What Is “The Medusa Effect”?

Remember when you first learned about Greek Mythology’s Medusa? Her story has been told many times, and in different manners but the main ideas are the same. Medusa was born a beautiful mortal until she was cursed by Athena (for reasons that were not her fault), and she was turned into a vicious and dangerous monster. The snake-haired Gorgon would turn anyone who would look upon her into stone. Now, as interesting as Greek Mythology is, I have to start explaining why I’m starting this writing with Medusa’s sad and tragic story; just try to remember Medusa’s ability to turn people into stone and you’ll be fine ;) I want to talk about something that I, personally, call “The Medusa Effect”.

This is a term that I use when I want to talk about the ‘stone nature’ people acquire when someone looks at them. Like Medusa’s site would turn people into stone, so does society’s presence on people. Young boys are told not to cry, and not to show emotions that might make them be perceived as ‘weak’. “Be a man!” is a line that we hear just too often in the course of a day. But what do people mean by that? Don’t be ‘a girl’ by showing that you are a human being with feelings and emotions? Or does it mean that if you show them, you’re being weak? Both questions should be asked when we tell a young boy (or hear someone say) “Don’t be a girl and stop crying!” (or anything similar to this)

We as a society have been raising men to be these tough beings with no, or very little, emotional side; and the moment a male starts expressing any kind of ‘weak’ emotion, he is immediately shunned down by everyone. So now the question that is raised is this: If we are raising our boys not to show emotion, how do we expect them to help make this society a better and more caring one? Because at the end of the day, we are humans that want to continue to live in this world through generations; so we must leave a better future for the ones to come. Consequently, how can we do that when we are denying and depriving half of the population of their emotions? We are limiting young boys’ full forming potential by imploring them to behave in a way that we would perceive to be showing toughness and strength.

On a personal viewpoint, I do not look upon emotions as a weak ‘feature’ on a man (young or old, it does not matter); on the contrary, I do consider the lack of them as weakness, not only in men but in everyone. Someone who does not show their ‘weak’ emotions can very easily be hiding their insecurities and fears behind a thick facade, thinking that their weakness comes from what you show to others or what you feel. Hiding a certain emotion does not make it go away and it doesn’t help the person heal from that feeling either. It only overloads that individual up to a point where they either break or burst. I ask this now: How can we be ‘OK’ with the fact that we encourage people, and especially males, to hide their emotions until they reach a phase of self-destruction? How can our consciences be clear when we have a double-standard and biased expectation on people, depending on their gender?

Personally, I consider a man who is capable of expressing what he feels, much stronger than a man who cannot do so. Expression of emotions in a healthy manner shows maturity, strength of character, wisdom, and that the person has established a trust-relationship with the individual whom they express their emotions to. Feeling sad, depressed, hurt, alone, discouraged, incapable, helpless, are all normal human emotions; it is much easier and healthier for these feelings to be expressed and dealt with, rather than leaving a person to bear these alone and act like everything is going just fine. I want to emphasise that just showing emotions can be a step towards healing, but it is not enough. One cannot just express what they feel and leave it at that; the second step is to accept your emotions or feelings and then find a way to help yourself (or ask for help) so that you can overcome what’s bothering you and continue your life normally. I will talk at length about dealing with our emotions in another post, but for now, I want to ask one last question: What can we do to influence and change our society away from turning males into stone statues that are only supposed to be tough and ‘manly’?

‘Till next time…

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If you would like to know more details about Medusa’s story (since I’ve mentioned it in this post), you can visit the website below ;)

https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Creatures/Medusa/medusa.html