Picture this: Medusa, our girl, living her best life in ancient times, rocking the kind of beauty that stops people in their tracks (and later, quite literally). But then, boom! She's caught in the middle of a celestial scandal that could headline every gossip column from Olympus to the Underworld.

Medusa, innocent and minding her own business, becomes the pawn in a divine game of blame and shame. Now, let’s get into the real tea. Medusa was just chilling in Athena’s temple, maybe lighting a candle, saying a prayer, when Poseidon, the god with more power than sense, decides to make an unwelcome move. And who gets the blame? Not the powerful god, oh no. It’s Medusa, the mortal woman, who bears the brunt of Athena’s wrath. Talk about misplaced anger!

Her gorgeous hair turns into snakes. Yes, snakes. Not your typical bad hair day fixable with a deep condition and a silk press. Imagine the heartbreak and the betrayal. One day you're the it-girl of ancient Greece, the next, you're exiled with a head full of reptiles.

But here’s where Medusa flips the script on them. Instead of succumbing to victimhood, our girl embraces her new, uninvited look. She turns her curse into her power. Those heroes trying to slide into her DMs for the wrong reasons? Stone-cold rejected. Every so-called hero who tried to test her got a one-way ticket to her rock garden. She turned her pain into her power, her curse into her castle’s best defense system

But let’s dive deeper. This story? It's about more than just turning lemons into lemonade (or in Medusa's case, turning peeping Toms into stone statues). It's a tale spun to keep women in their place, painting them as victims when they dare to show strength. Medusa’s story has been twisted by those who feared the power of a woman unafraid to wear her pain and her power like a crown. Yet, in our retelling, Medusa does more than just overcome; she rewrites the narrative. She's not a monster; she's a monarch of her own making, a beacon of resilience. She turns her so-called curse into the ultimate clapback against a system designed to keep her down. And in doing so, she shows us the power of owning our stories, of transforming our pain into our triumph.

This isn’t just a story of victim to victor. It’s a masterclass in flipping the narrative. Medusa taught us that sometimes, when the world throws you to the wolves, you come back leading the pack — or, in her case, with a gaze that makes them wish they’d stayed puppies.

This is a call to all women. A reminder that we can take the narratives meant to villainize us, to paint us as perpetual victims, and flip them on their heads. We can find strength in our struggles, sovereignty in our scars. So here's to Medusa, our sister in arms (and snakes). Her story is a testament to the enduring strength of women, a sly wink across the ages that says, “Honey, they may try to write you as a villain, but we know who truly owns the throne.” Let’s embrace our inner Medusa, snakes and all, and remind the world that our stories, our truths, are ours to tell — with a bit of sass, a ton of class, and, when necessary, a gaze that can turn haters into stone.

Medusa

Decolonize Awareness