Medusa Was Framed: Power, Protection, and the Stories We Tell About Survivors

*trigger warning — this post mentions sexual assault*

From Greek myth to modern politics, we’ve made a habit of vilifying the harmed and protecting the harmful. But we don’t have to keep telling their story.

The other day, while shopping for new glasses, a fellow shopper said something unexpected.

“I don’t want those frames,” she said, pointing to a sleek, stylish pair. “Versace uses Medusa. That’s the mark of the devil. I grew up learning she was evil. My [religious] upbringing says that’s what those snakes mean.”

She was firm. Not fearful, but certain. She had been taught that Medusa, this figure from Greek mythology, was dangerous, wicked, even demonic.

I paused as I rolled my eyes, contemplating leaving her in her own ignorance.

But instead, I did what I often do when I hear the echo of shame where there should be power. I shared the real story.

Medusa wasn’t evil.
She was assaulted.
She was a victim.
And for that, she was punished.

Then I just looked at her.

But let me backup.

According to the oldest versions of the myth, Medusa was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. Instead of holding Poseidon accountable, Athena cursed Medusa. Her hair became snakes, her gaze turned men to stone. What should have been a symbol of trauma, rage, and divine protection became the reason she was feared, reviled, and ultimately beheaded. An ending justified by the stripping away of personhood and humanity.

Sound familiar?

This is the story of what happens when power protects itself. When violence is ignored to preserve image. When the abused are turned into villains so no one has to reckon with the abusers.

What makes this story even more painful is Athena’s role.

A goddess. A woman. A symbol of wisdom and war. Instead of punishing Poseidon, she punished the girl he violated. Some say it was because she was jealous of Medusa’s beauty. Others say she needed to preserve the sanctity of her temple. But the reality is this: Medusa was not the problem. Poseidon’s entitlement was.

There’s a sick cultural suggestion, both ancient and modern, that if Medusa had just given him what he wanted, it wouldn’t have been rape. This thinking is not confined to mythology. It’s the same poison that tells young girls and boys, and mostly women, that they "led someone on," that their clothes, their silence, their poverty, their vulnerability, or their need for belonging was an invitation.

And in the present moment, we are watching the same story unfold again, but this time from the White House.

Right now, a known sex trafficker and pedophile is being granted preferential treatment and political protection, not just from lawyers, but from the highest levels of power. The President of the United States is using his influence to secure leniency for a woman who groomed, recruited, and fed young girls to wealthy predators under the promise of money and status.

Let me be clear: those girls were victims.
The woman who facilitated their abuse is not.

That woman chose proximity to power over the safety of children. That’s not survival. It’s complicity. And the pardon being discussed is not mercy. It’s betrayal. It is Athena, or even Ghislaine Maxwell, punishing the harmed while shielding the powerful.

It is cowardice dressed up as civility.

It’s the same logic that let Medusa’s story be rewritten by those who feared her power and excused her assault.

And yes, I was offended by that woman in LensCrafters. She had no idea how deeply her words echoed centuries of silencing, shaming, and rewriting. By calling Medusa evil, she was telling the rapist’s version of the story. The revisionist history that makes survivors into monsters so that abusers can stay clean, comfortable, and crowned.

But here’s what I know to be true:

Harm is never okay.

And when it is committed intentionally, consciously, and systemically, it must be accounted for.

We don’t have to keep protecting predators just because they’re powerful.

We don’t have to accept the stories society tells about us.

We get to write new ones.

Medusa, to me, isn’t a monster.

She’s what happens when power fears truth. Her hair and her gaze weren’t evil. They were warnings. They were boundaries. They were rage turned to armor.

To the woman at LensCrafters, I didn’t argue. I simply told another version of the story, one where Medusa’s curse was not a punishment, but protection.

She paused. It landed. LensCrafters got a sale. (Still waiting on my commission.)

But more importantly, I spoke it out loud. Because every time we name what really happened, every time we tell the truth of what we’ve endured, we shift the narrative. We make space for healing. And we make it harder for silence to win.

Medusa’s story isn’t just mythology.
It’s a mirror.

It’s a reminder of what happens when we shame survivors to shield the powerful.
It’s a warning about how even women can internalize misogyny in the name of survival.
And it’s a call to stop telling the rapist’s version of the story.

We are rewriting Medusa’s story.
Not to erase what happened.
But to reclaim the ending.