Let's Talk About 'Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!'

No, the title isn't a typo. 

You will probably have noticed by now that my blog is primarily a feminist getting mad about myths; today, I will be talking about another feminist who gets mad about myths. The feminist in question is Liv, who runs the podcast Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! and, yes, she sings the title every episode. 

When I started this PhD, I was pretty apprehensive about the mythology aspect of my project. All of my academic research has been on contemporary feminist literature; both my Undergraduate and Master's dissertations had chapters on mythology, and those were the parts I enjoyed the most, which led me to this PhD in contemporary feminist adaptations of myth. But, aside from an intro to Classical Mythology module in my first year of Undergrad, I had absolutely no formal training in Classics. I knew a fair bit about myths from my personal interests, but I had no idea how to be a mythologist or, as I kept putting it, 'I don't even know what I don't know about myths.' And, as with most things, the more you learn, the less you realise you know. 

So there I was, a month into my PhD, wracked with imposter syndrome and anxiety, and I discover this podcast. 

Not only does Liv make an excellent podcast host - she is funny and sarcastic, she goes off on tangents and rants, and she refers to her personal life enough that you don't think she's a robot but not so much that you feel like you're being left out of a lot of inside jokes or that you're stuck listening to an interview with a celebrity you've never heard of - but she is also doing exactly what I want to do. She retells the Greek and Roman myths because she genuinely loves them, she loves their rich tapestry of narrative, she loves the characters (she seems to have a crush on Odysseus, calling him 'my main man' a lot - and, honestly, same), she loves the way the Greeks used these stories to navigate all aspects of human life: love, lust, war, religion, etymology, philosophy, identity, and so on. But she also is not blind to the blatant patriarchal bullshit that is inescapably woven into these myths, obviously stemming from the men who dominated the societies that created the myths. She doesn't, as many other contemporary mythographers do, either completely ignore these facts or simply acknowledge that something is sexist and then say "oh well, we can't expect anything better from these ancient stories, they weren't woke like we are". No, she holds the myths accountable. She puts Athena on trial for her horrendous treatment of women such as Arachne and Medusa,* but she also points to the fact that Athena was created by men who would have found the concept of women raising each other up completely alien and more than slightly dangerous. Yes, she defends these women who 'were completely destroyed by Athena for minor infractions,' but she also defends Athena against the men who created this goddess who, by design, was a patron of men and masculinity. 

 * Here, I am going to talk about the myths of Arachne and Medusa. If you're super familiar with these myths, or you just want to scroll on to where I talk about the podcast some more, feel free to skip ahead!

'Minerva and Arachne' René-Antoine Houasse 

* Arachne was a great weaver in ancient Lydia (which would later become Turkey), and when she was complimented on her skill at the loom, people said "surely you must get your gift from Athena, since she is the goddess of weaving both in terms of the loom and in terms of war strategy, and so on and so forth." Arachne was like, you know what, no, I didn't get my skill from Athena, I taught myself so credit where credit is due. On the one hand, fair enough sister, but on the other ... I mean, you know what gods do to mortals in your world for much less. Then, a mysterious old woman arrives (insert eye roll here) who tells Arachne that she's slighted Athena, and she must make it up to her by apologising and admitting that her gift is Athena-given, but Arachne declines. Lo and behold, the old woman is Athena, and she challenges Arachne to a "weave-off" (This is Liv's phrase from the podcast and, honestly, I love it). Athena weaves a tapestry that shows her victory over Poseidon for the naming of Athens, when he created a geyser of water and/or a horse, and Athena created an olive tree - a symbol of Greek life. In the corners of her tapestry, Athena wove instances when the gods meted out justice to hubristic humans, and the whole thing came together with a "glory of the gods" sort of theme. Arachne, however, wove a tapestry that showed the gods' abuse of human women. Europa, as Zeus-the-bull whisked her away, looking back wistfully towards her homeland, while Zeus took her towards a future where she is raped. She also wove Asteria being assaulted by the eagle, Leda by the swan, Antiope by the Satyr, Danae by the golden shower... and the other gods didn't get off lightly either. She showed Poseidon assaulting Arne as a bull, and Hades as a snake, plotting to take Persephone. And on she went, weaving a beautiful image that told an ugly tale of rape by the gods and the suffering of mortal women. And... it was better than Athena's. This was even more unforgivable than the tapestry itself, so Athena destroyed the tapestry, and then turned her attention to destroying Arachne. Arachne tried to kill herself to escape Athena's wrath, but Athena was too quick, and tore off her hair and eyes and ears, and turned her into the first spider, who weaves her webs for life.

'Medusa' Luciano Garbati

* Medusa. Oh, where do we start with Medusa. She was one of three gorgons, two of which were immortal, and Medusa herself, who was mortal and beautiful. She had dedicated her life to Athena, the virgin goddess, and was worshipping in her temple one day when Poseidon comes and rapes her. He rapes her on Athena's alter. Athena cannot bear to look, and when she turns back, she is intent on revenge. Does she loose her famous wrath upon Poseidon, the unequivocal villain in this story? Or does she blame the victim? She turns Medusa - who wanted nothing more than a quiet life serving this goddess who had turned on her - into a monster whose looks will turn people to stone. She turns Medusa - whose only crime is being beautiful in a world where the gods can take who and what they like - into a monster whose beautiful hair (that which attracted Poseidon) becomes hissing snakes. Athena turns her into an outcast monster, and then Athena sends one of her first heroes, Perseus, to kill Medusa because ... by that point, why the hell not?   

* Medusa has long since been used as a symbol of feminist rage, since Hélèn Cixous' polemical The Laugh of the Medusa. In this, Cixous reimagines Medusa as liberated and laughing, because she has escaped the patriarchy by writing in her own, female and feminist, mode of writing. Another great example is the above art, in which the artist has reimagined Medusa as the one who beheads Perseus. Note that she's not holding his head up in triumph, like Cellini's famous sculpture in Florence, in which Perseus proudly holds up Medusa's severed head. This Medusa looks tired of the patriarchal bullshit that turned her into a monster, got her beheaded, and has oppressed women for thousands, yes thousands, of years.  

* I propose we do the same thing with Arachne. Let's make her the symbol of every female artist who has faced patriarchal bullshit, exclusion, and oppression in her field. 

As Liv would say: But I digress.

But not really, because if you were reading that thinking "YES! This is exactly what I like, learning about myths through feminist storytelling, in which it's firmly situated in the ancient context in which it was written, but it also deftly relates to our modern living!" then I have some exciting news for you. That's exactly what Liv does in her podcast. You should all go and listen to it.


Let's Talk About the Lysistrata, Baby!

We've talked about Liv, and we've talked about Let's Talk About Myths, Baby!...  now I want to talk about another L: the Lysistrata.

I started this post by talking about my steadily improving, but initially quite poor, knowledge of Classics. If I had to pinpoint one area of Classics that is still my weakest point, I would probably say it's drama. Dear Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and all the others ... I am sorry. But I'm getting there, I'm slowly familiarising myself with these ancient playwrights and their timeless works. Two of the main things that have helped have been this podcast, and a book lent to me by a good friend, a book called The Greek Plays by Ellen McLaughlin, who is an American playwright most well known for her adaptations/interpretations of Classical plays to make contemporary points, primarily focussed on anti-war discourses. Both Liv and McLaughlin have introduced me to Aristophanes' Lysistrata and its various potentials for contemporary society, so now I am going to share it with you...

It felt like the Peloponnesian War - the ancient war between Athens and Sparta - was never going to end. The men were sick of fighting, and the women sick of their men fighting. But, like with most wars, the pride of men on both sides was stopping peace.

Enter Lysistrata.

Lysistrata convened a meeting of women from the warring city states, and asked them what they would sacrifice for peace. They say they would sacrifice anything, their lives, their homes, anything. Lysistrata asks them if they would sacrifice sex. "Absolutely not!" they reply, because they love sex, they love orgasms, and using sex toys just isn't the same as their husbands. (Nope, I didn't make that up - this extremely popular play actually has women talking about how much they love getting off, and the relative pros and cons of masturbating versus sex. Try getting that on television now!)

Lysistrata convinces them that this is the only way to broker peace, which leads to some really amazing lines in Ellen McLaughlin's adaptation:
'KEEP IT ZIPPED 'TIL THEY FLIP!'
'CROSS YOU LEGS OR HOPE TO DIE!'
'MAKE LOVE NOT WAR ... That sounds so familiar.'
'STOP IN THE NAME OF NOOKY' (McLaughlin 2005: 216-7)

... I love it.

Anyway, Lysistrata and the women seize control of the Acropolis, and demand peace. The men arrive, and they are affronted and angry, but they're also absolutely gagging for it. 

Lysistrata expertly chairs the peace talks, and introduces the men to a beautiful woman called Reconciliation.

This play by the comedic Aristophanes depicts women politicising the only power they have to broker change and peace amongst the men who rule their cities. It is hilarious, but it's also a powerful symbol of gendered political protest. As such, it has been adapted over the years to suit a number of political protests.

Ellen McLaughlin wrote her adaptation of Lysistrata for The Lysistrata Project, which was a worldwide peace protest in the wake of the 9/11 attack and the subsequent bombing of Afghanistan. The project was a call for women to rise up against war, where thousands of readings of Lysistrata were performed worldwide in protest. This is a great example of how ancient myths can be repurposed for our contemporary world; though Lysistrata and her women were protesting the ancient Peloponnesian War, the message of Aristophanes' play is easily translatable to modern conflicts.

On the 14th May 2019, Liv did a timely rebroadcasting of her Lysistrata episode on Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! in response to a more contemporary use of the play. This was because of the so-called "Heartbeat Bill" in Georgia, which would ban abortions after six weeks, and hold women accountable for abortions and miscarriages. It is absolutely disgusting. There are no words I can find to explain how inhumane and inexplicably awful this is.

In response to this Bill, some women online were suggesting a sex strike as protest, an idea that is born from the Lysistrata. Liv explains why this is a bad idea:

1. Aristophanes wrote comedies; the Lysistrata was never intended to give sage political advice and tips for activism, it was meant - as most comedy is - to make people laugh and to highlight issues in society. This sex strike did not happen, it is not history, it is satire. 
2. It implies that sex is something that women give to men, and that men deserve sex from women. It completely ignores the idea that women are sexual beings. Women can and do like sex themselves, it is not simply something they do for men. Liv intelligently points out that this is a dangerously regressive idea, and it belongs in antiquity along with this play. 
3. Women were property in Ancient Greece. They were owned by their fathers and husbands, and they had absolutely no autonomy or citizenship. The metaphor Liv uses is that they are essentially employees going on a strike. To do this sex strike now would imply that modern women have equally no power in the world; yes, the patriarchy is still a powerful force that oppresses women in both minor and major ways on a daily basis but, no, we are no longer just the property of our eldest male relatives. We are citizens, with jobs and money and cultural capital, all of which we can use for activism. We do not have to do a sex strike. 
4. Also, this "Heartbeat Bill" affects every person with a uterus. It would be the ultimate TERF/homophobe move to say: hey, heterosexual, cisgendered women, here is your platform for protest. Everybody else, move along. 

In summary: Whatever you can do to protest, do it. But a sex strike is not the answer. 

Liv says 'in this episode, you will hear me love on the Lysistrata. [...] It was ancient Greek women who had no power. This was the power they had. But we have power now, so use it, and have sex whenever the fuck you want. And use your voices to point out that there is only one thing that impregnates a [person], and that is fucking sperm.' 

So there we have it. The Lysistrata as literature can be re-politicised in contemporary contexts, but under no circumstances should it be used as a how-to guide for women's protests. The Lysistrata is witty and, in its own way, sex positive and protofeminist. But we are not living in a pre-feminist world, so we have options beyond a sex strike, and if Lysistrata was around today, she would probably use protesting, striking, and writing because she would have the power to do so. 

My name is Shelby, and I love this shit. 

As much as I love a good myth, they should never be used as a guide on how to live your life. If you want some sources to support this, read literally any myth. 

Or listen to any myth - I hope I've done a good job here of reflecting how funny and informative Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! is. I hope you've read this and got the impression that the podcast is one of the most well-researched I have ever come across, and the feminist analysis is truly original and second to none. I hope I've done justice to this badass woman whose work was there for me when I was feeling very lonely and apprehensive and scared at the start of this PhD.

I hope you go on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and immediately subscribe and download. 

I hope you follow on Twitter & Instagram & check out the website to support the podcast in every way you can. I also hope you think of her merch the next time you're shopping for my birthday/christmas/etc., hint hint. 

Cover art from Myths Baby