Pandora’s Box: Women As Power, Patriarchy as Fear

This is an article about feminism.

But first, a story.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Pandora. She was the first woman, created by Zeus in equal parts punishment and blessing when the trickster god Prometheus gave mortals fire. Pandora would be a gift to Prometheus’s brother, and Epimetheus would make Pandora his wife. Prometheus warned against it, but who could resist beautiful, young Pandora?

But Pandora was young, and foolish, and she came with a jar; A jar fashioned by Zeus himself. And though the men were certainly responsible enough to heed Zeus’s warning to not open the jar, Pandora was a naive girl. And thus, Pandora’s curiosity would lead her to unleash evil upon the world, because she opened the jar.

Thankfully, the jar would be sealed again, leaving inside one blessing — hope.

In this way, in Greek myth, the creation of women, and the first woman, would forever be bonded to chaos, death, and evil.

If you think this sounds an awful lot like the story of Adam and Eve, you would not be the only one to make this connection. Even in Sumerian myth, the source of all evil, the mother of monsters, was the primordial sea-goddess Tiamat.

As a storyteller, it is my task to understand this form of human expression. And, throughout many mythologies, but especially how stories evolved through the millenia, women, and especially the first woman or feminine figure, have been something to be feared. They are not just linked to destruction, but chaos.

Looking deeper, there is also a pattern among the gods. Whilst the pantheons usually had kings, the cosmos kept in order by men, whatever birthed them was a woman. Whether this was chaos or some kind of primordial goddess. This actually makes the Abrahamic, monotheistic faiths unusual, as they make know mention of the primordially feminine, but instead focus on the order-creating masculine.

But, in many conceptualisations of the Abrahamic faiths, the primordial with which God creates is indeed feminine, in everything but name. What’s more, the gods of the Abrahamic faiths, although often addressed with the pronouns of he and him, often are beyond gender, despite being described in the masculine. This did happen in other mythologies, and my mind goes at once to Nordic myth, which itself was actually influenced by early Islamic religious belief.

Ymir, the first giant, whose body forms the cosmos, is often described using he/him pronouns, but is also both male and female. So we see, at some point, the feminine figure becomes hybridised with the masculine figure. But, the feminine as sovereign is erased through language and cultural recognition.

Now that is interesting.

Suppose we think about the way that old cultures and mythologies spoke positively of women. Some would summarise that a patriarchal view of women essentialises that they are less capable, less powerful, less important. But, I don’t think this is correct. I don’t think it’s a correct view of the beliefs themselves, but certainly not what forms those beliefs. In fact, there was a lot to say that women were very powerful.

Firstly, mothers were seen as warriors. Many cultures believed that childbirth, and only childbirth, was enough battle for a woman to fight more than any man would have to fight. This is how it was viewed in Greek, Nordic, and countless other cultures.

Secondly, when we look at who served as protectors and guides in the afterlife, they were often women. Ancestral spirits, such as the Fyalgja, were often explicitly feminine. Women were essentially bonded to the earth and the world in a way men were not.

And if we look at how patriarchy typifies women, it isn’t as weak. Physically, their capabilities are not often brought up in texts. If the point is to talk about how weak women were, we would see that theme come up a lot more in stories.

The ways we see women being antagonised is through otherworldly power, such as witches, and madness. We see this in concepts like hysteria, which still linger in medical discrimination today, and in mad characters like Lady Macbeth or Lady Mason in literature. And if we look at how mythology depicts women, it is not as fundamentally meek, but fundamentally destructive.

Women are depicted as having powers men can never possess.

A Freudian psychological analysis of this might suggest that it is all an extrapolation from how women can give birth, whilst men, when they think through their own biology, might be able to do more physical activities, but what’s unique to them — ie their penis — spends most of its time flaccid, and small. And, it is seen as an enabler of the feminine process, suggesting inherent subservience. This was the view proposed by Dr. Prevan Karian.

This falls in line with the fact that we have seen discrimination against women who cannot mother children or who mother the wrong kind of children (if they are disabled or the ‘wrong sex’).

As such, if we return to the story of Pandora, as I think that illustrates this theme best, women are not weak. And in fact, patriarchy, i.e. what had to be done in order to stop Pandora, requires the limitation, control, and subjugation of women. If they are the kind to assert their power, they may unleash the power that only they hold, or lose themselves in the process. And for men, in order to feel safe, they must have control over women and their potential.

In this way, the burning of witches (the superstitious, hypothetical power) and the limitation of reproductive rights (the real, biological power), come from the same part of patriarchy.

For men, their role is to be subservient not to women, but to womens’ innate power. To father children and provide for them. In this way, patriarchy does not see itself as making women serve men, but makes men serve birth. And in order to do this best, patriarchy insists on many other ideals that are all in service of this role. This includes status, but also explains the patriarchal contradiction between needing great sexual prowess and conquering, alongside enforced monogamy.

This is why men who serve a traditional, patriarchal ideology do not see themselves as putting themselves above women, because patriarchy essentialises the power, and therefore value, of women to their ability to give birth. Not just on a practical level, but a psychological, cultural, and historical one.

As such, anything that violates this relationship, or threatens the cultural conception of it — be at homosexuality, gender transition, race mixing, anti-ableism, asexuality — threatens patriarchy. And as such, a battle against patriarchy involves a battle against homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism, acephobia, and many other forms of discrimination.

And, our battle against patriarchy must understand that it is based on fear. And because of that, I want to end with a thought.

Could some of the ways we signal women’s power actually enforce patriarchy, by making men afraid?

That’s not a comment against feminine empowerment. It’s just something to think about.