Euripides' The Bacchae recounts the emergence of the Dionysian Mysteries in Greece. Dionysus, disguised as a mortal, comes to Thebes from Asia, accompanied by his followers, the Maenads, to avenge his mother, Semele, against her family, who accused her of lying about Zeus impregnating her. He enchants the women, including the king Pentheus' mother, Agave, into joining the Maenads. Appalled, Pentheus prohibits all Dionysian rites and persecutes the Maenads. Pentheus captures Dionysus, but he escapes and tricks Pentheus into “spying” on the Maenads, luring him to a gruesome death as the Maenads, led by Agave, dismember him with their bare hands. Agave returns to Thebes with her son's head, convinced in her madness that they have triumphed over
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The Dionysian Mysteries provided for women an escape from ancient Greece's rigid patriarchy. Similarly, social media provides a validating space for millennial marginalized women's voices. “92% of teens report going online daily … Teenage girls use social media sites and platforms … for sharing more than their male counterparts do” (Lenhart). Like the Maenads' magical thrysoi, which spontaneously produce milk, wine, and honey and grant them supernatural strength, social media has become a powerful tool for people to connect, communicate, and create, ushering an era of constant change in language, discourse, and humor that defies convention. This is amalgamated in the parody Twitter account @NoToFeminism: “I don’t need feminism because Men’s Rights Activists must have some good points otherwise they would be called Men’s Wrongs Activists!!!!!!!” …show more content…
Anything associated with young women, particularly young women of color, such as speech patterns, is ridiculed. “Young women are on the bleeding edge of those linguistic changes that periodically sweep through the media’s trend sections, from uptalk to “selfie” to the quotative like to vocal fry. … [If] women are such natural linguistic innovators, why do they get criticized for the same thing that we praise Shakespeare for? Plain old-fashioned sexism.” (McCulloch) Even Dionysus' protection cannot stop Pentheus' disdain and disgust for the Maenads' “silly Bacchic rituals” (Euripides, 273). Pentheus' voyeurism of the Maenads finds its parallel in the stalking and abuse of marginalized women by anti-feminists and white supremacists, a notable example being GamerGate, a violent harassment campaign against Anita Sarkeesian of @FeministFrequency. “[People] vandalised her Wikipedia page with gender-based slurs, and her YouTube videos were hit with a barrage of abuse. … Women are much more likely to be severely harassed in online spaces than men, and the harassment is much more likely to be sexually violent” (Valenti). Marginalized women online, in the same way as the Maenads in The Bacchae, are caricatured as angry, hysterical, “social justice harpies” who do not know their place and impede on civilization and destroy conservative moral
The Dionysian Mysteries provided for women an escape from ancient Greece's rigid patriarchy. Similarly, social media provides a validating space for millennial marginalized women's voices. “92% of teens report going online daily … Teenage girls use social media sites and platforms … for sharing more than their male counterparts do” (Lenhart). Like the Maenads' magical thrysoi, which spontaneously produce milk, wine, and honey and grant them supernatural strength, social media has become a powerful tool for people to connect, communicate, and create, ushering an era of constant change in language, discourse, and humor that defies convention. This is amalgamated in the parody Twitter account @NoToFeminism: “I don’t need feminism because Men’s Rights Activists must have some good points otherwise they would be called Men’s Wrongs Activists!!!!!!!” …show more content…
Anything associated with young women, particularly young women of color, such as speech patterns, is ridiculed. “Young women are on the bleeding edge of those linguistic changes that periodically sweep through the media’s trend sections, from uptalk to “selfie” to the quotative like to vocal fry. … [If] women are such natural linguistic innovators, why do they get criticized for the same thing that we praise Shakespeare for? Plain old-fashioned sexism.” (McCulloch) Even Dionysus' protection cannot stop Pentheus' disdain and disgust for the Maenads' “silly Bacchic rituals” (Euripides, 273). Pentheus' voyeurism of the Maenads finds its parallel in the stalking and abuse of marginalized women by anti-feminists and white supremacists, a notable example being GamerGate, a violent harassment campaign against Anita Sarkeesian of @FeministFrequency. “[People] vandalised her Wikipedia page with gender-based slurs, and her YouTube videos were hit with a barrage of abuse. … Women are much more likely to be severely harassed in online spaces than men, and the harassment is much more likely to be sexually violent” (Valenti). Marginalized women online, in the same way as the Maenads in The Bacchae, are caricatured as angry, hysterical, “social justice harpies” who do not know their place and impede on civilization and destroy conservative moral