bazazilio’s Reviews > The Heroine with 1001 Faces > Status Update

"Mary Lefkowitz tells us that the Greeks’ most important legacy is not, “as we would like to think, democracy; it is their mythology.” That mythology has been instrumental in perpetuating myths about femininity and naturalizing patriarchal discourses that position women as suffering in silence and lacking any form of real agency unless they weaponize their looks to bewitch and bewilder."

“Edith Hamilton had no trouble at all including a full-page illustration entitled “The Rape of Europa” in her Mythology. It shows the moment of Europa’s capture as one of rapture, a frolic on the high seas, complete with dolphins, mermaids, and the figure of Poseidon all cheerfully participating in aquatic pageantry. Europa, we read, was “exceedingly fortunate”

this was required reading in US schools…