Gender Swapped Greek Myths

[IcakethereforeIam]

Interesting article from the Guardian on a new book. It seems the writer and illustrator have previously gender swapped fairy tales. I think it is fair to use gender (although I've not read the books) because they keep the stereotypes and it highlights how, frankly, psychopathic behaviour is just accepted in male characters.

www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/07/it-was-exciting-to-create-these-beastly-huge-grotesque-women-the-authors-gender-swapping-the-greek-myths

In some legends, Tiresias had his sex changed by magic, currently in short supply whatever the tras assert. Hera would have been GC.

How bizarrely naïve not to recognise that the Greek heroes were rapey, misogynistic psychopaths. I wonder whether the villains seem more or less psychotic as the opposite sex.

If they had (correctly) named it 'Sex Swapped Greek Myths' I might have been interested, but as they cannot even get this basic word right there seems little hope for the book.

I'm not sure that works with gods. Zeus gave birth to Athena via his skull as an EMCS. But he's definitely gendered masculine.

How bizarrely naïve not to recognise that the Greek heroes were rapey, misogynistic psychopaths.

When I was reading kid’s versions of the Greek myths I was bizarrely naive. Or perhaps just ordinary levels of naive for a child that age. I had to make my own inferences and deductions about sexism and misogyny from my reading material - and I think I did a pretty good job all things considered, but it drove me a bit nuts that nobody ever talked about it.

I really like this project. I do think that bookworm kids need to get the talk about sexism and representation that I never got, and this seems like an amazing way to go about it because the stereotypes in Greek myths are so stark. I’m sure the creators are probably devoted genderists but I still love this idea.

Sounds great!

What is interesting is some of the fairy stories we know were specifically cautionary tales for girls. (Red Riding Hood was probably a warning to not enter prostitution).

(Although they've become something quite different as commonly told now).

Even if it doesn't work, it's an interesting exercise.

Swapping sex of fictional characters in mythology as a thought exercise is fine - the fiction of swapping sex by actual people in the real world can be problematic, though...

Actually, Zeus giving birth to Athena is only part of that story. It is preceded by him hearing a prophecy about the child of Metis, the Titan goddess of shrewd thinking, being greater than its father. Zeus determined there should be no such child. He invited Metis for drinks amd initiated a game of who could transform into the most difficult shape. Thinking he had a gotcha, he challenged Metis to turn into something very small like a fly, which she did, and landed on the rim of Zeus' winecup, whereupon he swallowed her. Sometime later, he had to engage Hephaestos to split his head to let out Athena. I think this puts him in the realms of the midwife toad or a seahorse as far as motherhood goes. Athena's skills certainly relate to Metis' area of influence, not Zeus's.

Sure, but I think what I'm trying to say is that the concept of sex doesn't necessarily apply the same way to non-human beings that never in reality existed with physical bodies, and never had to physically reproduce within the confines of how their biology was configured. So gender may be a more appropriate word to use when talking about swapping them.

Red Riding Hood was probably a warning to not enter prostitution

I've not come across this interpretation before, would you mind elaborating on it?

Well the Greeks themselves recognised that the stories of their gods were shocking - Plato even said in his Republic he would ban plays about Greek gods doing all these terrible things, because it showed them in such a bad light and would corrupt the young to see their gods behaving so badly.

Given that all the gods are products of incestuous relationships and many of the rapes take place in the form of animals I can honestly say Greek myth never seemed that relevant to my idea of gender.

Did the authors think to change gender of Queen Pasiphae and in the story of her rape of the Cretan Bull? I doubt it.

Is this like the clown fish? Mythical Greek gods could change sex therefore...

I liked the phrase “ once you’ve got your gender swapped goggles on, you see the world differently”

So I’m off to get my goggles and start raging!

I think my favourite gender-swapping eye-opener is that video someone did where they swapped the Batman and Catwoman characters in a cutscene in a video game, so you can see more clearly how ridiculous the body animations are. We get used to seeing female characters moving in this hypersexualised "feminine" way that isn't much like how any human being actually moves, but seeing Batman do it jolts you into noticing how daft it is.

Reminded me of the men doing pin-up poses, Furry.

twistedsifter.com/2012/01/men-in-pin-up-poses/

Yep very similar vibe

Found this by googling 'the avengers butt's poster', I think the artist was pissed of by the original:

I'm trying to find a decent article in English!

As with all fairy tales, there's various interpretations, versions and readings, inevitably. The 'wolf' was often a 'were wolf' and in the older versions Red manages to escape by saying she has to pee ...

The needles and pins were said to be relevant to seamstresses in rural French history, I'm now trying and failing to find good sources ...

It's commonly accepted to relate to female puberty, though.

expositions.bnf.fr/contes/cles/verdier.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood

Ah, here we go:

www.terriwindling.com/folklore/red-riding-hood.html

that's a good essay - bit more complex than a 'warning against prostitution', perhaps:

'"Perrault's 'girls' are bien faites and gentilles: of the aristocracy. His warning is not simply to girls, but to the well-bred, educated women of high society who, in inviting men and women together in mixed company, set a dangerous precedent. Perrault's wolf is the dapper charmer of Parisian high society, seducer of young women and a threat to the family patrimony -- he is, as one folklorist has called him, the 'unsuitable suitor," who insinuated his way into the best beds in town, deflowering young women and robbing their value as virgin pawns in the marriage de raison."'

Thanks, Arabella. I'll look at the links later.

Don't forget that Dionysius was taken from Zeus' thigh!
Teresias was asked what sex was like for the different sexes and replied something like 'if the pleasure of sex can be counted as 10, 9 go to women, but 1 goes to men'.
I used to be fascinated by Greek mythology, but, even as a teenager, knew that they were fiction and a reflection of a long-gone society. That's one of the things that made them interesting.
The thought of miserable people trawling through them to make them fit the norms of today make me think of Samuel Bowlder, painstakingly going through Shakespeare to remove the bits unsuitable for women and children.

As a child I remember being puzzled and a bit annoyed by having to read Greek and Roman myths and legends and tales of gods. They seemed very silly as well as somewhat disturbing. But then I found the Catholic doctrine I was brought up with silly and disturbing too.
What nonsense people believe and foist on children.

I read the article and I don’t at all get the impression they’re “dyed in the wool genderists”, making out like “hey this Greek heroine may have actually been a trans man”. What they seem to be doing is highlighting and shining a light on the assumptions people have of what is acceptable behaviour for men / male gods, and acceptable behaviour for women / female gods - and switching them round so the women are behaving in a way that isn’t traditionally feminine, and the men are behaving in a way that isn’t traditionally masculine. Which is of course much more like reality than the mythological and storyline pigeon holes that characters are put into.

And precisely because everything in Greek myths is larger than life, outrageous and exaggerated, it shows up our unconscious biases really clearly. So where people would have said of a “hero” “hey yes he led them all to their death cos he was pig headed, but he’s a hero so he was flawed but brilliant”, they see a woman hero doing the same exact thing, and realise that our unconscious biases are saying “omg you can’t do that, what a horrible person she is, no excuse for that behaviour”. Then of course you immediately realise your double standard and see your unconscious biases for what they really are. And you can have fun in enjoying the female characters marauding around not caring what anyone else thinks, and the male characters desperately wanting to be a father, or falling hopelessly in love.

Seems a bit of a weird take to me. Were there that many people thinking that Zeus turning into a swan and raping a woman was some kind of salutary life example for the listener? That swapping the sexes will suddenly make people realise that this is wrong after all?

And does this book include the story of a male god turning a huntress into a stag to be torn apart by her own hounds for accidentally seeing him bathing nude? Because that would be a great one. And I want to see male Hera and Athena sponsor an eleven year vendetta against Troy because they're jealous that a mortal said Male Aphrodite was better looking than them.

Greek gods were pretty awful to people regardless of their sex is mostly the message I think we take from the Greek myths, I always thought.

Absolutely oldgardeinia
What people seem unable to grasp is that, in general, the deities of both sexes were not moral. Any amount of changing sexes is pointless when you consider how badly the goddesses behaved.

I think The Worlds Wife by Carol Ann Duffy and Circe by Madeline Miller are interesting as the tell the same story but from the female viewpoint.