The Cassandra Metaphor In Patriarchal Societies

The Cassandra metaphor is used to refer to a person who believes that they can predict the future, but is powerless to change it. This strange phenomenon can plague people who have this gift and when they make predictions that others do not believe.

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was one of the princesses of Troy. She was the daughter of Priam and Hecuba. She was a beautiful woman who was blessed with the gift of seeing the future. However, no one believed her predictions.

Cassandra was able to predict the outcome of many catastrophic events. For example, she predicted that her people would accept the famous Trojan horse. Cassandra’s family thought she was crazy, and did not believe in her seemingly silly story about the Greeks’ intentions to attack the city. As we all know, Cassandra was right. The Trojans were defeated and the city was written off and destroyed.

Cassandra was a woman no one understood. Some versions of the myth say that her gift was a divine punishment the god Apollo had imposed on her. This punishment came because Cassandra rejected the deity. He got his revenge by giving her a gift that would only frustrate her.

The Cassandra metaphor and the woman’s invisibility

The concept of the Cassandra metaphor was created based on Cassandra’s stories. People have used the term on those who tend to make predictions, often catastrophic, that others do not believe. Due to scientific developments, society tends to lean towards rationality and empiricism. This kind of thinking ignores irrational notions such as imaginative visions.

As such, most people ignore such findings or think they are simple coincidences. Even in ancient Greece, the patriarchal society considered femininity synonymous with imperfection, weakness, and with a receptivity to be dominated and exploited.

Submission and humility were virtues women had to have at that time. This mentality, which still exists to some degree, has forced many women to become invisible.

The Cassandra metaphor can explain how patriarchal justification has taken responsibility for some women’s achievements. Thus, it does not recognize women’s achievements and transfers them to figures such as their fathers, brothers or husbands. These days, it is also not difficult to see this invisibility among women. For example, in the media, a woman’s success often depends on her physical appearance.

Woman as commodity and property

Myth tells; when the Greeks defeated and invaded Troy, the soldiers sent Cassandra to the Greek king Agamemnon as a gift. This story is an old mirror that also shows us how society sees a woman’s body as a commodity . People still consider a woman’s body to be an object of pleasure for men or a form of advertising to sell products.

The objectivity of the female body is the order of the day. There is a reason why most women face significant barriers in their personal and professional development. In other words , society judges women for their physical appearance or age more than their abilities, intellectual potential or achievements.

In addition, many women have to deal with institutional skepticism. Patriarchal society often marginalizes or undermines women who want to fight for and destroy gender roles and stereotypes.

Some women manage to gain positions of power after overcoming several obstacles and disadvantages. They also receive recognition for roles beyond those traditionally expected of them. Some examples of these traditional qualities are beauty or the ability to care for others.

Many women are often delegitimized, disqualified or simply not taken seriously. We can link this directly to the Cassandra metaphor. It is the perfect example of how society becomes a deaf ear to the achievements of women who rise above stereotypes.