In Greek mythology, Medusa was raped by the sea god Poseidon in the Temple of Athena. Athena found no fault in Poseidon, but was furious with Medusa. My question is why would Athena not find any fault with Poseidon?
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There's a discussion of this question on Quora that covers all the points I wanted to raise. Personally, I've always preferred the explanation that Medusa was a priestess in Athena's temple. Defiling it by having sex there would be bad enough, but with Athena's enemy? Athena was already a short-tempered goddess, so Medusa must have known she was in for trouble. Also, as the Quora discussion notes, the gods were notoriously lenient towards each other, while smiting mortals hard and often.
solsdottir
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Poseidon was a god, and Athena was a goddess. She was not powerful enough to punish Poseidon. He is a elder god, which makes him second only to Zeus.
solsdottir
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maxasela
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Because all religions ever were invented by some misogynist guy who wanted to set a nice delusional foundation for a patriarchal society and hence when they wrote the story they naturally put the blame on the woman?
user3791
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Theres a unspoken hierarchy in place with greek mythology based on power and respect. Also views of society were different when the storys we're first told. Thanks to creative minds that questioned everything. Things changed in the direction they thought best.
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I also thought about the question as to why didn't Athena help Medusa? Supposedly Athena was jealous of Medusa which possibly could of clouded her judgement as to whether she should save her or not. I mean it is her temple she could of at least did something.
Then again as the goddess of war, she possibly could have believed that women could defend themselves, that they were just as strong as men and wanted Medusa to fight off Poseidon. But that wouldn't make sense since Medusa is a human and Poseidon is a god so there's no fighting him off.
Furthermore, with Athena afterwards putting a curse on Medusa it kinda seems like she and Poseidon planned for this to happen, which would mean Athena was so envious that she'd go to extreme lengths to get back at Medusa. Athena could of went to her father and told him that Poseidon degraded her temple but instead decided to punish Medusa.
It all just makes it seem like the gods just like playing with the humans and Athena could care less about her followers, she only cares about her reputation. Sure Athena was powerless compared to Poseidon but she could seek out her father to help her make him pay and if Zeus refused she could have talked to other gods for assistance, basically, all of them fight against Poseidon. I'm pretty sure since she's the goddess of wisdom she would have been able to persuade a few gods to help her.
It says that Medusa's parents were gods if they were Athena could of went to them for aid. This all makes it seem like Athena just wanted an easy way out, and that would be by punishing medusa. Though trying to punish Poseidon would cause total chaos, you could say that's why she didn't try to ask her father or other gods.
But last time I checked she wasn't the goddess of peace but war so that would pretty much mean it's ok to have a war but not between gods. In all honesty, this just makes Athena seem to be falsely symbolizing wisdom and war. She's supposedly very smart yet couldn't find any ways around this. Maybe Athena didn't want to save Medusa because she disliked her. It was one thing to cast Medusa out of the temple but when setting a curse on Medusa just sent it overboard.
Medusa would have already been ashamed and depressed since she was raped and cast from being a priestess but with the curse, Medusa couldn't even have a normal life. This just makes Athena look like either a coward or completely selfish.
I thought about all this after watching this video: The Story Of Medusa - Greek Mythology Explained
yannis
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