Meet The Myths: The Women History Called Monsters

Spend enough time reading mythology and you start to notice how often a woman gets blamed for something a god did.

An assault becomes her shame. A rejected advance becomes her punishment. An attempt to gain a little knowledge becomes everybody’s problem.

These stories have been told in different ways for centuries. For our mythology designs, we’re taking another look at the women in them. Some deserved a better ending. Others deserved to be left alone with their herbs and forest friends.

Blamed for what men did

Medusa

Our bestseller, and not by accident. Medusa is the face of a very specific kind of rage.

In Ovid’s telling, Medusa was assaulted by Neptune in Minerva’s temple. The punishment fell on Medusa, whose beautiful hair was turned into snakes.

Her beauty taken away — the measure of any woman’s worth, obviously — she became the monster people remember, with serpentine hair and a look that could turn men into stone.

There’s a reason she’s become such a powerful feminist symbol. A woman shamed for her own assault became the ultimate weapon against the male gaze.

👉 Petrify The Patriarchy T-Shirt · Medusa Embroidery Tee · Medusa Socks

Persephone

A goddess in her own right, Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, only to become his queen and rule over the Underworld with him.

The whole “taken against her will” part is easily romanticised after that. Being made queen sounds rather better than being abducted, particularly if you skim over the arrangement that requires her to spend part of every year in the Underworld.

Surely, the least a queen should have is complete freedom.

👉 Freedom For Persephone T-Shirt

Helen of Troy

Being called the most beautiful woman in the world apparently meant Helen also got to take responsibility for what men did about it.

Her departure for Troy with Paris — an abduction in some versions, a willing departure in others — became the cause attached to the ten-year Trojan War. The men who assembled armies and spent a decade fighting it? Somehow, she’s still the one best remembered for starting the trouble.

You might have heard Helen referred to as “the face that launched a thousand ships”.

We’d also like a word with the men who launched them.

Sirens

Legend has it that the Sirens were either hideous or beautiful (because women can strictly be one or the other) creatures whose song lured sailors to their deaths.

Our take? Women were blamed for crashing ships they weren’t even on. Apparently, even at sea, men’s actions were women’s responsibility.

Our Sirens design celebrates women having a voice. Sirens cannot be silenced.

👉 Sirens Cannot Be Silenced T-Shirt

Punished for knowing things

Eve

Punished with pain and hardship, what was Eve’s crime? She ate the forbidden fruit because she believed it would open her eyes and give her wisdom.

Admittedly, the rules said not to. But “because I said so” has never been a particularly satisfying answer, even from God.

We’re here to exonerate Eve, and encourage all women to seek knowledge, challenge the rules, and eat the damn apple.

👉 Eve Was Framed T-Shirt · Eve Was Framed Mug

Lilith

According to later Jewish folklore, before Eve, there was Lilith, Adam’s first wife.

Fighting for equality as the first ever woman, Lilith refused to be subservient to her husband. But alas, even at the dawn of creation, the masculinity was fragile, and Adam couldn’t handle an empowered woman.

Lilith fled to the Red Sea instead, and swapped marital oppression for sex with demons. Love that for her.

Cassandra

Gifted with the power of prophecy, Cassandra could see into the future. But after she turned down Apollo’s romantic advances and bruised his fragile male ego, he saw to it that no one would ever believe a word she said.

So when she tried to warn everyone about the Trojan Horse, she was ignored.

Entire city destroyed. A ten-year siege ending in disaster. A warning that could have made all the difference — if they’d just listened to a woman.

👉 Should Have Listened To A Woman T-Shirt — new, limited edition

Circe

Circe was just your average powerful sorceress enjoying harmless pastimes. Chilling with her wolves. Foraging for herbs with her forest nymph friends. Turning strange men who showed up to her island uninvited into pigs. Making girl dinners.

We have no idea why generations of male writers painted her as a dangerous temptress.

👉 God Forbid A Girl Has Hobbies T-Shirt — new, limited edition

Punished for not complying

The Maenads

The Maenads were female followers of Dionysus, associated with ecstatic worship and ritual revelry. They were also portrayed as mad, frenzied, out-of-control women who abandoned their households and gender roles to run wild in the mountains. 

That description alone probably tells you something about what was expected of them at home.

Their myths can be bloody, particularly in Euripides’ The Bacchae, where divine frenzy ends in horrific violence. But our design takes its cue from something rather more relatable: women getting called crazy when they stop behaving as expected.

We say they just wanted a girl weekend off from the men, and frankly we can all relate.

👉 The Maenads T-Shirt

Pandora

According to Hesiod’s account, Pandora was the first human woman. Created by a pissed-off Zeus as a punishment to mortal men (lol), she was designed as a “beautiful evil”, with the women who followed her blamed for bringing misery to men.

Facing that warm welcome to the boys’ club that was Earth, can we even blame her for opening the box?

Technically, it was a jar. But the detail we’re more interested in is that Zeus engineered the punishment, while Pandora became the name attached to everything going wrong.

👉 Justice For Pandora T-Shirt

Why any of this still matters

Obviously, we’re not expecting the Greek gods to have a particularly progressive take on women. But the blame, the double standards and the idea that a woman saying “no” is asking for trouble? All still a little too familiar.

That’s why we keep coming back to these stories. There’s plenty to question when you stop taking everyone’s word for it that Medusa was the monster, Pandora ruined everything and Apollo was a perfectly reasonable bloke.

Our mythology designs give us a chance to take their side. And honestly, between seeking knowledge, wanting to be listened to and enjoying a weekend away from men, we think they’ve got a fairly good case.

👉 Shop the full Myths Collection