Above and Beyond
Once upon a time, goddesses were important. By the time our stories began with ‘Once upon a time’, goddesses had become unimportant. Womankind kinda got hidden from view as man played God, and systematically worked at guiding our mindsets into an oppositional arrangement:
Science over art
Fact over fantasy
Thinking over feeling
Reason over intuition
Light over dark …
These are all offshoots of the primary configuration:
MASCULINE PRINCIPLE
feminine principle
And today, man is mostly still on top.
A lot has changed, but you can’t scrub out an ideology that’s been around for eons, and assumes so many clever disguises.
Even so, when all is said and done, it’s just a man-made social construct. The goddesses may have been overshadowed by this erection, and they might have disappeared from our modern narratives, but girls, take note and take heart: They did not disappear from our psyches; there’s still meat on their primitive bones; they are no shrinking violets!
Man Never Came Before Woman in Mythical Reality
A case in point in the ancient stories is Gaia, the sublime, wide-bosomed earth mother who got it on with Uranus, the sky god. These two produced some very ugly children. Horrid. The Hecatoncheires were fifty-headed, one hundred-handed giants, and the Cyclops were shifty one-eyed monsters with crappy social manners. Still, Gaia loved all her children dearly. Uranus, on the other hand, was ashamed of them. (Really? Like having ‘Uranus’ for a name was something to be proud of?) He was so embarrassed by their looks, he hid them away—the first lot in the depths of earth; the second lot even deeper, in Hell. And he rejoiced in this; had a ball!
Not for long, though …
Sore and Raw
The Mother of All was good and mad. She hatched a plan to avenge her man. Gaia convinced one of her sons, Cronus (only one head, two hands, two eyes—still bloody ugly), to castrate his father. She even made the iron sickle Cronus used to carry out the deed.
Extremes in behaviour, granted, but ancient myths are jam-packed with extremes of everything. They’re our raw, uncut stories representing the roots of the many themes of the human condition (Love, Death, War, Misogyny etc). Just look at myths if you want to understand the deepest patterns of your psyche and what drives you. The characters personify and bring to life all the aspects of it. And in each story, we can pinpoint many archetypes of character. Amongst the possible archetypes in this myth:
- The man with no balls
- The woman who has a man by the balls
- The ball-breaker
- The woman with balls
All, metaphoric in a civilised society. Skip 1, 2, 3. Go to 4.
It takes balls for a woman to forge a path for herself in a society built on patriarchal lines. Gaia had them (not just her husband’s). The primeval mama obviously wasn’t just a fluffy maternal sort. She was an awesome combination of nurturer and fierce protector who didn’t suffer fools or subjugation. And she could teach us a thing or two about (self-)acceptance. She loved all her children equally—‘children’ symbolising all the (often underdeveloped) facets of our innermost nature: the divine and human; the male and female; the good, bad and downright ugly. Complementary, not oppositional.
With that sense of Gaia-empowerment, when you see yourself as a woman of substance—let’s say, a woman with ‘lady-balls’—there’s no need to vie for the upper hand.
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I laughed out loud at Uranus being the “butt of many jokes.” Sounds like cosmic justice in light of how he treated his own children whom he was ashamed of, as if it were his right by virtue of being male to do in the event of any form of disappointment… No! It was a selfish, mean, erroneous, unfair assumption that the primordial “Woman With Balls” took upon herself to challenge on behalf of herself and her children. I can think of no more inspiring Archetype to dig deep into my own psyche to revive fully. The day I am able to pronounce, “She lives!” without second-guessing myself, or wondering how I might be punished for it, will be triumphant, indeed!
Thank you for your insights!
Paula Houseman is her name.
Dismantling a system of pervasive, crazy-making double standards is her game! ?
Ah, but here’s the thing with these goddesses (and gods) of ancient myth. They were anthropomorphic, so, by dint of having human characteristics (in the extreme!), they DID second-guess themselves and no doubt wondered how they might be punished. But they didn’t give a crap about these insecurities! Gaia loved ALL her “children”. The day you/we can say, “She lives, and occasionally screws up royally!” will be triumphant!
Thank you, Steph, for your uplifting words.
I enjoy your writing Paula, although I’m unclear why women should want to “have balls” in this sense. Isn’t that just accepting the patriarchal view of things, where balls are a sign of strength? Isn’t the feminist view more that balls are a source of male weakness that women thankfully don’t have but can exploit? That’s why we say ‘she has him by the balls’, but we’d never say ‘he has her by the balls’ (in fact I think there is no equivalent in that direction). You can’t imagine Uranus ever having Gaia ‘by the balls’ in that sense.
The other thing I’ve always wondered is why Gaia ultimately relies on her son to deal with Uranus. I’ve always assumed she should’ve been able to deal with him herself but we’re never told that, and I really wish we had that alternative version of events that’s entirely focused on the female strength alone. I’m curious how that would play out? I can’t imagine her castrating him with a blade like her son did. Perhaps she would expose her “wide bosom” to him in order to drive him wild with lust, but the second he reached out to grab her breasts, she would seize his most vulnerable male organs in a vice grip, threatening to unman him with her bare hands if he didn’t beg for forgiveness. I don’t know if that entirely fits the character? It is hard to make an extremely feminine character powerful over a man like that.
Thanks, Jane, and you raise some interesting points!
I agree that the idea of women having ‘balls’ can look like accepting the patriarchal perspective and that feminism views balls as a source of male weakness. That said, radical feminism turned the tables on patriarchy. And I think that while the initial backlash was a natural and necessary reaction to oppression, extreme solutions eventually fall short if we don’t seek a middle-ground perspective. One that accepts the patriarchal values imprinted on our psyche but does NOT allow governance over it. In light of that, ‘lady-balls’ might be a better option. 😉
And as with all stories, a lot of it comes down to interpretation. I dare say Gaia relying on her son to deal with Uranus is an empowered choice! The way I see it, Cronus castrating Uranus is blowback … the toxic masculinity bred by patriarchy means man ultimately harms himself (with Cronus and Uranus representing two aspects of the psyche)