In a creation story that sounds strikingly similar to that of Genesis -- more so than I had realized before -- Prometheus is tasked with the job of creating humans, after having created all other creatures. Man was supposed to be able to walk upright, to look to the heavens while the animals of the earth had to look to the ground, proving how they were the masters of the environment. Epimetheus did not know how else to bless man, once Prometheus had done his thing. So, being the smart dude that he was, he called upon his brother and with the help of Athena they stole fire from heaven and bestowed it upon man, truly making him the master of his environment.
Zeus, being the controlling and vindictive guy we all know and love, decided to punish the two by sending Pandora to wed Epimetheus and be the first woman. His attempt to get back at the two backfired slightly, as it seems he didn't seem to understand just how unpredictable women can be, and so Pandora was attracted to the jar she found in her husband's house. Curiosity got the better of her, and the silly girl opened this random jar in her husband's house and ended up unleashing all of the evils in the world -- plague, envy, greed, etc. She tried to close the jar before they could escape, but couldn't: the only thing that she managed to contain was hope -- which is truly touching, really. Too bad Pandora had to go and mess everything up.
Gotta say I'm digging the whole woman hating thing these ancient civilizations had going (we don't have anything like that nowadays, do we?) I mean, it's hardly surprising, both the tale of Eve and of Pandora being told from the point of patriarchal societies. What's annoying is that woman isn't just physically weak in these stories -- women are mentally weak as well. Eve was easily tempted to eat the forbidden fruit, and Pandora was tainted with the curiosity to know what was in that dang jar. Neither could hold up against the power of an outside force, eventually causing, you guessed it, all of the wrongs that plague our society (though Eve's case is a little less straightforward than Pandora's, in that case).
Bouncing right off that idea then, an evil I'd like to squelch would be inequality. A pretty big evil, I know, and there's too many inequalities to count, but really, why is it that even now in our "modern" time, we find these same ideas in everyday life. Pandora and Eve may have been from myth (or history, depending on your personal view) but even now women are seen as weak creatures who bow to the will of anything that speaks at them sideways, such as a snake or even a stupid jar (in the form of curiosity, that is). Why must these ideas stick around, is what I ask? Can I just squelch the idea that women are weak and the reason for all our problems?
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