When Pandora opened the box, so the fable goes, all the evil in the world escaped. Not only did Pandora release evil, she herself was a punishment ordered by Zeus (top God of the time) who was cross that men had stolen the gift of fire from the gods. Described as ‘sheer guile’ she and all women who followed were likened to drones in a beehive that, ‘reap the toil of others into their own bellies…an evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil’. [1]
Pandora is a reworking of an earlier mythical first woman who was the bearer of wonderful gifts. The transition of the understanding of woman from benefactor to malefactor may mirror the growth of a patriarchal society in early Greek culture – as culture shifts, so do the stories we tell.
A similar fable is found in the Garden of Eve, where it is the first woman Eve who looses evil on the world, by stealing the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ and thus cosigning humans to mortality and women to a submissive role.
These myths survive today; indeed they emerge with zombie like persistence despite all attempts to nail them for good. Women have been portrayed as archetypal troublemakers through out history. The popular movement that arose following the Weinstein revelations has been slammed as created by squawking women who are in full-scale moral panic mode. The movement has been characterised as a conspiracy of the metropolitan liberal elite, by women seeking to ‘crush’ men. Some of the backlash is concealed in trenchant condemnation of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, deceiving us by deflecting our attention from the fact that the sexual abuse, rape, harassment and devaluing of women have been with us since the earliest times. This is not to excuse women; we are responsible for our own behaviour and some openly admit to willingly colluding in men’s sexual games- shame on them.
Who knows where this fear, hatred and need to humiliate women originate, but there is no doubt that these formations are sustained through a sense of male entitlement. Whenever that entitlement is challenged, there is always a backlash, for no one gives up power without a struggle, whether it is in the pulpit, the corridors of power, the workplace, or home. 100 years ago today 33 women peacefully campaigned outside the White House for the right of women to vote. They were imprisoned, beaten and tortured in the Night of Terror – only one particularly savage incident in a long history of false charges, unjust imprisonment and inhumane treatment.
When Pandora first opened the box, she panicked, trying to close the lid, but everything escaped, except Hope. Time and time again she struggles to reopen the lid and set Hope free. Who knows, this time she might just have succeeded.
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Theogony. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Pandora is a reworking of an earlier mythical first woman who was the bearer of wonderful gifts. The transition of the understanding of woman from benefactor to malefactor may mirror the growth of a patriarchal society in early Greek culture – as culture shifts, so do the stories we tell.
A similar fable is found in the Garden of Eve, where it is the first woman Eve who looses evil on the world, by stealing the ‘knowledge of good and evil’ and thus cosigning humans to mortality and women to a submissive role.
These myths survive today; indeed they emerge with zombie like persistence despite all attempts to nail them for good. Women have been portrayed as archetypal troublemakers through out history. The popular movement that arose following the Weinstein revelations has been slammed as created by squawking women who are in full-scale moral panic mode. The movement has been characterised as a conspiracy of the metropolitan liberal elite, by women seeking to ‘crush’ men. Some of the backlash is concealed in trenchant condemnation of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, deceiving us by deflecting our attention from the fact that the sexual abuse, rape, harassment and devaluing of women have been with us since the earliest times. This is not to excuse women; we are responsible for our own behaviour and some openly admit to willingly colluding in men’s sexual games- shame on them.
Who knows where this fear, hatred and need to humiliate women originate, but there is no doubt that these formations are sustained through a sense of male entitlement. Whenever that entitlement is challenged, there is always a backlash, for no one gives up power without a struggle, whether it is in the pulpit, the corridors of power, the workplace, or home. 100 years ago today 33 women peacefully campaigned outside the White House for the right of women to vote. They were imprisoned, beaten and tortured in the Night of Terror – only one particularly savage incident in a long history of false charges, unjust imprisonment and inhumane treatment.
When Pandora first opened the box, she panicked, trying to close the lid, but everything escaped, except Hope. Time and time again she struggles to reopen the lid and set Hope free. Who knows, this time she might just have succeeded.
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Theogony. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.