Angry Women Speaking Truth to Power; a Q&A Episode (Part 1)
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Hi, I'm Raj Punjabi from HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michelson, also from HuffPost. And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.

And we're talking like legit, credible experts. Doctors, PhDs, all around superheroes. From HuffPost and Acast Studios, check out Am I Doing It Wrong? wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv. She who is maybe attempting video for, I guess, not the first time, the second. I do have this recording right now on video. We'll see if it ever sees the light of day. But until then, I am here with a Q&A episode for all of you.

First, just like a little quick update because there has been so much going on. So behind the scenes, the podcast has shifted. We've moved out of the iHeart Podcast Network and I have returned to ACAST under a very different type of situation where the long and short of it is I have no confirmed income anymore, but...

All the freedom in the world. And I am only holding on to the excitement of having all of this freedom and we're just going to... We're hoping for the best for everything else. But what that means is that there has been so much happening behind the scenes, not only because I've been shifting networks, but also because this shift in networks means that I can do...

some really fun stuff. And a lot of that really fun stuff is in the works. It's going to be taking a little while still. And in the meantime, I have minimal ability to script new episodes. I'm not going to bring you guys any fewer episodes, but there are just going to be fewer of the, you know, narrative scripted episodes that I normally do. I will return to them. Don't worry. It's just that in this transition,

transitionary period where I am essentially... I mean, I'm starting a lot of stuff. I don't know what to and to not say just yet. But I'm going to be bringing a lot more to you guys and it will remain mostly free. And we're really just going to be looking at like kind of all the ways that we can bring more of the ancient world and more voices from that time and really just...

I've been jokingly calling it the benevolent empire among my friends and the people I have already asked to kind of join my benevolent empire. And so more official information on that soon, but I'm trying... Excuse me, I'm not going to edit that out because video... I don't totally know. We'll see. I'm trying to limit how much I edit out. Basically, I want to build...

A benevolent empire, but something where there is a place for everything in this realm of history and culture and mythology from the ancient world, but which specifically is...

being created to give voices and stories to the people of the ancient world and today who have been historically marginalized, but also to specifically combat, you know, the way that the ancient world is so often utilized by the worst people among us. And with the very obvious growing rise in fascism, both in the States and abroad,

Hopefully not, but maybe in Canada and definitely elsewhere. I just think this is the time, you know, this is the time to be even louder when it comes to the way that history is repeating itself. But also just just like, you know, it's almost like the saying those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it is like legit and real and not just a cliche, right?

And so that really. So stay tuned for more. And until then, you can jokingly or you can know that I am creating but jokingly calling it this this forthcoming thing, a benevolent empire.

In any case, that is what's happening kind of behind the scenes and why there's going to be minimal scripted for a little bit. That and also a book deal, which is really cool. Not my novel. Not yet. Sorry, still working on it. But that's another thing I'm working on. But no, a book deal that will be announced soon and which I'm so fucking excited about. But essentially, that's all to say that's why I'm here with a Q&A episode. But it's also why I'm going to be here with some more kind of fun unscripted stuff just just for a little bit. But in the meantime, like

The questions that you guys give me are always so insightful and they always allow me to really flesh out lots of different things that you guys want to know and also to give me content that I don't have a script. So if you have a question for an upcoming Q&A episode, really, literally, if you have any question at any time, feel free to submit it via mythsbaby.com slash questions. So I'm going to get to some of those right about now.

Angry Women Speaking Truth to Power. Another Q&A episode.

All right, I got this title from a couple questions that I have seen in my ongoing list, and I'm pretty excited. And also, like, give me any reason to talk about angry women. Just give me a bit of inspiration via a question, and I will pop the fuck off. Because at this point, sometimes it's hard for me to figure out something to talk about just because I have been doing this for so long, and that's why I love your questions. Like how Sky left this one. I don't think that I...

Got to it in my last Q&A episode, but honestly, it's not impossible because there's been so much going on. But this one is from Sky. They asked, Do you think it's possible that the Zeus coup was written out of fear of the women would do the same thing to the men in charge? Because it kind of stands out next to the other myths, and I can't explain why. This would also support my theory that the women of the time would describe Hera very differently than the myths.

Great question, Skye. And I have the same theory. So there's a lot going on with the story of the attempted coup against Zeus. And I've covered it before. It was a long time ago now, so I'm not totally sure, you know, just kind of what depth I had of context, because that's really obviously changed over the eight years that I've been doing this. But so it's just, it's so cute. It's so interesting. Okay, so the coup...

generally only survives in the Iliad and not really as like any kind of in-depth story in the Iliad. In the earliest form, this idea that Hera staged a coup in an attempt to take down Zeus for being too tyrannical, it comes from entirely this background around Thetis's character in the Iliad,

You know, she is Achilles' mom. She is a goddess. And there is so much going on with Thedas. So I talked about her in a recent episode. And my ADHD means that I'm just now realizing that that episode I intended to, like, follow in and talk about other goddesses too. So I will get back to that. There's been so much going on. And that's not even including the fact that the world is descending into overt fascism. I mean, there was enough. There was lots going on just even on my side.

um in any case so so thetis thetis's story is entirely wrapped up in the iliad like she exists elsewhere obviously and you know there's there's lots to say about her and i actually will be recording with a guest soon for a really really interesting episode on thetis that is going to air probably in march um but

Really, there's just so much going on. And then because there's also so little going on, because obviously the Iliad is one of the earliest sources that we have that survives of any kind of Greek mythology. The Iliad and the Odyssey are notably the earliest pieces of epic literature that we have from ancient Greece. And so because of that, they contain a lot of what feels like backstory material.

That it,

would exist elsewhere, but which doesn't because these are the earliest sources. So like essentially when it comes to Thetis, there's like this an enormous amount of backstory that we just sort of don't have. And instead what we have in the Iliad is this idea that Zeus owes her. And Zeus owes her because she saved him from this staged, this attempted coup by Hera. And so we know that this coup like existed in the mythos, in the sort of backstory of the Olympians, but it really...

in terms of surviving for us today, it really only exists as this kind of like explanatory note for like why Zeus owes Thetis a huge fucking favor. And that, there's a lot going on in there. And so that's all to say that like,

I don't necessarily think that it was like written, you know, out of a fear that women could stage a coup against the men, you know, who were running things. But at the same time, it still contains this kind of echo of that, right? Like so many things from myth do this echo of what is sort of going on beneath the surface of these stories, right?

It feels like a kind of, you know, lost memory. It feels to me like how I've talked about the theogony, you know, and the ways that so much of the story of the origin of the Olympian gods seems to contain these sort of remnants of when women had more power, more agency, more control over the world and their own lives. And so I think the coup is kind of part of that. It's this sort of echo, but it's more like a missing piece because what's missing is like,

any kind of real detail about why Hera staged the coup, you know, what really went on, how, just how dramatic it was, how, how serious it was, is sort of lost because of the way that it survives. We do have it in later sources. I didn't look this up before rambling, but like, I'm assuming it's in at least Pseudopolodorus. I know that when I did the episode, it was hard to find much about it. And that's sort of what makes it

Both really mysterious, but also really interesting because I think that part of what's going on to your point about, you know, this fear that women would stand up is simply that like that is all that is sort of left of that story. Less so that it was like them fearing it, but sort of that they were kind of trying to

Not like take it out of their cultural history, but that it was not a really important part of the cultural history that was being recorded in something like the Iliad and the Odyssey. And by recorded, I just mean that like, you know, the Iliad and the Odyssey sort of represent something.

the lived or the idea of a cultural history as we presume the ancient Greeks understood it at that time, right? Because it's sort of all that we have. So I don't think it was necessarily like put down out of this fear that it would happen, but that I think it exists in such a tiny fragmentary and minimal form because of the fear that it would happen or rather this idea that like something had happened before that had threatened the

the patriarchal reign of Zeus and therefore the patriarchal reign of the culture, you know, interacting with this story and that like,

the this sort of weird little brief mention of it is is all that's left of that for the same reason so like i agree with you and also i think i'm just kind of providing like way more sort of context about what is going on in there but to your last point that like you have a theory that the women of the time would have described hera very differently like abso-fucking-lutely i've talked about that a lot and i completely agree like

There is no way that the women of the time didn't have, like, very different stories that they were telling each other and which would probably blow our minds. And it breaks my heart that we won't have those. But I think we can very safely say that, yes, absolutely. Like, Hera was seen differently. But also the idea of women's power and women's role in society was understood in a really different way by the women living it. Like, for good and bad. Yeah.

There's so much going on. But the coup, I really, I do want to revisit it in some kind of way. And certainly it might come up in my conversation about Thedas because she plays this really integral role. But it's just so interesting to me that that is basically the only place it's found because it means that we know that the idea that Thedas

Zeus was at least once questioned. We know that exists, that existed at the time. And that's kind of all we know. But that means a lot. This idea, like imagine if Christians just one day were like,

you know, God needs to be overthrown, or rather that, like, they had this idea that somebody that they respect did try to overthrow God. Like, Zeus, for all that we see Greek mythology in this really different way, but, like, Zeus is a proto-God. Like, the word, like, Deus, as God broadly, is also a form of the name Zeus. Like, that D is becoming a Z. Like,

And there's just, there's so much going on there. And also like D is kind of a Z, like there's a lot, etymologically speaking, but like Zeus was God, you know, in that way that any kind of monotheistic God could have existed in that kind of culture. And so this idea that other very important gods once did think like we could have it better is really interesting because it really says a lot about the culture and the people and how they saw their deities just in general.

As always, that was a very long answer, but I'm really glad that I had that question. So thank you, Sky.

Bye.

All right. We've got a real quick question here that I think a lot of people probably want to know the answer to. So thank you, Lynn, for asking it. Lynn asked, I have a question about ads. Do you get less money if I skip the ads on Spotify? I know YouTube works like that, but there you have a skip button, which Spotify doesn't have. Also, thank you for your fantastic show and the obsession I've gained from it. Well,

Lots of other beautiful things. Oh, a big thank you to Michaela. I love the Hermes Historia episodes. Thank you. Thank you. Michaela is doing fucking awesome with those and I'm so excited and I love them too. Okay, ads. So number one, actually, and I should have mentioned this when I was talking about moving from iHeart to Acast, but the ads are going to be better. Okay, they're going to be better. They're going to be less. They're going to be less. Oh, candidly, I really, really was upset with the...

Volume of ads and the type of ads that ended up in my show while I was with iHeart. They were not good. And then... So anyway, they also... I was able to leave because not only are the ads bad, but they basically offered me like...

half of what I was making before. I don't know. I didn't say it. It's fine. Anyway, I'm excited to be back with ACAST. And I think that the ads are going to be a lot more, I won't say enjoyable. They're going to be a lot less terrible. And with any luck, I'm going to be reading a lot more of them because back in the day when I was reading a lot of the ads myself, that was through ACAST. It was really nice. I liked it. I'm hoping to get back to that, but it's still early days. It's only been like a week. So we'll get there. But in the meantime, I still make money if you skip ads.

Skip them. Skip them. Skip them. I get it. They suck. Skip them. So honestly, yeah, I have no issue with anyone skipping ads. I really love that you guys want to make sure that I make the money. I really appreciate that. Skip your podcast ads. It's totally fine.

And on top of that too, if you are somebody who is looking for an ad-free option, we're really working on that. We do have ad-free options available. We're just working on making sure that all of the episodes are slowly uploaded. It's all completely manual. If I want to have this ad-free option,

feed. So we do have the Patreon, which is now called the Oracle Edition. It's really fun. We've got a whole little community going on over there, a really fun Discord server, and also an ad-free option. So when you join on Patreon, the minimum is $5. And with that $5 a month, you get access to the new episodes ad-free. So all episodes from the point when I did that

When I created this, which was just right at the beginning of January, I think all of those ads are now available to patrons ad free. You can listen via Spotify or most other apps. You can kind of do

do something with an RSS feed. I won't pretend I know the technicality, but I do know it's at least available on Spotify that way. Um, and with the Oracle edition on Patreon, you also get access to lots of other stuff. There are tiers to where you will get access to like all the past episodes in the back catalog. We're working on uploading them slowly. Um, but if you're not interested in like a ton of other stuff and you just want like a really simple ad-free subscription and you use Apple podcasts, you can also subscribe via Apple podcast.

I have intentionally made the Apple podcast subscription less appealing than the Spotify one because Apple takes 30% and Spotify takes like eight, not Spotify, Patreon. Patreon takes like eight.

maybe less actually, because I'm on like their original plan and Apple takes 30. So for these prices are all in USD because despite the US being the worst place in the world, you know, everything is still in their money, which is cool and fun for other people. But that's all to say $5.99 a month USD for Apple subscription gets you ad free new episodes, but also we've been uploading the past ones slowly, but it's a little faster to upload them through Apple. So those will be on there. That's,

cheap and to the point, rather not cheap. It's cheap-ish. Anyway, Patreon is only $5 US a month and you get access to all new episodes and a ton of other stuff. The Patreon is more appealing, like I said, because I make more money, but also it just allows me to do a bunch of stuff and have a kind of community. So if you're looking for like a big like

like just really being part of the show and, you know, like chatting with other listeners on this Discord. And Mikhail and I are in there too. And all of that, that's all via Patreon. If you're just an Apple user who just wants ad-free subscription, go on over to Apple. We've got options. But also, if you just want to listen for free, feel free to skip the ads. Absolutely no problem with this. And I love that you guys want to help. So thank you.

All right. Moving on. So I've got currently I have the well, I actually have a question from Mackenzie and Tony. I can see as two lines down. There might be more in this because honestly, I get like 20 of them every time I do Q&A. So I'm sorry, I'm going to mass answer this question. Basically, I've just been asked about Epic the Musical. OK, so I know of Epic the Musical. I know of Epic the Musical.

I'm so glad everyone has found it and they, you know, are loving the Greek mythology in it. Honestly, I've not listened to it. Not for any reason other than I'm not a big musical gal. Unless I'm like actively watching something. And also though, honestly, like at this point, I'm too deep in the mythology. And I just find like, it's not fun for me if I listen to something like that. It's like work and I'll probably like...

pick it all out. And like, I don't want to do that to someone's work. Like I have no desire to break down someone's work or like overthink it in that way. So instead I just kind of don't interact. Um, but I do think it's really great that it exists. It's clearly brought a lot of people to Greek mythology and like, that's fucking awesome. But all of that said, one of the other things that's going to come out of this, like what we're jokingly calling the benevolent empire is that I'm going to be working with other podcasters in this realm. Other people I know who are lovely and awesome, who might start doing something like a takeover episode

where they do an episode of Let's Talk About Myths, baby. And we are considering starting with things like pop culture, stuff that I have not been able to get to just because of the sheer amount of content I want to give you guys and how I can...

ingest Greek mythology reception content these days just because of it being work. So that might be happening. We will almost certainly start with Epic the Musical. So stay tuned. I've definitely heard of it. I don't have any opinions other than like, hey, cool. I'm glad something new exists. But we might have more soon. All right. This one is from

I'm so sorry. This is a terrible pronunciation. It's lovely. It has a J that my Canadian ass is getting completely thrown on how to pronounce a J in that word. In any case, he asked, how did you come up with the name? I imagine you just sitting at a desk and typing the first thing that came to mind. Anyway, I love the podcast and I've been listening for a long time now. You keep it interesting and informative and always have a nice realistic opinion about the horrors and tragedies that occur. Keep it up. Thank you.

Yeah, it was literally the first thing I thought of. What's wildest to me, though, is that not everyone, and it's probably just showing my age, but not everyone who listens to the show knows that it's a song. I don't just sing it for funsies. The song is Let's Talk About Sex, Baby. Let's talk about sex, baby. Let's talk about you and me. I'm terrible at singing. It's Salt-N-Pepa. I grew up in the 90s. Here we are. But yeah, so I literally just was like,

It was just like a complete whim. I was like, I am bored and sad and lonely. I'm going to start a podcast. I don't love anything more than Greek mythology. So I guess it's going to be about Greek mythology. Hey, what if it would it maybe that would be funny. It's the first thing that occurred to me is just replacing the word sex with myths in the song. And so I did.

And I, I do, I love the name. People love the name. I don't like how often I have to say the word baby. I've said that before, but here we are. Um, but no, it was literally the first thing I thought of. I didn't think about it at all. I didn't overthink. I literally just did it, which is funny now in hindsight, like eight years later with this being like my life's work, I could have thought about the name more, but I didn't. And here we are.

Okay, this next question is from Serena, who said, random question brought about by discussions I've seen online on Taylor Swift's coin necklace from Steven Botelli. Although Instagram is going the way of Twitter, I have spotted jewelry in your photos and wondered which are favorites or if you'd like to share anything about them that you haven't gotten to in the past. Is there a Greek owned online shop you like? Jewelry often has such interesting myths and stories attached to it. That's a great question. I want to have a great answer. I don't have, I definitely would love to be like,

aware of Greek online jewelry stores because I love jewelry. When I'm in Greece, it's hard. I'm not a silver gal anymore. I really like gold with my just whole skin tone vibes, whatever. I think it's the tattoos. I think it looks better with the gold. And so Greece is very heavy on silver when I'm over there. So I've not found too much there.

All that said, I actually did recently find a jewelry company that I'm really excited about. So I like that you had this question. So I was fed this Instagram ad and then did some digging and was like, oh, this sounds really interesting. Cool. So the company is called Nominal.

Um, and what really caught my eye is that they have like a warranty against tarnishing and also their jewelry is like water resistant. Like you can wear it all the time, like in the ocean even, which is really big for me. I've wrecked stuff because I'm incredibly careless and I never take anything off. And then I'm just like...

just fucking around in the ocean and then I ruin things. And so I was like, oh, this is a way to prevent that. And they had some really pretty stuff. And then like, that's what I found. And then I was digging on the site and I was like, oh, it's like it.

It's a site. I don't quite know all of the background, but it is a site with like or a company with very heavy Arabic and Islamic connections, both in the jewelry and the seeming the story kind of that you get by looking at their stuff. They have some really beautiful stuff. They have a lot of stuff for Palestine and they every purchase donates to Palestine and

And everything I've got, so I've got like a few rings from them. Again, it's called nominal. This is not an ad. I would take ads from them. I would very happily promote you guys. Hi. Um, but no, I truly just bought a ton of stuff recently because the prices are also pretty good, especially as a Canadian, it's really hard to get stuff. Um,

Even worse now. Now, things are great. But yeah, nominal. So I got this like really cool. I think it's called Helios, which is why I saw it naturally. But it's like this beautiful necklace with like a sunburst kind of thing. And it spins. It's really lovely. They've got a lot of really beautiful Arabic stuff. They've got a lot of like very explicit Palestinian kind of inspired things. And they just seem like a really good company, both in terms of the quality of the jewelry so far in my experience, and also just like morally. So...

That's my story. Nominal. N-O-M-I-N-O-M-I-N-A-L. Slow descent into fascism all happening around us all. It's just like kind of actually killing my brain a little bit, but we're doing our best.

Okay, I'm going to do one quick question from somebody who I just see didn't even leave their name. So I don't know why I'm answering it, but I guess I'm going to. And then we're going to answer one more about angry fucking women and we'll wrap up for the day. But I will probably do another Q&A because, again, I really need some unscripted stuff right now. And you guys have really good questions and I kind of love answering them. So this next one is from, again, blank. Don't know why I'm answering it. I am. They said, what's your favorite alcohol? Don't think that makes sense grammatically. Brand and drink for me.

from that brand and what's your favorite brand of snacks and snack? And I just think this is a funny question. I'm going to answer it. I like tequila. I'm a tequila gal. Tequila is good and great, but like I'm not a hard alcohol, like just straight gal. Like give me a really lovely flavored margarita, maybe a passion fruit. Passion fruit is my whole jam.

And so, yeah, that's it. I am just a lovely, yum, just a good tequila cocktail drink kind of gal. And snacks, I don't even, it just totally depends on the time. I, again, and this is going to all get worse. Everything from Trader Joe's, which is infuriating because as a Canadian, it's like already an enormous hassle to try to get anything from Trader Joe's. You know that Canada just like doesn't because we're just like so, the population.

population is so small and the landmass is so big and everything is impossible to get and everything is so expensive and it's going to get so much more expensive. And like, you can't even just get like affordable, tasty fucking snacks because everything is made in the States and everything is terrible. I don't know why a question about snacks turned that into a mess, but I don't know. I want a margarita now, I guess. And so this last question now is from, the question is so long I have to scroll. Tim from England says,

I've talked to Tim from England before, rather answered questions. Tim from England says, why does Clytemnestra kill Cassandra? There is a lot going on. Even now, I'm just like, oh man, maybe I want to turn this into an entire fucking episode. So there is a lot going on. You know what? I actually am. We're going to return to this question exactly in a different way. But I just...

Actually, you know what? No, this question is long. I think it's going to really get my brain moving. And I think I want to do even more with this because I just that's it's a good question.

So instead, honestly, we're just going to wrap it up for today. I hope to get back to doing more of these. I'm thinking of returning when I do return to narrative, when I have some time to write out some scripts. I think I'm just going to go back to a play because those are always fun and a good kind of transition back into things. But in the meantime, if you have any questions, if you want to inspire a kind of rambly unscripted episode from me, please send them in because I want that. I know I can...

tell you guys so much interesting stuff and answer any questions that you have and really expand upon these characters and context and all that stuff. I just kind of need the nudges, the sort of inspiration from you guys, especially like almost 700 episodes in. It turns out that like there's just like a lot. There's still a lot, but like you kind of

you get less and less inspiration the more because there's just so much. There's so much that lives in my brain. These questions were really great. Thank you all so much. We'll see if I do anything with this video. It's possible, I guess. So weird recording video.

But in the meantime, honestly, thank you all so much for listening. I will be back with more soon. On Friday, you're going to have a reading episode. We're doing part two or rather book two of Statius's Thebiad. So we're returning to this epic from Thebes. And I have also been recording so many conversations. So for good and bad, they're so good. But it just turns out that like every topic I want to talk about that's like

interesting and good and valuable from the ancient world also has ramifications today because again history repeats itself and if we don't fucking learn from it it's just happening over and over and over again and what that means is that while I've been recording all these conversations for you guys which have been so good and I'm so excited to share them all but it also means I'm having like weeks of conversations where I just have to like talk for hours with people about all the terrible stuff but like really in a good way

I don't know. It's tough. Anyway, we're navigating this increasingly terrible world. We're going to keep bringing you content that makes you think, makes you remember the history and why we need to be loud and angry and just...

I don't know. Somebody's got to lead the revolution. It's not me, but I can keep sharing things from that ancient world that will teach us all what we need to know in order to, I don't even know, move forward in this. 2025 is wacky, isn't it?

Let's talk about Myths Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Pangowich is the Hermes to my Olympians, my incredible producer. Again, there is so much going on behind the scenes. So stay tuned for so much more. Honestly, sign up for my newsletter, mythsbaby.com slash newsletter. I have done a whole two.

up to this point, but we will keep it going and it will be the best way of learning of this benevolent empire that I've been not so subtly hinting at and anything else that's going to be going on with the podcast. Especially because Instagram...

I mean, all the big tech broligarchs, as we're calling them now, they have just really decided to go all in on the fascist takeover of the United States. And it just means that, like, all social media is scary now. So that's really fun. It's really fun. It's really hard to figure out how to share things with you all. So...

Sign up for the newsletter. I will probably keep posting things on Instagram, like really minimally because it is, I don't even know. I'm trying to be on blue sky more. Listen to Let's Talk With Miss Baby wherever you get your podcasts. I don't totally know what else to say at this point. We're working on that too. I am Liv and I do love this shit. Joe Coy, Just Being Coy-tour.

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