the only good thing voltron has done for my life is given me a different less shameful character to think about when i listen to blue lips by regina spektor
bringing this back today for the start of pride month. still overwhelmed by how well this comic went down and with how many people relate. it’s easy to think aro-ace people are all totally accepting of their identities and really proud of who they are. i guess on websites like this you see a lot of people proudly putting their identity in their bio, a flag in their profile picture.
in fact i think a lot of aro-ace people really hate that part of themselves, hide it, and struggle for a long time to ‘accept’ who they are and feel any sense of ‘pride’. that’s the feeling i wanted to capture here. the disappointment, the loneliness, upon realising that you can’t feel what is such a wonderful thing. the embarrassment of not being ‘normal’, of being some random sexuality that nobody irl has heard of, and letting down those around you because you can’t be who they want you to be. how desperately you want to change, how desperately you want to feel. but you just can’t.
i know not all aro-ace people feel like this. i know lots of aro and/or ace people feel able to be in relationships, to feel closeness and have partners in other ways. but i think it’s important to be aware that some aro-ace people do feel like this.
the comments on this comic have mostly been great but a few have been very frustrating. a comment it got a lot was along the lines of ‘aw!! you don’t need to have sex to be in a relationship!’. you completely missed the point, hah. this is not a comic about sex. it’s about a lack of feeling, the lack of something beautiful other people seem to have. another comment that popped up a few times was ‘maybe she’s a lesbian’. well maybe lesbians and aro/ace girls have more in common than people think - maybe they both often struggle to accept that they feel no attraction to men, even though society has conditioned them to do so, sometimes spending years trying to force themselves to like men in that way, when they just can’t.
this comic is called ‘wanting and not wanting at the same time’ because she wants to love. but when it comes down to the reality, she can’t fulfil the requirements of that. she wants to love someone forever, to get married and have children and grow old with her soulmate, but she doesn’t want it with this person. or that person. or anyone she meets or will ever meet. a sort of catch 22, i guess.
hope that makes sense. thanks for listening, and have a lovely pride month ❤️
i have been fucked up ever since i took a mythology class in college and learned that the greek mythology we know today is not only deliberately patriarchal (i mean duh) but was put in place specifically to abolish the matriarchal religion that came before it, nearly all traces of which were systematically erased. AND, the reason the modern west is so obsessed with greek mythology specifically is that it aligns so closely with our own patriarchal values. like we are literally taught greek mythology IN SCHOOL, that’s how hugely important it is in our culture. (i mean think about it… there is no real benefit to placing that much emphasis on greek mythology specifically over any other part of history)
learning this literally ruined greek mythology for me lmao
artemis and aphrodite are the classic madonna (virgin) and the whore
athena is deliberately stripped of her femininity in order to be goddess of wisdom, springing fully formed from zeus’ head instead of being born from a woman
hera is the jealous, vindictive ball and chain, etc etc.
and the kicker? pandora was a revamped character from an older myth, in which she created every single thing in the universe, good and bad. she didn’t just open a box and ruin everything by not being able to follow orders. pandora literally means “all-giving”. and in the greek mythology we know today, she’s the first woman on earth and manages to fuck things up for everyone. sound familiar? like eve, maybe?
i don’t have sources because i learned this in a college class like 3 years ago but if anyone has access to their college’s academic database and wants to source this for me that’d be awesome. i haven’t tried but i’m guessing you’d be hard pressed to find info about it on google.
here’s a book i’m reading abt it that i picked up at a half-price bookstore. it’s a bittersweet read. there’s references inside the front cover, too, for further reading.
Thank you for adding this! Reblogging so y’all can see it
This book is the bomb diggety. Bittersweet read indeed.
Greek mythology is deliberately patriarchal (which should be obvious, because it was written by people living in a patriarchal culture, so of course it reflects their values)
myths changed with time
Pandora had another, more positive role
Ancient Greece is given more attention than other, equally deserving cultures
the OP doesn’t have sources
That’s it. That’s literally it. As for the things that this post gets wrong, let’s take it step by step:
1. Pre-Greek matriarchal religion, “nearly all traces of which were systematically erased”
This pre-Greek matriarchy is usually identified with the Minoans of Crete, who depicted many women in prominent positions in their art. Unfortunately, as I’ve outlined before, this isn’t enough to prove that the Minoans had a matriarchal society and religion. What’s more, the Minoan script (Linear A) remains undeciphered to this day. So until the Minoans can tell us about their myths, beliefs, and social hierarchy in their own voices, I’ll be very skeptical about anyone who claims they were definitely matriarchal (or patriarchal, for that matter).
As for their traces being “systematically erased”, I can only laugh. The Minoans (like the Pelasgians, i.e. the pre-Greek people of the Greek mainland) weren’t erased. The Mycenaean Greeks eventually took over Crete, but Minoan civilisation continued to exist, and many cultural and religious elements were incorporated into Mycenaean society - including writing. From an article about an early Mycenaean tomb:
The griffin warrior’s grave at Pylos offers a radical new perspective on the relationship between the two societies and thus on Europe’s cultural origins. As in previously discovered shaft graves, the objects themselves are a cross-cultural mix. For instance, the boar tusk helmet is typically Mycenaean, but the gold rings, which are rich with Minoan religious imagery and are on their own a hugely significant find for scholars, says Davis, reflect artifacts previously found on Crete.
(…) This has led Davis and Stocker to favor the idea that the two cultures became entwined at a very early stage. It’s a conclusion that fits recent suggestions that regime change on Crete around the time the mainland palaces went up, which traditionally corresponds to the decline of Minoan civilization, may not have resulted from the aggressive invasion that historians have assumed. The later period on Knossos might represent something more like “an EU in the Aegean,” says Bennet, of the British School at Athens. Minoans and Mycenaean Greeks would surely have spoken each other’s languages, may have intermarried and likely adopted and refashioned one another’s customs. And they may not have seen themselves with the rigid identities we moderns have tended to impose on them.
TL;DR: The Mycenaeans didn’t erase Minoan religion. They liked it, and syncretised it with their own.
The only reason many of these Minoan beliefs vanished was due to the Late Bronze Age collapse, which saw the end of Mycenaean Greece and Minoan-Mycenaean Crete. Many elements of early Greek civilisation were lost, or preserved in fragments thanks to mythology and epic poetry. This collapse was obviously not a systematic erasure, but a widespread destruction of civilisations, caused by foreign invasion, drought and famine, internal revolts, earthquakes, or a combination of the above. Eric Cline’s book 1177 BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed(2014)is an excellent discussion of the topic.
2. Earlier versions of Greek myths
Any time someone mentions the “pre-patriarchal” or “original” version of a myth, be skeptical. Be very skeptical.
The problem with these “original” myths is that we have little to nothing to base them on. Their reconstruction is a theory - often a modern feminist theory - not a certainty. I should also point out, as @rembrandtswife did, that Lost Goddesses of Ancient Greece is “basically AU fanfic of the Greek mythology we have”. It’s retellings and speculation, not earlier myths that we can confirm existed.
You know what are earlier myths that we can confirm existed? Mesopotamian and Anatolian myths. These have been extensively studied, and it’s been shown time and time again that they influenced Greek mythology - especially Homer and Hesiod. Martin West’s The East Face of Helicon(1997)and Mary Bachvarova’s From Hittite to Homer(2016)are good introductions to the topic. Here’s a recording I made which shows obvious parallels between the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the Hurrian-Hittite Song of Kumarbi, and Hesiod’s Theogony. Looks pretty different from the modern speculative retellings, doesn’t it?
This isn’t to say that there weren’t earlier myths in which women had different, more influential and positive roles. Pandora does in fact fit into this category: her names (Pandora, “all-giving”, and Anesidora, “sending up gifts”), as well as ancient sources (scholia on Aristophanes’ Birds being one example), attest to her originally being an earth deity. Hesiod is well-known for his misogyny, so him transforming her into a mortal woman and giving her a negative role makes sense. However, I would advise against applying this theory more broadly, and taking it as proof that there was a widespread revamping of female deities to make them fit patriarchal ideals. I would especially advise against taking any of this as confirmed fact, when the “original” myths themselves are lost.
3. The Gods as archetypes
I am personally very against interpreting the Gods as archetypes (i.e. Artemis as madonna, Aphrodite as whore, etc). There are far, far more aspects to them than these, and reducing them to single-word descriptions erases the complex reality of Greek mythology (and religion, while we’re at it).
What’s more, these archetypal interpretations are incredibly modern and don’t reflect Ancient Greek perceptions. The idea that Athena is “deliberately stripped of her femininity” because she is not born from a woman, for one, sounds very much like late 20th century radical feminism. (I’d also love to know if Typhon, who was born from Hera alone (see the Homeric Hymn to Apollon), was “stripped of his masculinity” for the same reason.) But more broadly, these Jungian-like archetypes correspond perfectly to 19th century views, which liked to fit the Gods into neat categories. Most notoriously, Apollon, who represented order and enlightenment, was opposed to Dionysos, who represented chaos and madness. Thanks Nietzsche.
I’ve said this before, but to interpret Greek mythology, we need to look for Greek sources. Not the theories of a 19th century philosopher. Not the speculation of a 20th century feminist. If the Gods were viewed as complex figures in Ancient Greece, then we need to study them as complex figures. Simple as that.
4. Why we are taught Greek mythology, aka “the reason the modern West is so obsessed with Greek mythology specifically is that it aligns so closely with our own patriarchal values”
Actually, no. If you think Greek mythology aligns closely with our own values, then you’ve been reading retellings and Mythology 101 books, not the original texts. (Or, alternatively, you’re very confused about what modern society’s values are.) Here is an abridged list of gender-related values from Ancient Greece that we don’t share:
female identity is tied to weaving
rape can only happen in the countryside or in deserted places
men who cry openly are still manly
marriage is between a 15-year-old girl and a 30-year-old man
funerals are women’s business
it’s okay to have gay sex if you’re a top
wearing boots and being a shopkeeper is unmanly
and more
The more you study Ancient Greece and read the texts themselves (preferably in the original language, so as to avoid as much modern bias as possible), the more you realise how different the Ancient Greeks were from us. This is a foreign culture with foreign values. Yes, a lot of it is familiar, too - much of European civilisation has its roots in Ancient Greece, hence why it aligns with a certain number of our values. But claiming that the ideas promoted in Greek mythology are virtually identical to our own is doing a disservice to the rich, unique culture that was Ancient Greece.
So why do we focus on it so much, as opposed to other cultures? Unfortunately, this is because of how history played out. Ancient Greece highly influenced Rome, which went on to conquer most of Europe; many countries went on to claim it as their ancestor, from the Ottoman Empire to the Napoleonic Empire to Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, other cultures which had influenced Ancient Greece itself (and therefore modern Western culture) disappeared: the Hittites of Anatolia had been virtually forgotten since the Late Bronze Age, Mesopotamia was on its way out by the first century AD, and Ancient Egypt by the beginning of the Middle Ages.
As a result, a lot of emphasis is put on Ancient Greek (and Roman) culture when in reality, we don’t owe much more to it than to the Sumerians. I absolutely think that we should study other cultures more. I also absolutely think that the fact we don’t has nothing to with patriarchal values.
5. Sources, aka “I don’t have sources because I learned this in a college class like 3 years ago”
Okay, so I have nothing against people taking electives in college and posting about what they learnt. By all means, do so. But it becomes a problem when people start reblogging without fact-checking or thinking twice about information that is presented without sources, by someone with very little experience in the field, and lathered in rhetoric.
Speaking of rhetoric, other people have pointed it out in the comments, but the person who shared the Lost Goddesses of Ancient Greece book is a TERF. This obviously doesn’t mean OP is a TERF as well (I had a look through their blog and they seem not to be), but you may want to think about what ideas the LGoAG person is encouraging here, as well as what could appeal to a TERF in this post, and consider whether that’s something you want to align yourself with.
TL;DR: Don’t believe something just because it appeals to you. Check out my Layperson’s Guide to Online Research for more details on how to fact-check.
good debunk
Fucking bless you @sisterofisis because I was sitting her squinting at the op post like “that’s….not right” but didn’t have the sources to back it up.
rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead has both gay representation AND two braincell representation. tom stoppard had no idea he was being a progressive icon this entire time
one of my braincells is sharper and can recongnize red flags but doesn’t alert my other braincell which has adhd and is naive and they’re dating. hamlet is there
Me, trying to explain my obsession with southern gothic and weird alt country: look I don’t know why, but if a song is acoustic, in a minor key, and about murder, god, or america, i just go absolutely batshit
Here’s my song “God’s going to murder America” in G minor
You ever think about the fact that Gandalf’s best hobbit buddy was the Old Took & after the Old Took died Gandalf took to befriending his many, many descendants. Does he see Gerontius in Bilbo & Frodo & Merry & Pippin. Does he still miss him. I think about this a lot.
Further to that: he like. Absolutely does see a lot of Belladonna in Bilbo. That’s just canon.
Gandalf is there like, I miss my friend. Friend’s essence is now, distributed throughout his many descendants? if I get enough of them together in the same place, maybe I can,,, recreate him
if this is what’s going through Gandalf’s head, he’s going to heartily regret his decision upon meeting Pippin, who mostly got all the chaotic energy that Gerontius ever possessed
there’ll be a moment where he thinks “ah yes, I can see my friend in this one”, and then ten minutes later his thoughts will have changed to “my friend was insane, I remember this now”
i love that when you first meet the doctor he’s completely shrouded in gruesome rumors and everybody is like “be careful hiyoko! i hear he literally murders people with a cleaver!” it’s like that fucking episode of arthur where they all think mr. ratburn eats nails for breakfast and collects severed heads. us genre-savvy players are all thinking, oh great, there’s going to be some fakeout and he’s actually just a kind, very lonely, misunderstood school doctor with a bad reputation and we’re going to get to learn his tragic backstory on his route etc. but no, there’s absolutely no fakeout, and he literally murders people with a cleaver. i love that
