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Phaedra poses a distinctive problem when it comes to contemporary feminist approaches to Greek myth. Phaedra, who falsely accuses her stepson Hippolytus of rape due to a madness sent by Aphrodite, is remarkably difficult to consider through any feminist lens. Indeed, Edith Hall has reported an ‘intuitive loathing of Euripides’ tragedy Hippolytus’ due to its ‘toxic ideology in which Hippolytus’ stepmother Phaedra falsely accuses him of rape’, thus providing evidence in favour of the misconception regarding the regularity with which women frame innocent men for sex crimes (Hall 2015: np.). Natalie Haynes builds on this in Pandora’s Jar, where she argues that ‘Phaedra can be used to legitimise the myth that many women lie about being raped’ (Haynes 2020: 210). Moreover, Phaedra’s mythos ‘adds in no small quantity of our own prejudice: against step-mothers, against female sexual desire and, yes, against women who accuse men of injuring them, rightly or wrongly’ (Ibid., 201).
Thus, Phaedra’s myth can be weaponised to discredit women, particularly those who are speaking up against their abusers.
Indeed, as Donna Zuckerberg surveys in Not All Dead White Men, men in the alt-right, misogynistic spaces of the internet (otherwise known as The Red Pill / the manosphere) use the myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus to add cultural authority to their (incorrect) belief that the majority of rape cases are false claims from women seeking attention, money, and revenge.
So, much like the question of ‘How do you solve a problem like Helen?’, we have to ask how you can approach Phaedra’s myth in an era where #MeToo and #TimesUp have called for women to be believed, alongside increasing misogynistic extremism in the alt-right continue to vocally dox, dogpile, and discredit women.
In Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne (2021), Phaedra is specifically exonerated from the crime of a false rape allegation, and places the blame squarely on Theseus’ shoulders. In Saint’s adaptation, Phaedra had only written Hippolytus’ name, and it is Theseus’ hot-headedness and recollection of his own behaviours – including ‘rapes, forced marriages, kidnaps and child rape,’ (Ibid., 206) – that guide him to the conclusion that he ‘know[s] what men do’ (Saint 2021: 344). In this version, then, it is Theseus, not Phaedra, who falsely accuses Hippolytus of rape, which is in line with the dethroning of the heroic legend that is present in Ariadne, as well as in the treatment of heroes in contemporary feminist revisionist myth writing.
Train reading 📖 @LauraShepperson #classicstwitter #booktwt pic.twitter.com/WVAKHPEvQL
— Dr. Shelby Judge 🌚 (@Judgeyxo) May 19, 2023
I won’t spoil for you who is the guilty party in Laura Shepperson’s The Heroines, but suffice it to say that the novel does not contribute to the legitimisation that many women lie about being raped.
What I will say is that the novel, for all it is set in ancient Athens and features many mythical figures, felt almost too real and contemporary. This is because the trial of Hippolytus v. Phaedra was strikingly similar to the recent Depp v. Heard trial.
The novel shows us a man with all of the power, influence, friends, and connections go up against a woman in a system that is, by its very design, against her. The novel shows us that the court of public opinion plays a far greater role in actuality than it does in theory, and that women are failed time and again by a society and system that should be protecting them.
The novel also shows us the protective and revolutionary power of women’s whisper networks.
The Heroines includes interludes from The Night Circus, a telepathic network for the women in the Athenian palace, so that they can share their traumas and give each other valuable insights into how to avoid or minimise suffering:
No room is safe. No man is safe to be near. The loud ones, the quiet ones, the ones who glare and the ones who smile. Stay away from all of them. Don’t ask permission, just leave. By night, if you must.
There’s safety in numbers. I will assist you in your master’s chambers if you will help me clean my master’s riding gear. We can begin as soon as they leave for the hunt and then we will be done by the time they get back.
When I make the stew for their dinner I will out a sleeping draught in, to make them all drowsy and so they pass out as soon as they reach their rooms.
We cannot rely on any king to look out for us. We will look out for one another. We will survive. We must. (Shepperson 2023: 166)
This is comparable to the maids’ interludes in Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005), as we are given the perspective of working women interspersed throughout a narrative (and genre) that otherwise largely focuses on aristocratic and royal women. We also get chapters narrated by Kandake, Phaedra’s maid, whose outlook provides some interesting perspective: the maid’s understanding of the world (and men) contrasts to Phaedra’s sheltered worldview, yet she is interestingly privileged coming from the civilised Cretan court, compared to the brutalities that abound in the Athenian court. This adds an interesting intersectionality to the novel, where we get glimpses of how class and citizenship and experiences intersect with gender to afford different women different experiences and world views.
What is this trial? Who is this princess, creating all this fuss?
All she has done is rile them up, and now they demand more of us. Hippolytus has become a monster. He had his friends charge about the palace, protesting his innocence to everyone they see, and yet when they get back to their rooms and they see us, they enact the rape all over again.
I felt sorry for her before, but she has made out lives harder. Why could she not be quiet?
Do you even believe here? I heard she had her eye on him from the start.
We all saw her follow him around the court.
[…] Princesses can bring trials. But someone still has to make their beds, and lie in them, too. (Shepperson 2023: 241)
This will sound familiar to literally anyone who has heard people talk about Amber Heard, or other prominent women that speak out against their powerful abusers. The responses range from victim blaming, to belief but unfair hostility, to the idea that they are making it worse for “regular” women.
A current favourite word of mine is verisimilitude … and the ring of truth in people’s responses to gender-based violence (including allyship, opportunism, victim blaming, and outright disbelief) and the parallel between this mythic novel and real-world events really brings the word to mind.
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There has been a lot of discussion of rape and gender-based violence in this post. Please visit Rape Crisis if you need help or support. You can also get involved by donating, fundraising, or volunteering with RC or another registered charity.
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This was part 3 of The Shelbiad Summer Book Club. Remember: you can post your review of the book in the comments and I will add it to the post by the end of summer!
If you wish to submit a picture showing the books in your summery locations (or ironically dreary locations), you can send them via email (sjediting7@gmail.com), or via Twitter DMs / mentions.
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