Divine Might Goddesses in Greek Myth

It's a duality that we often see when someone describes something as 'women's work’. They never seem to mean 'work that can only be done by women because of the skills they possess'. They tend to mean something arduous and boring that they wouldn't choose to do, decorated with a patina of gender stereotypes.

Zeus and Hades obviously never consider what Persephone might want, but they also disregard Demeter in their plot, even though she is their sister. They simply decide between themselves that Hades should have whatever he wants and assume that Persephone will get used it, since she can't escape it. And yet Demeter - mother of this young woman and therefore firmly occupying the space where women become invisible to the eyes of predatory men - doesn't accept anything. She weaponizes her rage, flexes her tremendous power and forces them to do what they should have done all along: consider Persephone's feelings and consider her own.

If he loved her. he would want her to be happy, even if it meant losing her. Wanting to own someone isn't love, it's just possession.

We like to be able to separate heroes, villains and victims. It's convenient for a simple narrative, but it isn't always reflective of the truth.

Great poets must be male, because there they all are, proving it. The great female poet can be disregarded because she is basically inhuman, a goddess, and so doesn't count.

These Muses always remind me that scientists and artists should disregard the idiotic attempts to separate us. We are all nerds, in the end.

But while Xenophanes doesn't stray into such inflammatory agnosticism - he doesn't question the existence of gods he does still observe that the way we depict or perceive gods might reflect our own appearances and values more than the god we claim to define.

Just because a lot of people died young doesn't mean anyone wanted to.