who knows it takes practice, honestly.
You can email us at Sadgap dot podcast at gmail
dot com. You can visit our website sad Gap dash
podcast dot com. Flows. I'm Patreon for ad free episodes.
I feel like I'm doing the symptoms at the end
of medical may include visiting our Patreon Patreon dot com,
slash sad Gap. There's a discord, there's a reddit. It's

(01:03:59):
all in our link tree on Instagram. We would love
a little review. You can do that on Spotify or
Apple or wherever you find your podcast. Thank you Nick
for being here. This was super fun.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
We thank you so much for having me. I love
talking about stories in general. I would love to come
back anytime you want me to come back and talk
about anything else, not just mythology, but I love just storytelling.
It's a great way to find out what's going on
in the human mind and understand the human experience better.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
I fully agree. I'm going to give us a quippy
little closer with a quote that I don't fully know
what it means. But I think it's a beautiful thing
to try to interpret. You only have to look at
the Medusa straight on to see her, and she's not deadly.
She's beautiful, and she's.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Laughing, and we're stronger together.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
We'll see you next time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
Bye bye,