Man, it's wild how badly people have misunderstood the Medusa myth. It drives me wild that people keep getting tattoos of her, and it's now synonymous with protecting SA victims despite the fact that TUMBLR MADE THAT SHIT UP.
Long winded Rant/Explanation below:
Basically, in the original myth—Medusa was always a monster. She always had snakes for hair and the power to turn people to stone.
(BTW, Medusa has wings. That's why Pegasus is a winged horse. I feel like not enough people acknowledge this—)
She was not cursed nor punished—she and the other Gordon sisters just... looked like that because they were the daughters of ocean deities.
She was pregnant at the time of her slaying, hence why Pegasus, her baby, pops out when she is killed.
Now—her pregnancy is never explained in the original myth. She just is, and this was fine because Medusa overall is actually closely meant to be symbolic of a figure of fertility. That's why her hair being a twisting mess of snakes and her accessories being snake themed is important. Tangled up snakes are a symbol of fertility (if you don't know why, it's cause that's how snakes mate).
Perseus killing her is very symbolic of and mirrors the fact that by successfully killing Medusa, he saved his mother from being SA'd by the king. This is also why her depiction shifts from being a monster to being a beautiful woman. It better emphasized that she is meant to be a symbol of fertility—and her beauty goes on to become a very intentional narrative.
Medusa being beautiful places her in a more sympathetic light and is meant to display how victimizing women hurts everyone. Medusa is killed in her sleep and Perseus is a coward who can not bring himself to hurt Medusa head on but has to in order to save his mother, and Medusa is a beautiful woman who is harmed by the King's Greed. No one really wins.
Of course—the sleeping version wasn't as popular because it makes Perseus seem not like a clever hero. Hence, most people are familiar with the versions where he kills her with the mirrored shield. I prefer the sleeping version because it's from a narrative meant to be more woman-sympathetic.
ANYWAY.
The popular modern notion of Medusa as a symbol of SA that was made up on tumblr acrually combines the misogynistic Roman version and the more woman-sympathetic Greek version.
See, there's actually NO version where Medusa was SA'd.
The closest we have was a version written by a roman man named Ovid—Ovid hated nothing more than women.
He (and much of the Romans tbh) HATED the notion of an unwed mother. So, in his version, he writes that Medusa was a beautiful woman who had consensual sex with Poseidon and is punished for defiling a temple. This version is meant to make her punishment justified. She's punished by being transformed into a monster—her hair is made into snakes, and she is no longer allowed to look at men, turning them to stone. A punishment for her promiscuousity (note: Medusa only turns men to stone, btw. This is a whole allegory about ~ dangerous whorish women ~ who bring men down). This is entirely meant to be a reasonable and justified punishment—and her death is also meant to be a justified and reasonable punishment.
The interpretation of her being SA'd comes from a mish-mash of the Greek and Roman versions—where Medusa is supposed to be a victim in the Greek version but a whore in the Roman one. So you end up with... a story where an SA victim is punished for being SA'd.
And that story, which is VERY modern and VERY recent—like it popped up during the 80s and 90s—is the one everyone keeps repeating.
DOLLIE: ...
DOLLIE: i kind of hate the place i live in
DOLLIE: one thing i learned from living here for a while is that the void is mostly void
DOLLIE: and only partially stars.
