I'm watching yet another iteration of Greek mythology where Zeus is a deadbeat dad who wants to do better and Hera is the vengeful word-I-don't-use, and it's just so sexist.
Does anyone know of any Greek myth retellings from Hera's point of view? I'd love to read a feminist take on all that.
@orionkidder I have written a few stories from Hera's point of view but just one of them is a retelling (her getting together with Zeus). It's pay what you want on Smashwords:
@orionkidder Natalie Haynes writes Greek retellings which focus on the female characters (goddesses and mortals). Hera hasn’t been a main character in the ones I’ve read, but she is there.
@orionkidder A Thousand Ships if I recall? The last book of hers I read was Stone Blind, which is about Medusa. Perseus is depicted as an idiot and a thug.
Pat Barker wrote Silence of the Girls which is another feminine retelling of Troy. But I didn't find that one to be as good since it ended up ditching the women in the story and going back to Achilles moping in his tent.
@Emmacox I didn't get that Stone Blind is about Medusa. That's a great story to tell from her point of view! I latched onto A Thousand Ships because the Trojan War (as told by Homer, anyway) is one misogynist atrocity on another, so it seemed like a good one. I'll do Stone Blind next. Thanks for the recommendations!
@Emmacox I can imagine the value of spending time with Achilles in order to show how bravado and patriarchy emiserates us all, but I haven't read that book.
I was recently thinking about how many women, specifically queer women, I've heard talk about how gratifying it is see men in fiction, tv, or film depicted as having emotions other than anger and lust, as demonstrating some level of sensitivity. I never would have guessed, but I get it. It's a glimmer of hope that men aren't all bad.
@orionkidder It is good to see a weakening of emotional gender stereotypes. When I write, I try to focus on writing believable characters rather than fit them into a gender stereotype box. The male character in my current WIP appears to be angry at first appearance. But he is in that phase of grief and once it dissipates he expresses a whole range of emotions and levels of sensitivity.
@Emmacox That's the goal! I want a lot of things out of feminism, but on that list is that men get to express a whole range of emotions without being accused of being gay as if that were a bad thing.
Like, c'mon, just let cry and stuff. It's not asking a lot.
@orionkidder I married a man who is very much in touch with his emotions. He has been called feminine and gay because of it. I believe crying is a wonderful way to purge emotions from the body.
@Emmacox I was raised by hippies who told me it's okay to cry. I'm always a little confused by people who think it's not.
And yes, I was called various names for "insufficiently patriarchal." It sucked. But then I graduated high school and spent my time with better people. :)
@orionkidder My family were pretty stoic. I've learned later in life that crying is good. I can recall the first times I saw both my parents cry when I was a child. Both times had a great impact on me because crying was perceived as something negative.
@Emmacox I can imagine. I think my parents told me it was okay because theirs had told them it wasn't, but it didn't mean they were comfortable with it. They wanted me to have more than they did.
@orionkidder@Emmacox If you do read the original Iliad or Odyssey, you will find that men actually cry quite a lot in it. In the ancient Greek world, crying wasn't seen as unmanly. Men were supposed to reign in their emotions, i.e. extreme anger (see the rage of Achilles the Iliad is about, it's not a positive thing) or extreme lust were not seen as something desireable in a man.
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