Pygmalion was a talented Greek sculptor from Cyprus. After becoming disgusted by some local prostitutes, he lost all interest in women and avoided their company completely.
Pygmalion saw women as flawed creatures and vowed never to waste any moment of his life with them. He dedicated himself to his work and soon created Galatea, a beautiful stature of a woman out of ivory. Ironically, the masterpiece of his life was this statue of a woman. Perhaps he sought to correct in marble the flaws he saw in women of flesh and blood.
According to Greek Mythology, Persephone, the queen of the underworld, was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of harvest and fertility.
When Persephone’s mother discovered that her daughter was missing, Demeter scoured the earth looking for her. Upon hearing that her daughter had been taken to the Underworld, she begged Zeus to intervene and return her daughter to the living world. Zeus agreed to help return Persephone, as long as Persephone had not eaten any fruit that grows in the Underworld.
But Persephone had eaten a single seed from a Pomegranate tree that grew in Hades’s orchard. So she was bound to spend part of the year in the Underworld with Hades, and was allowed only to spend part of the year above ground with her mother.
The Amazons. It is said they were the most powerful women ever. In the ancient times, they were a tribe of independent, mighty women who had rebelled against the men-dominated society. They used to live in isolate places, exclude men from their society and make wars against them. Today, we can call them as the first extreme feminists.
