Day 315: Fun Fact Friday - Myths of Medusa, a Feminist Inspiration?

Caravaggio's Medusa.  1595

Speaking of bad hair days (see yesterday's post for more on this topic!)... this week's "Fun Fact" draws on the classic myth of Medusa.  What most of us remember is that Medusa was a reportedly a horrifyingly ugly monster: a morph of serpent and woman, with fighting snakes for hair and a horrifying gaze that turned men to stone.  Legends holds that the hero Perseus killed Medusa by using a mirrored shield (a gift from the goddess Athena) to approach Medusa without having to look directly at her deadly face.  He sliced her head off with his sword, and then takes it with him, and turned his enemies into stone by forcing them to look upon Medusa's dead-but-still-deadly gaze.

Versace reportedly picked the image of Medusa for its logo,
because "she is the epitome of fatal attraction." 

This story, alone, qualifies Medusa as an excellent "fun fact" for those interested in the (mythical) history of mirrors.  More interesting to me, however, was learning that Medusa's horrifying ugliness was not gifted at birth, but due to a curse put upon her by Athena.  In Ovid's Metamorphosis (yes, the same source for Day 301's Fun Fact), Medusa began as a ravishingly beautiful maiden.  She was a priestess in Athena's temple, and "the jealous aspiration of many suitors."  Medusa's stunning beauty and vanity angered the jealous goddess Athena.  When Medusa was caught "hooking up" (my term) with Poseidon, Athena punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into serpents, and her lovely face into a site terrible to behold.

Thanks to my googling skills, I've learned that Medusa has earned a special place in the hearts of some feminist scholars, who believe her story (and face) to be an apt symbol for female rage.  In these accounts, it is Medusa's anger, not her ugliness, that becomes the focus.  Her rage is seen as righteous and powerful, as something women should use "as a map to guide us through our terrors, through the depths of our anger into the sources of our power as women," (as published in the 1978 issue of Women: A Journal of Liberation, which also featured an image of Medusa on its cover).


After all this, I'm left wondering:
*Was Medusa a monster or a victim?  
*So many classic tales are rooted in violence between a jealous women and a beautiful one.   (Snow White, Cinderella, The "I'll get you my pretty!!!" Wizard of Oz, and many more, I'm sure)  What does this teach young girls about what it means to be a woman?
*Finally, in our modern culture, what is treated as the greatest evil: ugliness, vanity, or rage?  


What do YOU think??
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