Medea

I think Medea is a warning to men to not underestimate a woman. Based on my last sentence you’d think that it was written to be feministic but no. This story is written from Medea’s perspective but she is the villain of the story. She kills everyone out of anger for her husband. She is a caricature of a woman to show the worst of what can happen if giving in to “feminine charm.”

Throughout the story people overestimate Medea’s innocence and cut her slack that allows her to murder people. Creon is fooled, the King of Athens is fooled, Jason is fooled, and even the princess is fooled by Medea’s seeming feminine innocence even though she was visibly angered just moments before. It was the characters misguided trust that killed them in the end and people use the exact same trick even in 2020. Due to the closer balance of gender equality now, it doesn’t work as well but back during the Cold War and World War II the government used women as spies because they were “innocent” of any crime and they couldn’t possibly fool a man into telling all their top secret military information for the other side. Just kidding, they were totally capable of that and used their own oppression to their advantage. Nowadays Medea takes form in abusive mothers who win custody of their children over the fathers. It is interesting to see how people have known that this stereotype is harmful for so long, women have been telling men to stop applying the stereotypes to them, and even still society can’t get over the fact that men and women are capable of the same love and atrocities.