Conversations: It Turns Out Women Are People, Women's Collective Memory w/ Emily Hauser
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Visit us today at hellowisp.com. Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv, here with another conversation episode. Now, today's episode is with returning guest who will also be returning next month, Emily Hauser. When we recorded back in the fall, honestly, we just...

had to talk again. And so we recorded an episode that's coming up next month about Emily's new book, Mythica, or Penelope's Bones. It's called In North America, which I'm also very excited about. But we also just wanted to have an episode where we just kind of talked about women in the ancient world. I did originally have it...

It was going to be more structured, I guess is what I'm saying here. But, you know, everything is scary right now and pretty terrible. And I'm, you know, we're doing well over here, you know, all things considered. And I'm really excited about the places that we're going to go with the show and the collective and everything. But at the same time, you know, um...

It's tough. It's tough right now. And as you'll hear at the beginning of this episode, because I'm keeping it in because I think it's important, I kind of wanted to give or either I did give like a little bit of insight into where I am personally right now because there's just been some stuff in my life with a very good friend of mine and a now ex-friend of mine who...

Anyway, you'll hear a little bit. I'm feeling very distrustful of men because they just keep giving me reasons to. And that has impacted this conversation. So I'm just going to be honest about that. It is a really good, it is a really good conversation on women in the ancient world in terms of

them as real people who had real stories to tell and also the ways that we can kind of pick out pieces of those stories both from the epics and the mythology that does survive as well as whatever else we have it's a really really kind of all over the place conversation but really interesting and Emily and I had a great time and I think it's just really important to talk about

women in the ancient world in this way where maybe we're not talking about anyone so specifically, but just the very nature of existing as a woman in the ancient world. Because in so many cases, we're kind of expected to believe they just sort of weren't there or they weren't saying anything or they weren't telling stories. And that's ridiculous. And

And so, you know, today's episode, we just we kind of talk about them in whatever ways we could. You can read more from Emily in both her book, How Women Became Poets, which we had a great conversation about back in the fall, like I said, and a new one coming out in just a few weeks in the UK. It is called Mythica. And in North America, it is called Penelope's Bones. And both of those, if you can believe it, are also about women.

women in the ancient world and uh yeah it's it's really it's really important stuff um now more than ever i've you know it's uh it's hard uh to record introductions at this time stay tuned uh the collective is going to be doing some really great stuff where we are trying to bring any anything in this realm kind of into one place both so that we as the creators and and the historians of this work can

you know, can feel connected and can collaborate on this type of information and content. But also so that you all listening can find so much of it in one place. People who give a shit, for lack of more detail right now, people who give a shit and who are providing information

historical insights, access, whatever to the ancient world and hopefully eventually beyond. This is entirely a labor of love. I've said this before. I'll say it again. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just doing it because I think it has to exist.

And so that's mentioned also in this episode. You can learn more at collectivemem.com. It's like collective memory, except that was like $20,000. I'm sure I've said different amounts every time I've made that joke. Collectivemem.com. And for now, sit back and listen to a really...

interesting and fun and funny and also you know at times pretty terrible conversation about women in the ancient world but ultimately we came out I think the better for it and and you will too and dudes if you're listening give us a reason to trust your species because it's getting tough it's getting tough and but I promise I want to I promise I want to and so and the

Anyway, you'll hear it. Conversations. It turns out women are people. Ancient and mythological women with Emily Hauser. This is just going to be a fun chat about terrible things. Well, terrible, but you know, not terrible. Not terrible, but interesting, but deep, but sometimes terrible. Yeah, basically the life of a woman. Yeah, I've been...

This is a weird place. I'm going to like say this into the microphone a little bit because I'm, it's framing how I'm seeing things right in this moment. And I think it's maybe good for this conversation or at least it'll motivate me. But over the past week or so, I have been chatting and trying to help a friend long distance whose husband of 15 years and the father of her two children, um,

has just like essentially blown up their entire life and like not only was cheating on her, but essentially like was just like a lying manipulative gaslighter the entire time I've known him and I've known him as long as I've known her. And it's just a lot. I'm feeling as if I didn't already distrust most men. I'm feeling just...

very, very ragey against men right now. So we're going to talk about women, but also how terrible men have been to them. Oh my gosh. But I mean, also like when it's one of your friends, you start getting protective as well, don't you? Like there's also that kind of element of kind of like mama bear kind of protectiveness comes out and you're just like, do not hurt my girl. Right. I feel like I sympathize.

It's all of that. And it's also that I did consider him a friend. And it's the type of manipulation. And I'm conscious I'm saying it when we're actually recording because I actually kind of want it to be part of the show because one of his means of manipulation and gaslighting was to become my podcast's quote unquote biggest fan. And given my show is all about

you know, I mean, mythology, but in that it is about how women have been taken down by the patriarchy and by the behavior of terrible men. And to just now, so I'm feeling very gaslit by this man in a way that I am just like, I need to channel my rage, which is why I wanted to say in this microphone, because I don't, I don't know where I'm at, but I needed to say it into this because he's been too aligned with my podcast in a way that I'm feeling like so icky about.

And that's, and like, how do you unravel that? Because, you know, like it's, it's in some way, then it becomes this thing that was about you and your access to women and like lifting women up then becomes something that is also kind of contaminated, if that's not too strong a word, but it becomes wrapped up in this kind of

package of exactly what you're trying to like, I don't know. Yeah. Unpack and move away from. So yeah, no, that is, that is, that is tricky. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because like I have an undergraduate student right now who's doing a dissertation on women's anger and we have started or like she has started, but kind of, I was advising to start actually with Achilles anger because obviously like to understand where women

rage begins, you start with the rage of Achilles and the Iliad. But what I loved was this point that she brought out where she was like, women's anger is often a reaction to the violence that has come out of men's anger. So these two things, they like...

it's right for you to be angry, but you're being angry because of something that has happened from men and from a kind of much deeper place. So like, I don't know. I just, I feel like there's something there in terms of kind of action reaction, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, and this was not how I intended to go in, but you say women's rage and my brain screams Clytemnestra or Medea. And I think

they're such good examples of exactly how you just raised that, like the women's rage, but that is coming from the actions of a man. And yet their rage is still the main point that we are meant to take away now, or that like rather the, you know, the, the long-term, the thousands of years of interpreting these stories have led us to treat it as if Clytemnestra and Medea are just these people

wild angry women for no reason or rather that like their anger is the point rather than the crimes that led to that anger and I think it's a really good it's just a good sort of way of looking at the way that women's anger is treated in comparison to men's anger because it's no that's that's such a good point in that like it's um

Yeah, it's kind of like for if we if like you contrast it to Achilles and his rage, his rage is in many ways kind of instrumental and it's instrumental to his glory. So like he gets to kind of have his cake and eat it. He gets to exult and he also then gets to kind of have an epic written about him.

Whereas kind of what ends up happening for women is that if they kind of sit in their rage and in their anger, you're not thinking about the deeds and the memorialization. You're thinking of this or you're encouraged to think of it as kind of, yeah, this is what a woman is.

It's not what a woman does. It's what a woman is. Yeah. And so, yeah. So different from exactly. Yeah. Comparing to Achilles range is so good because it's like, yeah. Yeah. Either you get, you become Clytemnestra who is, you know, throughout the,

I've just been rereading the Odyssey, if you can believe it. I never know why. What a surprise. Yeah. And I read the first four books this morning for the first time in a few years. And so, you know, so you get this Clytemnestra who threw out all of that. It's like we just keep being reminded of, I guess it's mostly about Aegisthus, but it's still, as we get deeper into the Odyssey, it's really about, you know, Clytemnestra, like how terrible she is and like how, oh, your Penelope is so much better. Like she would never do that. And it's like just this idea of like what makes,

A woman worthy of men's respect. You know. Like Penelope versus Clytemnestra. And just the fact that the. Any kind of motivation. Clytemnestra might have had. Is irrelevant. To the way the men frame.

her anger. Okay, so I that is so on point. And I feel like that's something that I have been thinking about a lot. So we were chatting before we came on air about my book, How Women Became Poets, which which came out, like a year and a half ago now. But there's one passage in those early four books of the Odyssey that really jumped out to me because I don't know if you remember that

bit where Nestor is talking about the safeguards that Agamemnon put on Clytemnestra when he left and he left her in charge like in charge of her was a bard and

a mansinger and right yes I I took that in when I read it this morning and I remember thinking that's so odd and I yeah I even triggered to talk to you about it and then forgot so thank you oh that well you know because like this wasn't planned guys yeah why a bard why a bard exactly and what's super interesting about it if we just kind of go deep into it is that the word that Homer uses there he uses the word iodos which means which means bard

But it means, it means barred man because it's masculine. So like, and I feel like we always, always need to put that in. Like it's grammatically gendered. But then he actually adds the word anna as well, which is man. So he's a barred man man.

He's like doubly a man in the Greek. And what's super interesting about that is that clearly the bard is being put in place as a kind of enforcer of male values, like that the fact that his masculinity is being emphasized. And the way I read it, I'd be interested to hear if you think that this chimes with you, is that what the bard is doing is that he is not just enforcing her fidelity, right?

He is enforcing Agamemnon's return story. Because if you have a bard who keeps the wife in check and then she does what Penelope does and she waits and the man can have his successful homecoming, then what does he get? He gets a return epic. He gets an odyssey, right? Except you would get the... He's preparing. He's preparing. And he's safeguarding his epic. Yeah.

And then it kind of goes off the rails. And what I love about it is that we get that reported to us in a successful return epic from another dude. So we've got like this, this is not just a competition of the wives. It's a competition of the epics.

Yeah. Ooh. Well, in the way that so much, I guess that's, it wouldn't be in that moment because it's Nestor not, you know, and then Telemachus then goes to Menelaus. But I think of like, obviously the story of Menelaus is meant to, you know, connect back to what Nestor has told Telemachus. And so,

When you get this, like, also comparison between, like, we're talking about, yes, like, the safeguards of Clytemnestra and everything she did. And then we have the Helen of the Odyssey, who is so interesting. And so odd and, like...

I mean, she is so she's so interesting because she is so many different things. Like she feels like a very different Helen from the Iliad. She is magic. She has magic. She like plays with drugs. And but also is like the good wife who who like immediately like regretted going with Paris and like all of these things where you get this sense like it doesn't feel like

real so much as it feels like the story that she has told in her self-preservation and good for her she did it you know and to have that as like that comparison with Clytemnestra not only as this like just direct comparison of these two brothers whose wives you know did very different things but also that they are sisters which is also not really like mentioned it's just sort of you're meant to kind of know or not know which is interesting yeah

No, that's such a good point. And Helen is so great also in terms of thinking about how women are trying to push back to this fact that men are so busy trying to safeguard how their stories are going to get told. Because we've got that great moment where she gives Telemachus in book 15 of The Odyssey, she gives this robe that she's woven. And she said, this is going to be a memory to Helen's hands.

And like this idea of memory and poetry, obviously the goddess memory is the mother of the muses and poetry orality, like all of this is about memory. So she's like basically vouchsafing her own epic tradition.

And she's doing it through the weaving that she herself has done. You know, it's in some ways a lot more direct than what Agamemnon does where he has to like hire a bard man to kind of like wait until he comes back. Helen's just like, I actually just made this cloth and this is going to be what people are going to remember me by.

Oh, I love that. And also you said some magic words. So I don't, this is going to be, I don't want to say too much on, well, I can always cut it out. I don't know how much I've told you about the collective I've been working on with Michaela. Nothing. No, no. Okay. So simultaneously to far too many things, other things I'm working on, I have been

working on founding a collective of historians and creator people doing what I'm doing what you're doing as well but yours are more book related but if you ever have anything that's just like free content that you want to put out there please we got to talk but it's called the memory collective it is technically called mimosany but I am not

forcing anyone to pronounce Mnemosyne. Yeah. But it is called the Memory Collective, hearkening to that goddess and this idea of memory, memory compared with the history that has been preserved and passed down and all of the men that had their little fingers in it, right? And just this, the main idea of what I want to do is just be a place where people who are working in this, the realm of history, but who have that in their mind, who have this,

Basically, I mean, so much that's in How Women Became Poets. So much of that, the male influence, you know? And just, I'm putting together a place where people can go and find...

history in whatever form they want to take it in but which is coming from a place of acknowledging the patriarchal structure and damage and impact on what we know of as history just the a basic acknowledgement of that is sort of the tenets of being part of this collective and you know there's lots more to say about it that i won't try to yeah shove into this episode but it's funny because uh

the episode I released on Tuesday. We're recording this on Thursday. It won't come out for another week, but the episode I did was me just kind of rambling about memory as a goddess and a concept. Amazing. Yeah. For this purpose. So I'm like, no one ever talks about memory as a goddess. So thank you.

Oh my God. I'm here to serve. But I'm so curious. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. No, no, no. Yeah. It's so exciting. But what I was going to say, which is so interesting is that when we tend to think about memory in terms of like epic poetry, it's a memory that is...

selective, deliberately selective. It's a memory that that is like, this person mattered, or this object mattered. And therefore, I am going to relate to you their ancestry or their tale, often a man often the man's object.

And what I love about your counter vision of memory, and we might also say that that is Helen's counter vision of memory as well, is it's a way of inserting a kind of broader, almost archival memory of like, there are these other kinds of voices that haven't been heard and haven't been. So in the introduction to Mythica, which is coming out in,

Oh my gosh. Four weeks today. And we'll have another episode when it drops. This one will come up before, but we recorded the Mythica one before. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. We were just, we were just too excited to talk about that, but oh my God.

I just realized it's four weeks today. But yeah, so in the introduction to that, I have this quote, which I really love from Dame Hilary Mantel, who is just an obvious legend, who talks about particularly women as being sieved out of history.

And I think, oh, what a good phrase. I mean, that really for me, I was like, I get it now, right? Like you've got this kind of, you've got this tool, this mechanism, and you're saying what deserves to run through it and what deserves to be kept. And it sounds like what you're doing with your push to a different kind of memory is saying we need to remember that at some point, these were all in the sieve.

Right. Yeah, no, exactly. Just this like, you know, there's only so much we can do with all of these lost things, but the absolute base level is acknowledging that they're lost. And I think so much of how we learn history as a culture, particularly in the West, is just overtly ignores that we're taught that this is what it is. This is history.

the history. It's not the history that we have because of 2000 years of men. It's just the history. And it makes me think like, I don't, I don't blame people when they go like, Oh, but her story, but like etymologically, that's just not, that's not it. But it is still so relevant, you know, like it's, it's like, we really, you know, the women really have just been kind of left out, you know? And it's,

It's an interesting, I read the, you have the quote that like begins this one too, is the Adrienne Rich. Oh, I love that. And that made me. Yeah. Yeah.

I am going to read part of it and we'll just hope for copyright sake that I'm fine. But a radical critique of literature feminist in its impulse would take the work first of all, first of all, as a clue to how we live, how we have been living, how we have been led to imagine ourselves, how our language has trapped as well as liberated us, how the very act of naming has been till now a male prerogative and how we can begin to see and name and therefore live afresh.

And yes, that all of that, like that's it was funny that I picked that up. And I've thought of you a lot as we've been fleshing out these things, because when you in our last episode told me just the levels of excluding women from poetry, like and and the way that you I mean, I think about a lot because, you know, as you said, Mnemosyne memory is the mother of the muses.

But the muses, as, as again, you like pointed out in this way that I'll never forget, the muses aren't the poets. The muses inspire the poets, but like the men get all the credit and the it's, and even I think a lot about how like Apollo is the head of the muses for no reason other than like he has some vague associations and he's a man and they don't want to give that kind of power to women. And,

And meanwhile, it's like their mother is memory. The muses are all women. Like there are so many things there and you can just kind of feel like them almost like pushing at the seams to get out. Like, but they're just being constrained in this way through language and through history, through like preservation and selection and all of these things that mean that we today have been sort of led to believe that the women were just not part of it.

Or just like not there. Yeah. Do you know what I love about that is, is that like, maybe that's why their mother is why she's memory because at the basic level, it's remember us. Remember that we were here. Right. I kind of love that, that that's like, that's the root of the muses is just kind of the basic plea is remember that women and women's songs were there as well. But I just wanted to go back to what you said earlier, because I thought that was such,

a good and a rich point. And it's something I have been thinking a lot about in terms of kind of how we present history and indeed myth to younger people, how it is formed in curricula. And I was doing a talk last week at Edinburgh for International Women's Day, and we were kind of debating a little bit of this. And

The word that kept coming up to me was responsibility in terms of like, I think that we actually have a responsibility to young people to not underestimate them and not think that they are not capable of understanding themselves.

that history actually is a kind of narrative that has been forged for specific reasons. And I think what just really bugs me is that things are kind of

for years and years and years at school are presented as like, here is the fact, this is what happened, this is it. And then you kind of like, and obviously this is a particular bugbear for me because my day job is at a university. They come to university and you're suddenly like, but no, all of this was constructed, all of this was created. And I feel like if there was more work we could do to do that earlier, to do that kind of,

peel away that kind of, yeah, underestimation that is happening of young people where we just say here are the facts. I'm like, no, actually, who said this was a fact? Who created this? Who circumscribed this evidence? Who made this evidence? Where was the other evidence? Like, I just feel like that would be so much more of an interesting conversation. That's the thing. It's more interesting and it's more accurate and it's more, it's kinder to the ancient people. It's more,

realistic to us today because it makes them feel more real like the the word that keeps coming up to me as I'm working through this collective stuff which is a thing that I I feel like it has to exist because especially right now like I just think there needs to be a place where we can each like also amplify each other because it's really easy to get lost in all of the

men yelling. And so just like this, this place for everyone, but I also am like, I have no idea how to build this. And I don't actually think I'm the right person for it, because I'm a weirdo introvert, but I'm going to do it anyway, because otherwise, I don't think it's going to exist. But the word I keep using in all of this is context, because I think it's such a like a, it's a simple way of putting the this bigger issue that we are not taught the context.

We are taught the history, quote unquote. We're not taught the context of how that history survives, was preserved, like all of these things that go into it in order for it to become what we have today that aren't nothing about that makes it objective truth. And it also makes me think like the number of

I'm going to be very general here, but it's also pretty accurate. But the number of like white male historians and by historians here, I mean like public historians, particularly podcasters and things like that. But like these people who are putting out this kind of content for free or generally accessible. But the men have this fun habit of like

Saying things like, oh, you know, we tell the history. I am thinking of someone specific that I'm not going to name, but I'm trying to think back of what the actual phrasing was. But there was an article I read where some male historian said,

Was like, oh, yeah, you know, we we our show is successful because we leave out. We don't bother with like the modern morality or the modern lessons. We just talk about the history. And it's like there is only a very small subset of people being straight white men who are able to do that because the history was made for you by you over millennia.

But it comes from such a bizarre place of privilege that they do not acknowledge at all to be able to say something like that. Or the same goes for when people try to keep politics out of history. And it's like the very concept of everything that survives today to be called history is political. Everything that went into it existing now was political. It takes a level of...

and also just like being, I think, separated from a certain level of the rest of the world's reality to be able to think that is like a reasonable way of coming at history. Yeah, but actually I also think it's not just about privilege. It's also a fundamental misunderstanding of what history is. Exactly. But I think it's a privilege that allows you to misunderstand.

you know, because a lot, most other, not like everyone, but like most, if you were coming from a place of some kind of adversity, like you typically can't so easily understand that. But like, yes, exactly. Like, no, that's no, that's such a good point. It's like that, that's where, that's what leads you into the mistake. Exactly. Yeah. No, that's such a good point. And like, again, kind of returning back to Helen, maybe that's a little bit of the kind of intervention that she is doing. Cause one of the things I love, like,

that I didn't mention when we were talking about that Nema, that memory, that monument that she gives to Telemachus, is that she says that it is for Telemachus' bride on her wedding day and that it needs to be looked after by Telemachus' mother, Penelope. So what she's doing is she's...

She's using the man as a vessel, but she is taking her very feminine coded work of her hands and she is making this tribute to herself and she's passing it into the female line. So I feel like that's also in terms of kind of what you were saying about the collective and the curation, the community curation, there is kind of this history to that, this awareness that it takes a village to make a history. Yeah. Yeah.

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Well, I've been finding myself feeling very, very smart for using this, but it's not actually. But I've been playing around with, you know, the group is called the Memory Collective. But under all of our little logos, I've just had the words collective memory kind of grayed out or just sort of like hinted at and even like our URL for everyone. Check it out. CollectiveMem.com because collective memory was like $20,000. So it's collective mem.com.

But I think that that's something in there too, you know, because like, I think, I mean, obviously not literal collective memory, but that is the idea of collective memory is the only real way of getting women's stories like that. Like that, this, what Helen is doing by passing that on to Penelope to be passed on to the bride, like that is collective memory. That is sharing memory through these objects and, and very explicitly sharing memory because like,

there is little other way for women to preserve their own stories. Like,

weaving was an enormous part of being able to do that yeah absolutely well do you know what that's I don't know if this is something that we chatted about before but like I'll bring it up anyway because it's really fun in that like obviously it is really rich and resonant to talk about someone like Helen um who is such an important figure in in kind of literature and in myth but

- She is also always in Homer a product of a kind of male imagination and a male epic. And it's really important to acknowledge that like in as much as she still tries to untether herself. And I think there are readings we can do to untether her, but there is that kind of, as you were saying, there is that context.

But what I was kind of trying when I was doing the research for Mythica to find what kind of real women might be behind this. And I found this evidence. I don't know if you're familiar with the Amana letters, the Amana archive. I know. Yes, I know the term, but I'm not too much more.

No. So, yeah. So it's basically this incredible archive that is like really kind of pinpointed to the mid 14th century BCE from this this kind of new capital city that one of the pharaohs set up in in Egypt. And it was kind of like vastly unsuccessful, unsuccessful. And so it was abandoned afterwards, which for us is brilliant because kind of everything got destroyed.

kind of preserved like a time capsule but it basically they one of the things that was preserved was the texts the diplomatic records from this from this um capital so like original text from original texts i know i know and and what's amazing is it's just like diplomatic correspondence between all of the like big kings of the day and they're doing all of the big king stuff they're like um you know i'm so rich i need to build this temple you have so much gold i shall give you my horses if

you give me my gold. It's all very kind of like swaggering. But what's really cool is that some of the letters are between queens and they are exchanging messengers between each other. And there is clearly a kind of parallel messenger service that is going on. And they are exchanging cloths with each other. And what I love about this and kind of like try and flesh out in Mythica is that you can see that like,

that community of women's trade, women's networks, collective memory is happening in history. And we can see that later in Homer, but like, but women were actually doing it. And I think that's like an important point to make. Well, and that's, I'm so glad to have evidence, you know, to have at hand for this because it's,

I think about this all the time, the things that the women were doing that we don't necessarily know about because it's not like they weren't. And I mean, I've been thinking about this with like a lot of different people.

sort of notions from that world or just the things that women did. And so I've, I've tried to talk a bit about weaving on the show, but without being in a position to spend a lot of time on research. Um, but, but this idea of like weaving as this real thing that women could do not only together, but also to share stories like this. Um,

You know, obviously, like Arachne is a very famous one in terms of mythology. And I talked about that on her on the show again fairly recently. But one of the things that came to me while I was talking about that is that

I mean, this is all from Ovid, but still great, you know, references of what was going on. But I think about, you know, Arachne's story woven into her tapestry, but also the way that's kind of mirrored in Philemela's, Philemela, I don't know how people pronounce her name differently, but yeah, her into her tapestry.

Her tapestry and the way that we get this really real idea of how women told stories to each other through their weaving. And I think there's so it's minimal evidence for that elsewhere because these are things that.

decay. These are things that don't survive. And so we have to kind of pick out what we have, but I love that we have these Amarna letters that have evidence of that. We have these Ovid myths that show that this was something in the cultural identity of women. But yeah, like there's Penelope, obviously Helen, like we get so much about like what these women were doing with their lives, even if we can't, you know, we don't have

the type of evidence we would surely love to have but what we what we can like there's so much to flesh out of that so much to speculate on that is so reasonable and you know especially as women today like I think that there's so much to be said for using our modern experiences to speculate on how that was happening like I think about it in line too with um the way that I've it's

It gets talked about more and more now, but the way that gossip has been used against us, that gossip as a concept was this way of women sharing themselves with each other, sharing tips and tricks or red flags or warnings. But it...

Became this thing that, you know, is meant to be, you know, that's that's has this like bad connotation that's silly and insipid. These these terrible words to describe what was women, you know, utilizing the tools that they had in order to.

create community, but also keep each other safe and keep themselves safe and all of these things. And the way that that ends up getting used against, you know, against us or turned into this idea like gossip. Yeah. And as a very kind of, yeah, exactly. Gendered kind of women's discourse that is very negative. No, I think that's such a good point. Well, there is a really good example that will tie in with like everything you've been saying, because I don't know if you know this, but there is this amazing, um,

sort of fragment of fabric that has survived from the ancient world from, I think it's the fourth century BCE. Um, and it's, it's what's known as a story cloth. And so, and it's basically got, uh, it's like freeze a bit like the Bayeux tapestry. Um, and it's like a freeze with, with images of women on it and one, and the women have names and one of them is Phaedra.

Right. Which, you know, talk about kind of like scandalous gossip and like, you know, kind of obviously with with Fiedra's story and the Hippolytus. But what I love about that is that that and it was found like around the Black Sea region, I think. But like that is that is real evidence for the fact that women were.

they weren't just weaving cloths or weaving patterns, but they were weaving texts into textiles, right? They were generating stories and they were telling stories in this way. And like, I mean, in Homer, we know that women are doing it because Helen is weaving the story of the Trojan War. We never get told what Penelope is weaving, but like she could absolutely have been weaving a story cloth. And if that was the case,

What story was she weaving? Like what kind of epic was she trying to tell? Right. I just think that that's so exciting. Yes. Oh, I, yeah, I, I also, it's only recently been, I forget how I learned and I can't believe I didn't earlier, but I didn't know the origins of the word spinster being women who literally women who had, were able to make a career for themselves in,

in spinning weaving um by and then therefore did not have to be married or under a man's thumb and then the word turned into this terrible connotation of like a lonely woman and as somebody who will very proudly proudly call themselves a spinster very happily um will we claim the time hell yeah like me and my cats I don't need anything else

But yeah, you know, it's it's it's a funny thing realizing the ways these words like to go back to the to the poet, the way these words have been weaponized against us in these ways that you don't see it until you see it. And then, oh, my God, it's like you can't you can't unsee the ways that like even language has been weaponized against women.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, like the other one that I think of is, I mean, this isn't kind of as much used nowadays, but like the distaff side, right. As a term for kind of the female side of the family and they're like, it's well, that's because what do women do? They, they spin. I did not know that term. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's really interesting to see how that kind of has, yeah, threaded into our language. And that is something that like affects,

how women have been seen. But then also I love ways of kind of pushing back against it in that I think people don't really realize that the etymology of text today is from Latin textus, which is like a woven texture, right? It's like, it's why text and textile have the same root. Of course. You say it and I'm like, I don't.

Of course, but I never would have occurred to me. No, but we don't think about it because we just say text, but we don't think about the fact that there are these deep, deep roots that connect. And whenever we say a written text, we are looking back to kind of the history of women's weaving and the deep, deep interconnection between women's weaving and kind of literature and poetic output. Oh, I love that.

I mean, this is a perfect way to guide us deeper into, I think, just anything in this realm. But I did see that you have a whole section on Euripides. So is there now? I mean, if you're going to tell me that he's not a feminist, maybe we need to stop right now. But I have a feeling you won't. I'm so curious about like any of this kind of I mean, anything about Euripides is women, but particularly this like language stuff, because you perpetually blow my mind with these.

Oh, you're so kind, but no, absolutely. Absolutely. Not going to kind of break your, your opening streak. He's my perfect. No, no, he's, he's your man. I know. I know. I mean, he's the only guy for whom you would not be a spinster, right? Well,

Well, no, actually, I don't want to marry him. I just want to talk to him. You just want to kind of like imbibe his literature into your veins. I want to pick at his brain. I just, yeah, I do want to ask him questions though. Oh my gosh, absolutely. No, so yeah, what's so interesting about Euripides is that, so this is basically this excavation that I'm doing of kind of terms for poets. And I think one of the things I really loved about doing it

was that it just gave you a way to kind of take a cross section across ancient literature in a kind of completely different way. But you still, you've got to kind of

By taking that slice out, you got to kind of see a really interesting perspective on each of the authors. And it's not necessarily anything that I think was particularly surprising. But what I loved about it was that it kind of, it almost for me backed up what I felt about Euripides from reading and from seeing his plays. I was like, okay, look, now I understand what you are actually doing. So basically just to give a brief kind of background, this word for poet or for singer, Ioidos,

In the archaic period, so in like Homer, it is generally male. Like almost exclusively, we can maybe kind of argue about whether there are instances where we might see it as being female. But if it is in the female, it's pretty quickly closed down and it's pretty quickly shown that this is not going to work.

Euripides is pretty much the only poet who is willing to experiment with the word for poet in the female language.

or in the grammatical feminine. Exactly. I mean, it's not a surprise, but I think it tells you, it tells you a lot about what he is doing. And he is really interested in kind of imagining women poets kind of at the borders. So he's kind of, he's pushing the limits of where

where a poet can be. Like obviously we talked about the fact that that word is grammatically masculine. So he's already pushing grammar and then he starts pushing conceptual like gender. We're starting to get women into it. What's really interesting though is that at least in my reading, I see every kind of instance of those women kind of trying to be singers, trying to be poets, it kind of fails.

And I think he is really interested. And I don't think that this doesn't make him someone who is interested in exploring women's experiences. But I also think that he is aware of the limits and he is interested in confronting the limits.

See, this is the argument that I often have with people because there's this idea, and I mean, I do blame Aristophanes for starting it. Why not? Yeah. I mean, this idea that because Euripides presents terrible women in sometimes sympathetic lights or just rather like he presents...

women that are human just in the same way that men are human and often that is taken as if he dislikes them as if he hated women because he made them look bad and like that's you know that's so deep in the thesmophorezusa i like yeah among elsewhere like this idea that because he gave us

and slightly fucked up women that therefore he hates them when any kind of like base level, like, I don't know, like it just, it's so hard to even phrase how that's so silly because it's like, no, what he did was recognize the human condition in women. And I also think to your point, part of that came with recognizing the struggle of women and he could provide

provide a kind of commentary through his plays while still acknowledging, like, I'm glad he didn't give us this, this world in which women had rights that they didn't have in ancient Greece. Yeah. I'm glad that he didn't do that for lots of reasons, not least because I think that like, it would have, you know, really impacted like the way we are able to like conceptualize actual ancient Greece, but also that like, it is realistic. I think that it is, it says so much more about him as, as,

a person who did appreciate women as a species like I think it says so much more that he was able to put them in a realistic light no matter how that made them look and I love that so like yeah it kind of fits it's like he knows he could present that and he's still like but this isn't a new different world like they still will the limitations still exist and it that feels realistic in a way that that's why I like Euripides as women because to me they feel real absolutely

Absolutely. But isn't that interesting as a kind of rhetorical stance that presenting complex women is immediately misogyny, right? There's no room between kind of like praising a good woman and kind of vilifying a bad woman. If you're interested in women who are complicated, you must be a misogynist. Yes.

Right. I find that like really interesting in terms of kind of like just what are the limits towards being able to show an interest in women's in women's roles. So like and that's where, yeah, I think that this the way he uses that terminology really just, yeah, speaks to like, you know, I like I talk a lot about that amazing choral ode in the Medea where the chorus is just like.

now the kind of everything is going to turn around finally we are going to be able to sing our song and like for like centuries men have have sung and now finally we will do it and

There is such a kind of deep and tragic irony to that, that obviously that chorus ends up in a play that becomes stereotypical for its vilification of women by a man. But I think that he knows that. I think he's talking about that. I think he's talking about the echo chamber of like,

I, I can't get out of this. Like I can't show a woman or tell her story without it ending up becoming this tradition. And so what he ends up doing is he just, he just goes for it. But as he's going for it, he critiques it. Yes. Yeah, no, exactly. And I like, and to go back to the, what you said about how like, you know, there's nothing in between the way you talk about them and just misogyny. Right. But I think that that is,

I think that's this male idea of misogyny, right? It's like, I wonder how women felt about Euripides' women, you know? Yeah. Because it feels like this, it feels like this male construct of what misogyny would be. It's this idea that like, because the men don't want women to be real people, right? Because particularly to Athenian men, women were not on a level with them. And I think that this idea that

Like to them, Euripides putting them on a similar level in terms of just like recognizing humanity, that is like an insult. So they're like, well, you're a misogynist because you present women as like not these quiet, meek creatures, you know, who do only good things. And it's just so interesting to me that like that is this

Phrase that's been, you know, thrown around when it comes to him. Because as a woman, I read any Euripidean woman. And I think how interesting, like, I don't think she's perfect or somebody I want to emulate. Like she's interesting. She is a realistic woman. And I think that he so often presented like not only this kind of realistic, complex, like just human type of woman, but also one of the things that,

that that really stands out to me so i just want to know any of your thoughts on this play but his the ion and creusa in the ion to me is like this whole other level of woman that i honestly like i hadn't read the ion until like a couple years ago and i didn't even really know what it was about and then i sat down i was like oh my god like what have i been doing not having read this yeah

But this idea that not only he presents like a sympathetic woman, but a sympathetic woman who was full on assaulted by a God. And he treats that like,

the traumatic, terrible, like life changing experience that it reasonably would be. And that to me says so, so much about how he viewed women in like, in a just empathetic way. Yeah, no, I think that's, that's so right. And I mean, it's not for no reason that the ion has been kind of seen by most

mostly male scholars as one of your Euripides most problematic plays right like any commentator always starts by being like well I don't really know where to place this one right like is it really a tragedy um you know and it's like dude we're not like talking about genre here like it doesn't all have to be about genre like Euripides wasn't thinking about genre in my writing with the tragedians it always has to be about genre exactly exactly um

But like, I think what's really interesting and I just wanted to kind of maybe like cycle back a bit because you mentioned that there's Mephoria Zusai and like I saw it kind of, you were like, oh, like what were the women thinking? How were the women reacting? Which then like made me go into this kind of

weird maze in my mind because then I was like, well, of course we do get women reacting in Aristophanes' play, so like by a man. So then I'm like, ah, it's just a maze of mirrors. But then what's really interesting, it made me think about

how Aristophanes presents the poet in that play. And he is quite, I don't know kind of how familiar you are with the Thesmophoria Zusai, but like- It's been a while, but I have covered it on the show. Awesome. Okay. So there's that poet Agathon who is kind of like the one who kind of enters at the beginning and he's like very much a kind of like

cross-dressing, kind of gender, cross-gender boundaries kind of poet. He's very queer and Aristophanes makes it a little weird, but also very clear that he's very queer. Absolutely. Very, very clear. And he himself is very clear that he is, that he is queer and that, that he actually takes a lot of poetic force and creative energy from that.

So he like has this whole little poetic manifesto where he's basically like, if you kind of inhabit the gender of a woman, then that's how you're going to be able to understand what a woman experiences. And then, you know, you need to be able to inhabit the gender of a man to understand a man. And I think what I...

what that demonstrates about Aristophanes is that kind of reductive gender binary that like you have if you're a man you only understand men

And if you're a woman, you want to understand women. And I think like Euripides completely breaks that down because he demonstrates that it is possible to get into complex women characters. But like it explains, I'm basically kind of trying to cycle back to like, it explains why someone like Aristophanes just like is like, well, then you must be a misogynist because like, I just don't understand how you are getting into their brains. If you,

if you can't kind of operate within this gender binary that i've set up right yes no absolutely that's yeah that's that's aristophanes is he is my nemesis for how he treats euripides um particularly in that play i like enjoyed the clouds or not the clouds of the frogs very much yeah i love the i read the those before i had to say and i was like okay wow um

But it also reminds me, and I have been thinking about, I mean, I want to make this point purely because I've also been focusing a lot on women this month for Women's History Month. And I want to ensure that I'm not inadvertently excluding trans women because I absolutely am including them in all of this. And I think that the way you phrased it,

Aristophanes' sort of argument like I was just like this it's very reductive it's one or the other and it reminds me of the types of cis feminists who refuse to include trans women because it's this idea it's so reductive it's this idea that it's like one or the other and it's like I mean I'll never understand it it's

It's nonsense. And so, but it does feel, it feels so similar. This like, it doesn't feel like a realistic understanding of a human being. Yeah. Like at the core, we're all humans. Yeah, exactly. And, and everything about us as humans and everything about our gender is through experience. It's not through anything inherent and biological. It is through experience.

lived experience. And so, I mean, that, that on its face is a clear, you know, note that like we, we are including everyone. Like you, you live as a woman, you've experienced this, like you're a woman, not to mention like all of the shit that goes with the gender dysphoria and that comes with being trans. Like that's, I mean, they, they, they've lived a whole other, you know, life of that, that in that world of figuring out your gender, that that's a whole other experience. And,

But yeah, it's, yeah, it's this idea that comes right back to the, this, this claim of misogyny that like, if you do not fit into the very explicit gender binary, then, you know, you are one thing or the other. Or if you don't present a woman as fitting into that gender binary, that is completely constructed. Yeah. But you know what? Like I'm going to go back to kind of your statement about, um,

history always being political and I think we could also say politics is always historical in that like we can we can tie in like what is happening in the states right now and with the kind of diktat of like we are protecting women by all of the kind of horrible things that are happening there and

It's like, what women, right? Like you need to start from the very basic thing of like, what is your understanding of a woman? Because if you are protecting, what you're doing is actually delineating and demarcating and ultimately kind of pushing outside the boundaries. And it makes me think again, kind of like just turning back to,

I think turning back to history is such an important way to kind of push back against these kinds of horrible narratives. And, you know, this idea that you were saying about kind of that, that gender experience, that, that, that kind of performativity, obviously that kind of there's been a lot, a huge amount done on that, but like there was this one, one,

And I don't remember if we talked about this when we were talking about Mythica, but there was this one burial that I came across when I was talking about kind of non-binary gender or gender beyond the binary. And it was in Prague and I'm going to say third millennium BCE, but not entirely sure about the date, but like super early.

And it was a burial of a skeleton that, and I think it was DNA analysis was done on the skeleton and it was sexed male, but it had been buried in a way that was conforming to all of the norms of feminine gender burials. And I think what I love about that is that it is a burial that kind of like

prior to all of our kind of understanding of the ways in which gender can be enacted and performed, it might have been complete. Those signals that that person was trying to send about how they identified would have been completely ignored. But because the skeleton had been or the body had been laid on their left side and had been buried with these kind of egg shaped containers that are associated with female burials.

Now, what you can start to do is you can start to see someone saying to posterity, this is how I want to perform my gender. I am doing something here, you know, and that's that's thousands of years old. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it makes me think of all the myths. There are so many myths. Yeah, exactly. So easily be read as trans people and people beyond the binary. And it's yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's really, really important to bring to talk about these examples that we have because it is so often said.

you know, presented by the other side as being this new thing. And therefore it's justified. Yeah, exactly. When all evidence points to the opposite and, and it's just, I mean, it's a, it goes back yet to exactly what you just pulled back. But like this idea that history is political and everything, it's all political. Like, and, and,

Not only is history political and all of these things like the preservation, everything to do with how we know anything about the past is political. But on top of that, like it has such real world, excuse me,

It has such a real world current like ramifications to, to speak on either side of that, to, to be ignoring this, this, this obvious historical details and, and archeological and all of this, this very clear evidence towards trans people existing forever. Like it is so important to point this out because it affects real people's lives today. And that's the case. I mean, it's, it's, it's,

It's very, you know, dire when it comes to trans people today. But that's the case. So it's the case in everything. Like it affects real people today. And that's why this idea that we can ignore politics in history or ignore modern notions of morality in history, like,

Those concepts are silly for so many reasons, but they're also dangerous. They also affect people's lives today. Because exactly, because it allows this kind of laissez-faire attitude that it is somehow external to us, not our problem. It's happening out there, right? The idea that kind of history is a process that just kind of unrolls and some kind of

often big man leader is the one who's making all the decisions. And I am just kind of like on the treadmill of history. It's like, that's, that's not what's happening. Like every single person acting in every single place is part of that massive jigsaw puzzle that's making up history. I was someone, and I can't remember who, but like, I just read this definition and I was just like, this just suddenly makes sense to me that history is just things happening to people.

And all it is, is things happening to people in the past. Right? Like, and I think to me, that's just like, is that not also what our lives are now? This is all we need to do when we're looking at history is to just understand that this is just...

the study of how things unravel, how people interact, how things unfold. And what's so amazing about that is when you really truly understand that, then you realize that we also all have the power to shape narratives going into the future. Because history is not predetermined. All it is is something that is happening. And so if we collectively, going back to your idea of collective memory, if we remember collectively, but we also remember

look ahead proactively and collectively then we can then determine what ends up becoming history yeah yeah no and I think yeah that's why I mean it's why I well I think I should try to think about this more but I think about this in relation to my work and the fact that it's just out there in the world yeah for as long as the technology remains and that means I am

Putting this into the historical record in a way that is accessible and, and like, you know, right there and, and contextualized and real. And it's what so many other people are doing in this realm. And I just want to bring us all together so that it is,

It is more likely that our work will reach people, that it will survive, that all of these things that determine history now and in the future, you know, we're better off together. You know, so much of the damage that

late-stage capitalism has done to us as a society in the west is separate us from each other and and break apart the communities that provided a sense of like safety from the powers that be and and like being able to kind of create something like that i think it's the thing i just it's

It's like I was saying, like, I don't I don't feel prepared to be the person to do this logistically, let alone in terms of like having enough hours in the day. But I do feel like I just can't not because especially now, like there's I have a platform. I have the biggest platform in the realm of doing this in this kind of public and long form way. I think it's reasonable to say if somebody thinks I'm wrong, please share. But I do think I have the biggest platform.

platform in this realm, which is like, absolutely, which is amazing. Yeah. But you know what? It's so, it's so interesting because that's, um, like exactly. I was, I was mentioning this, this talk I was giving last week. And, um, one of the questions was like, you know, um, with, I was, I was kind of giving a preview of Mythica and they were like, how, how did you, as someone who, you know, you're, you're familiar with the texts, you know, kind of the context, but

then like to bring in archeology, to bring in science and DNA, how did you kind of have the courage to do that? And I kind of, my, my reflection on it was simply that I felt that someone had to do it in order to tell these stories.

And it sounds like that is also your rallying cry. It's like, I may not be the person who is like 100% best equipped to do this, but it's got to be done. These narratives need to be told. These histories need to be restored. And like, you know, more power to you that you're doing it. Because like, at the end of the day, this is all about the doing, isn't it? Because that's what's going to make these things go down in history. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. And even if it's just for now, something that makes us all feel like we're more connected, even on the back end, you know, like that, I think that that means something. And there are so many people doing public scholarship in this way. There's so many and like,

I'm trying to find ways of recommending kind of everything. Because I also want to, now that I think about it, have a place where I can be like, read this book too. I'm thinking of your work and so many others where it's mostly in traditionally published, which is so great. But it's also like this collective is going to be easier with things that are like, I can link to a YouTube video. I can link to this podcast, all this. But I want, the goal is to have it be

everything like every way to learn today because I also recognize that like people learn in different ways and they take in information in different ways and I think that's really important to address too because I think that's that's part of what we've been talking about this way that like history has been presented and determined in this very specific way by these very specific people with very specific brains and very specific ways of learning and you know like that's not

we're all more likely to learn from history and be better prepared to face all of the absolute fuckery that is going on right now. Like we're in a better place to deal with that and to, you know, work against it in whatever way by all being together and all having this knowledge that is contextualized, that is put in the,

The actual world in which it was created and we can look at why it survives, why this survives versus that, why we know this, why we don't know that. Like all of these things are tools to help us because like the phrase history repeats itself is very true. And the other phrase of like, you know, those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it. Like that's so true. It's cliche and it's so true. Yeah.

So yeah, we might as well erase the cliche. Absolutely. I mean, that's what I always say. There's a reason that it's a cliche. It's because like it's been proven to be right. But like, absolutely. But like one other thing that I think is so brilliant about particularly your work and the kind of the orality of the kinds of

like videos and things that you were talking about and podcasts and stuff is that you get a double context because you don't just get the opportunity to contextualize into history and say, let's think about exactly what evidence we have, where this happened. But this is also happening in real time, contextualizing itself into someone's life.

you know, in that someone will be kind of, you know, around the house, you know, like, I don't know, doing the dishes or they'll be going for a run. They are themselves moving forwards in time a little bit forward again in that jigsaw puzzle. And and you are a part of that, which is really awesome.

It is. Yeah. No, it's lovely. It's a funny thing about podcasting, particularly as somebody like I've been doing it for eight years, which means like eight years ago, my episodes were very different from the way they are now. And I like that as well. Like people are stubborn and they don't listen to me and they start at the beginning, even though I tell them not to. But it means they get to grow with me so long as they keep listening, you know, and see the kind of evolution because yeah.

I was not providing the context eight years ago and I'm so happy that I do now. Yeah. Which is also why I don't like when people don't listen to those or they still listen to the old ones. But if they keep listening again, they're going to get the context eventually. And it's true. But also, do you know what, Liv? Like, I feel like I, because I think about this sometimes with kind of like my earlier books and like particularly the novels that I wrote when I was younger. And some part of me is kind of like, if I did that now, I would write something completely different. But then I kind of,

stop myself and I'm like well actually that was a snapshot of where I was at that particular time and there will be people who are where you were and they need to hear where you were at um you know because like it's you have got here because you've done those eight years and for many people um

starting at the beginning and going on that kind of slow journey of experience of kind of, you know, it doesn't it doesn't just happen. This realization does not happen instantly. You need to learn to contextualize. It's hard work. So also doing that with you, I think is that's a gift. That's very true. No, thank you. That is. Yeah, that is true. I would say I wish they would not

that the episodes came out eight years ago when they tried to criticize me. And I'm like, yeah, well, I was wrong. What do you want me to say? It was eight years ago. Yeah. But yeah, otherwise I agree.

People comment the silliest things and I'm like, yeah, that was literally eight years ago. I don't know what you want me to say. Yeah, no, exactly. Podcasts are a very odd thing because they live in this kind of perpetual space but also are very timely, particularly one like mine, which was started very casually and just like, I'm going to talk to you guys. But it is nice and I do like, myself, I like to see that grow. For sure. Because, yeah, I mean, eight years ago me was not an expert and now

am. So, you know, like there's a lot that comes with it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I think also your audience will want to see that as well in that they can see that you're also, you know, it's not just, it's not just your listeners learning. It's, it's you also going on this journey. Yeah, no, it's true. And it's very, it's

It's a good reminder that everyone is learning and that like, that's the other thing I think I often find personally grating about certain. And I would say, I think it's just primarily the way men respond to things. And I think it's just, it's about how the patriarchy has raised all of us, but men often, you know,

treat these types of things more like I mean I don't know what I'm trying to say but like essentially I feel comfortable in saying I was wrong or revisiting and recontextualizing and acknowledging these types of things and I think a lot of that comes from being raised a woman and being raised you know to sort of

always question yourself in a way that in a lot of general just like you know yeah just the way we're raised culturally broadly like men are not yeah raised to question themselves in the same way yeah it's so interesting because you use that word we contextualizing and you know it goes back again to context like maybe that is what it is to be someone who is kind of

other or outside the kind of center is that you are always aware of context. But that also means that what you are able to do is you are also able to kind of recontextualize. So you are also able, therefore, to revisit narratives. And, you know, that in itself is something that is a massive strength. Thank you. I do like doing it. I feel like I'm very bad at also taking compliments. But no, it's, I mean, I just love it.

I love that I get to do this and have conversations like this and things that like stick with me. Like I'm really never going to get over the Iodos of it all, the male poet. And actually going back to that. And I'm going to, so I'm going to pull it back to, to your book because I, there's another thing I wanted to ask you. I've been, I've come across this, um,

by Corinna. Yeah. Do you know? Yeah, you would. That I think about all the time. I want to use it for something to do with the collective. I'm just going to pull it up on my screen so I can remind myself what it is. But it's this fragment of this, yeah, this ancient poet, a woman, Corinna. I don't know in terms of like the, I don't know the context of like her or what we know or don't know or what,

we are not sure about. Major debate. So yeah, not sure about is yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what I imagine it tends to be the case. But regardless, there is this fragment that is, I'm just going to read it. This is the Diane Rayer translation because it's the one I have on my screen. Terpsichore told me lovely old tales to sing to the white robed women of Tanagra and the city delighted greatly in my voice clear as the swallows.

And so I hope it's real, or at least I just hope it's by any woman. Because to me, that feels like evidence of women listening to women.

in this way that we don't otherwise have. Yeah, but also, which is just wonderful, it brings it right back to our discussion at the beginning about the muses because, of course, you've got Tithikari, the muse, who is inspiring a woman, who is, you know, speaking to a community of women. Exactly. So, no, absolutely. I think Corina is such an interesting one. I mean, I don't think that there is debate about the fact that this was a female poet. I think that that is pretty much...

Thankfully, I think that that is agreed upon. The debate is more around the date, which just gets in the kind of technicalities that I don't think we need to bother ourselves with. It's interesting to the...

To the nerds. Yeah. But no, it's interesting. But I think what it tends to do, it tends to do exactly what we were saying about the genre of tragedy earlier. It tends to divert the attention away from what the poetry is actually doing to like, how do we categorize it?

What kinds of kind of particular stylistic things can we put so we can like put this label on it and now suddenly we understand it. And I feel like actually sitting in not understanding it and allowing it to just be what it is instead of trying to say, right, no, now it's put this label on. I understand it because it is archaic poetry or I understand it because it's Hellenistic poetry. It's like that shouldn't that shouldn't make a difference.

That's a very kind of classificatory way of thinking about it. I laughed a little only because of your dog. Just because I love... She's making little sounds. I'm absolutely obsessed. It's only a compliment. So I'm just explaining why I'm laughing at inopportune times. Absolutely, yeah. If you could hear just some random growling in the background. It's like that nice kind of growl where she's just like...

yeah I'm a keyer yeah yeah no exactly exactly no she she wants she wants her walk soon um but yeah uh she she's not interested in Corinna are you are you sweetheart you know I know honestly um but yeah no I mean Corinna is such an interesting one because like I mean thinking again about the kind of the grammar of terms she has this fragment where she talks about um

And she gives kind of two different versions. So she gives, and like, obviously it's so much of her stuff is fragmentary, but she says like the heroes and the heroines. And she uses the masculine and feminine. And I'm like, I find that really interesting as someone who is a grammar nerd. I'm like, it's fascinating that she as a female poet is thinking about kind of the,

competition, the division into gender binaries, how that matches up with grammar, just like there's so much that's going on there. Yeah. And it's so nice to be reminded that these fragments of women do exist. Absolutely. They're so, I feel like it's one of those things like I was a, other than Sappho, which even I don't remember having to actually learn much about Sappho in my degree.

Yeah. But I'm sure I'd like at least heard of her. Honestly, I wonder often if I'd heard of her primarily because I did a double major in English lit at the time and I could see her coming up more obviously in that than the classics, which is sad. But like, you know, we don't we don't learn that there were women doing this. And even like undergrads don't go into enough enough depth. I think now there's better like there are courses in

specifically in women and stuff. And like, I didn't even graduate all that long ago. Like I went to school late. So I didn't even graduate until 2012 university. And, and like, I didn't, there was no courses on women and, and like, that's wild to me. Like I think about if I'd,

if I'd gone to school right out of university, like would it be even worse or right out of high school rather? It would have been worse. Like, yeah, no, I mean, this is the thing I was talking to someone the other day and I was saying that like, I mean, I, I did, um, my undergrad, I graduated in 2009 from Cambridge and we are the exact same age. That's when I would have graduated if I had actually, I just didn't go until I was older. Amazing. Amazing.

So, yeah, I guess I'm kind of like that slightly kind of like older model in terms of like what you would have experienced. And we had one course that was talking about kind of tragic women, but it was very much like the male dramatists on women. There was no kind of like...

discussion of kind of like actual women beyond literary stereotypes. I think gender was mentioned perhaps once in my entire degree. It just was not something that was, was kind of really done. And I just find it so interesting how, how much has changed. And there is obviously still like a big way to go in that. Like one of the things I think we really need to do is to kind of try and address and ideally move beyond gender.

the kind of women's week model, which is like, you know, oh, I'm going to do a course on Roman history and like, I'm going to do one week on women, right? Like, I feel like that's kind of maybe the stage we're at now in terms of what education is doing. I mean, yeah, better than when I was there, but like, I think there's still a way to go to kind of just be like,

How about we do people? Right. Well, and you can tell it's just still so kind of gendered, even like the courses and the structure is gendered still towards primarily men. And it's this idea that like men don't want to learn about women.

which is, you know, obviously part of like a much larger problem. Like I don't even mean it, you know, as anything against like individual men at all. Like it's like this idea that men don't want to learn about women. And I think for the most part, that's untrue. I agree. Yeah. And in my experience, I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think...

I think most men who would end up in courses like that broadly, like obviously there's also like an enormous scary subset of people, of men who go and like want to learn about Greek and Roman history because they're scary and have the potential for danger. But like, aside from that, I think that if you have, you're coming with this like genuine interest in the ancient world, like you want to know about women most because yeah, you want to know what people like it's this idea or, or it, you know, it's even more nefarious. Like the number of times that like,

I get told not to put like modern morality on the ancient world. And it's always by men or by that, you know, certain type of white woman who is so ingrained into the patriarchy that she like is unsavable. I think like, you know, this, this idea that because I question the, the stories featuring women, typically the types of stories that end up like talking about something that should be objectively, objectively,

like as if it's just like any old thing that happened in a story and like people be like, oh, don't put your modern morality. And it's like, no, that's human morality. Actually. The problem is that it was never put on by the people who, you know, did the recording of these stories, but like this idea that a story where say, you know, Zeus comes abducts a woman. We know that she screams. We know that she didn't want to be there, that she wasn't allowed to go home. And then she had his babies and people will be like, oh my God, you put a modern morality to say that she was raped. And it's like,

No, I put basic human like knowledge together to make that assumption because it's all of the pieces are there. I don't know if I've said this to you before, but there's this thing sticks with me always that for a while I had people coming to me and trying to like quote unquote correct me because saying things like the.

like the word rape originally just meant abduct and they will make that statement as if they're like just correcting my idea and they're like oh no rape just meant to abduct it didn't inherently mean rape and I'm like why do you think that rape meant abduct like exactly it's not that it

didn't mean that it's that it meant that. And then the word became just that. Exactly. Exactly. And, and no one was talking about it, but it doesn't mean that it wasn't happening within the category of that word. I think that's, that's so interesting that, yeah. And it's, it's, um, it's another kind of instance of that kind of

classificatory impulse or like if I can give you an etymology for it then it somehow isn't troubling anymore you know like I can show it to you in my Latin dictionary and it says you know to snatch or seize and therefore it doesn't mean all of the other things and but and not kind of confronting um

the, the kind of rough edges of the story. Um, so no, absolutely. But also the other thing that I think is, is really interesting about this is that there is this idea that these stories and these narratives, and I think this is particularly true for literature, right? I'm not talking now about kind of like archeological artifacts or kind of, um,

ruins, all that kind of thing. The more objective stuff. Exactly. It's more concrete. But we're talking about literature and texts and tropes and stereotypes. And it's interesting to me that there is this...

tendency to assume that they have a kind of independent and fixed identity in the past that can be untouched by the present in that like when you are sitting down and you are reading an ancient text there is an interface that is happening there is a

probably like multi-way interaction that is happening it is not just the ancient is there and it like downloads into you but you also interact and respond and in many ways it is you reading that ancient text that is creating the ancient text because if you weren't reading it then it wouldn't be here anymore you know so to imagine that it can exist without its readers without its interpreters

is a kind of a fantasy.

You know what I'm going to say to the listeners? We had a bit of gossip about AI that we had to cut out, but AI is terrible and just it's terrible. And it's it's terrible. I don't even I'm too too exhausted to go into the details, but people have heard it from me before. But to just like pull it back on women, I suppose I don't I don't I want to like come up with some like quippy question. Maybe do you have any we are going to wrap it up. But like, do you have a favorite Euripides woman?

Ooh. I know. Asking a question of favorites is hard. Maybe not even a favorite, just like a passion. Uh-huh. Also, you couldn't say no. Oh, no, no, I love it. I love it. It's such a good question. Um...

I'm not going to say it's my favorite because I do love so many of them. That's why I corrected it. Cause I know I'm glad, I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did. But a passion, a passion. Um, I think I would have to say it would be the women in Trojan women. Um, and I'm not going to choose one of them because I feel like they work, they work together in that way. But I saw that, um, I,

I must've been just a teenager and I saw it in London. My mum took me to see it and it was such a good staging. And I think it was really the first time where I kind of saw women's stories being played out and, you know, through Euripides, but being played out. And I think it's probably one of the reasons that

I love Homer. One of the reasons why I love women in Homer is because I actually started with Euripides. And you know what, that's really funny, because I haven't actually ever really conceptualized it that way. But thinking back about it, I think that that, which like, isn't that such a great way of kind of arguing for what we've been saying all along, which is that

texts don't exist in isolation they exist through reception in that like for me it was accessing a modern restaging of a classical athenian drama that was looking back to a myth that ended up being retold in an epic and that has been my way into this kind of supposedly pristine urtext of homer right like doesn't that just show that these are all open to interpretation

Absolutely. And I would add another layer pulling back to what we've said about everything being political is that on top of that, and also actually also relating to context being so important. One of the things that I think I talked about the Trojan women years ago on the show, and I want to revisit it now, not only because I've learned so much more since then, but also because I have this context that I think is often overlooked, but the fact that it

It was also clearly written as a commentary on the Melian siege. Yes. Like, not only was he writing this sympathetic story of these Trojan women whose entire lives were destroyed by the Greeks in the Homeric quote unquote period, but he was also writing it

to directly critique the genocidal actions of the empire in which he lived at that time. And so this idea that like, we should be looking at any of this context or any of this text, any of the, anything from the ancient world outside of politics is so on its face absurd, right? Like Euripides wrote reception. It was politically motivated reception of a more ancient time.

And we're just supposed to take it as like, no, you just wrote this play. Like, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing is again, that like the commentators will, will comment on it. Oh, you know, like, look at the time when this came out and this is obviously kind of a, um, a pushback against what was happening in Milos. But like, actually, if you think about that as, um,

an embodied political act it is both radical and familiar because like as you say isn't that what everyone is doing everything is situated everything has a context and and obviously he's thinking about women particularly because the women of milos were enslaved um right so it's like there is it it speaks back to the experience of an actual population that that

you know, he was, he was aware of. So yeah, no, I think that's, and I think that that's the thing is that sometimes people will, especially when, when they're talking about kind of the, the kind of feminist Greek myth retellings that are happening now. And I get kind of asked about that a fair amount and they're kind of, some people are like, well, I want my myths to remain myths, you know? And, and,

My response is kind of like, they were never myths. Or you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a myth is. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, yes, they were always myths, but they were never myths. In that the point of myth is that it is up for grabs. It is up for retelling. And I guess this is kind of...

yeah why it's why it's so important that we have these conversations we do this kind of work that they they get retold and those kind of experiences that you know we were talking about getting sieved out of history that they get restaged because that's that's our job at the end of the day that's our job and so i need to reread the children women yeah

I feel like I'm always sending you away with homework. Go read more. Every conversation in the best way is always sending me away with homework, which also I never do because I don't have time to do additional homework, but I always want to. Don't tell my students that. We always do our homework. Well, and fortunately, you know, I'm not a student. I did do my classics homework. I did a lot.

But no, it's, and I think, I mean, maybe I'm just going to use this as a little, I'm trying to drop more and more hints about something I have also been working on on the side, which is that I finally finished. I, well, finished a draft that is now with agents of a novel that

A thing I've been... I started... One thing I definitely haven't told you, but the listeners have heard before, but the way I got into classics, period, is when I finished high school and I didn't intend to go to university, I was like, I don't need to. I'm too punk and cool. And I just got a job and was like, I'm an adult now. And I was like 19, you know? And I...

I started writing a novel for fun and it was about Greek mythology because I'd always liked it. And then I did enough research and I wrote this novel and I

Then I was like, oh, I think I want to like be in publishing like this was really fun. I was looking into that. And then I got into university and was like, well, I need to learn some classics. And I was just going to do a minor because I was just like, well, you know, it'll it'll fit. I love this stuff. And and then I took like one class and I was like, oh, this needs to be double major. Like, what am I thinking? All my electives would be classics anyway. Like, why not?

And, you know, and then like after university, I kind of forgot about the novel for a long time. And I went and I worked in publishing and did that whole thing. And then that all blew up. And in my like need for some kind of like community, I started this podcast about, again, like the thing I knew I loved at the core and that didn't feel like work. And then, of course, like.

Things changed and now it's my entire life. But so it's very big deal for me to like have finally actually finished a novel that like other people might see eventually. But it's also something where I've been really consciously trying to write something like that is it's different from the other retellings. Not because like I want to be different, but because I just think like.

I think there's something, and I haven't read a ton of the retellings, I should say, because they feel like work now and it's kind of a bummer. So I don't, unfortunately, but only because like after, you know, eight hours every single day or so, if not more of me, like looking and reading about Greek mythology for all of these different parts of my job, like I'm not also then reading a novel that feels like work. But like, but I often find that they don't,

Even when they're very feminist, they are not addressing what I find to be like one of the more impactful aspects of like the way women are treated in the mythology, which is like the idea that the gods are out assaulting everyone all of the time. And that's a weird way to say that that's kind of what I wrote my novel about. But essentially, like my novel is like, what if?

what if the mythological Greeks, some of them, recognized that that was bad? What would that be like if it was like, no, the gods actually are out assaulting everyone. And what if we said that was bad? And it's generally also a silly romantic-y style of retelling that I'm just enjoying for fun. But I like this idea of, I think that often we get caught up in the more

the more like palatable aspects of feminism, the things that are like a strong woman being strong. I'm like, that's great. Yeah.

But what about a woman who also is just like trying to live in the world that she's been given, you know? Yeah. And confronting the limits of the world, right? That's a little bit going back to what we were saying with Euripides, where like you realize that this is how the power structures have been set up. And in the case of the gods, you know, you're confronting a double power structure because you are confronting divine superiority and patriarchy at the same time.

and that kind of sense of like, well, this is just what happens. I mean, it goes back a little bit to kind of what I was trying to think about when I was looking at that vocabulary of the poet, because what I realized was that it has been made to look inevitable that men were authors, but it was never inevitable. It ended up happening. And I think somehow when you take,

when you realize that none of this was inevitable, it sounds a little bit like that's what you're doing. You're saying, well, it didn't have to be this way. And you start opening your eyes to it and you're like, oh my God, it's everywhere. And yeah, I think it can be really powerful. And as you say, it's a very feminist thing to do to just say, how did these things happen? Again, context, context, context, context, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, just like and like, what, what if, like, what if, what if everything is how we see it in Greek mythology, but it's not the way that that the stories have been preserved for us? Like, it's that that outside that the rest of it kind of, you know? Oh, gosh, well, congrats on your novel. That's so exciting. But also just such a nice personal thing. As you say, if that for you was like the beginning, it's also just such a milestone to have that.

under your belt well I didn't mean to make this about me but that's fine I did um this has been so much fun I just love talking to you I love that I can also get content for my job out of it it's honestly it's just brilliant I feel like yeah we are just yeah as we always say this I mean how is it two hours later and we've we've been chatting for two hours I just I know I just I just don't know

But like, it is honestly such a joy. So, so much fun. And yeah, I feel like we've covered so much. We've like, you know. With zero plan in either of our heads, which I love. It's great. We're just, we're just in sync. And I cannot wait to see you in London. It's going to be so fun. Yeah. Is there anything you want to share with the listeners about where to read more, find more or your books coming up? I mean, we've got a whole episode about Mythica, but you definitely mentioned it anyway.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. And so yeah, I mean, four weeks today, which is which is just mad. But yeah, so my book, my next book coming out is, it's Mythica in the UK, it's Penelope's Bones in the US. So we have a whole episode on it, where we just kind of go go deep with Liv.

But yeah, it's basically kind of the real history behind the women of Homer's myth. So all of the kind of good stuff in terms of how can we let archaeology and latest advances in science and DNA, how can we use that to kind of allow women's real experiences to come to the fore and kind of change the direction of the narrative in that now we're hearing about what their experiences were and using that as a way to understand myth.

Um, so it's, yeah, it's just, it's honestly, it's such a fun ride. It's, I cannot wait to share it with everyone. The stuff that was always there. Yeah. But wasn't being looked at or talked about or preserved, but it was always there. It was always there. And what's awesome about it is that when you start looking at it, it makes you actually also then see the myths and the texts and the epics differently. So you start reading the stuff that the men were putting out because you are, you're beginning from women's experiences and you start reading that differently. Yeah.

And what an idea to begin with women's experiences. Yeah, exactly. Well, I start the kind of epigraph to the book is sing to me muse of a woman.

And that kind of basically tells you everything. Cause like basically as much as, you know, we both love the Odyssey, but it starts asking. Man, man, man. First word is man. Exactly. So like, let's change, let's change that. Yeah. Hell yeah. No, I love that. I'm so excited for it. Thank you so much. This is, I mean, as always, it's so delightful to chat with you. Such a pleasure. Thank you so much, Liv.

Thank you all so much for listening, as always. Like I said, you can look forward to another more structured, much more structured episode with Emily coming in just a few weeks to line up with the release of Mythica slash Penelope's Bones. That was a really great conversation, if I'm not misremembering. Michaela was part of it, which was really exciting. And it's going to be a really great book and really...

more just more interesting ways of learning about women in the ancient world. And, you know, I also like so conscious of the fact that I've just talked about women so much. And like there are so many people that are affected right now by everything that's happening. And so I just want to know, like, I'm not forgetting everyone else. It's it's just I mean, but I will as a Canadian right now.

I, um, we have an election. Okay. This is for the Canadians. We have an election coming up and it's really, really important. And I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but I am going to tell you who not to vote for. If you are listening to my show and seriously considering voting for the conservatives in any way, um,

I need you to think about that. And honestly, like if you listen to my show and you and you legitimately appreciate the stuff I say and you take it in and you are thinking about voting for the conservatives, like honestly, truly email me. Tell me why. And let's talk about it because they're so scary. They're so MAGA. They are so they're so hateful of women. They're so crazy.

They're so scary. They're so scary. And also just morally...

bankrupt and terrible and i don't think we have like a perfect party in this country even a tiny bit and i won't pretend i'm a fan of the liberals but the conservatives are scary they're scary and i will say very happily that i am fortunate and i live in an area where voting ndp is gonna do some good and not gonna help the conservatives um so i'm happily thrilled to be voting for ndp um

But just don't vote for the Conservatives because they're fucking terrifying and they're going to take away all of our rights. They're going to turn Canada into what is happening in the States right now. And that is if they don't just let us become the fucking 51st state. So Canadians, honestly, truly, like I don't, I hope I don't have to say this to you, but Jesus fucking Christ, don't vote Conservative. And thank you all so much for listening. Let's Talk About Miss TV is written and produced by me, Liv Albert, Michaela Pankowicz, it's the Hermes to my Olympians.

The podcast is part of the Memory Collective podcast. We're working on trying to do some really good things, but we're trying to do it without any real time or money. And things are a little scary. I don't know. I don't want to ask for money right now. But also, just so you all know, I have no idea where...

what's going to happen with the podcast at this exact moment. So if you feel like listening ad free and paying for it, come join us on the Oracle edition, patreon.com slash myths, baby. Um, we got a lot of cool stuff I'm sending out. Um,

A bunch of these like cool little holographic stickers that you get at certain tiers. I got thank you notes. I've got custom stuff made. There's going to be more coming. We've been uploading episodes like crazy so that you can have access to all of that ad free and support the show and yeah.

Yeah, but stay tuned and learn more about the Memory Collective at collectivemem.com. Sign up for the newsletter. I promise it's still hopefully going to happen. I just have to find the time and energy and drive and missy.com slash newsletter. Thank you all. I promise I still love this so much and I'm going to keep doing it in whatever ways that I can physically do it. But you know.

I don't know. Everything's wild right now. Hopefully back with a more upbeat episode soon. I am Liv and I love this shit. I really do. You know, tear it from my cold dead hands. That's too real. G'day America. It's Tony and Ryan from the Tony and Ryan podcast.

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