Why Artemis is the Heroine we Need Now

Artemis is one of the three Greek Goddesses.  She is usually depicted as a girl in a knee-length tunic and equipped with a hunting bow, and arrows that never run out.  The bow and arrows represent a woman who is focused and determined and capable of taking care of herself.  Her arrows always hit her intended mark.

She represents the female independent spirit who is self-sufficient and a nature lover.  We could say she was the first feminist and brought health and well-being to virginal maidens.  Artemis rules over the moon, the hunt, and she is the protectress of children, forest and the wilderness.  Her sacred animals are the deer, the bear, the snake and she is always surrounded by hunting dogs.  She is resolute, strong, athletic, brave, youthful, adventurous and quick-tempered.

While Artemis was beholden to no man, she had lovers, but she did not have any desire to form long-lasting romantic relationships or to form long-term maternal roles.  She was not lonely, she was solitary and preferred the free setting of the woods to live.

The power of her magic is to hunt down the desires of her heart, and always obtain them.

The Artemis archetype is sure of herself, her own values, loyalties and ambitions. Passionate about women’s rights and the victimization of women and girls, and about advocating for justice.  She is drawn to environmentalism, animal and human rights.

Aphrodite, Athena, Demeter, Hera and Hestia also epitomize ideal qualities that women can aspire to, as well as some qualities that should be avoided.  And women are not unchanging and should not be limited to the expectations of that spirit of patriarchal societies of Greek gods thousands of years ago.  Each Goddess represents a way of being and women should call on any one of these female archetypes at different times in their lives.

Carl Jung said:

“We are the stories we hear and the stories we tell.”

Jung wrote that people from all over share core myths that become the foundation of our consciousness, culture and communication. The archetypes make up the mythic unconscious and express themselves in our dreams and stories we tell.  Particularly stories that have archetypical structure, resonate with our unconscious mind and conscious lives.

In popular culture, goddesses are represented everywhere.  Buffy the Vampire Slayer represented a complex and empowered woman with Artemisian traits in contemporary society.  Her main role was to protect the vulnerable and she would use deadly force when necessary, and she never abandoned her duties. Buffy did not believe that being alone meant being lonely, and for several seasons she did not express a desire for dating or a romantic partnership.  However, she did express an interest in a social life and friends.  She did not view herself as an isolated female heroe, and believed in strong interpersonal bonds:  Her intense committment, love, loyalty and devotion to her mother were manifest when her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and Buffy obsessed over finding a magical cure for her mother’s illness.

Traditionally, the Action genre was one of Hollywood’s most sexist.  But in the past decades, the roles of women in Hollywood movies has steadily evolved from the universal ‘hostage,’ ‘conquest’ or ‘victim’ archetype to become the Artemisian heroines of their own story.  The resurgence of female heroines in Hollywood in the last decades has mostly been of the action genre: Sigourney Weaver’s as the tough heroine Ellen Ripley, protecting her surrogate daughter from a dangerous world in Alien; Charlize Theron, as Furiosa, saving women from sexual slavery in Mad Max Fury Road; the physicality of Gina Carano as Mallory Cane in Haywire; Linda Hamilton, as the survivor Sarah Connor in Terminator; or, more recently, the strength and compassion of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.

There are endless ways to portray heroines as powerful, funny, and as entertaining as the male lead. Relationships between female and male leads in movies need to be portrayed as equals.

Movies have a huge amount of power to affect how society thinks, and it is infuriating that the stereotypical woman portrayed in Hollywood movies is tormented, self-sacrificing,  vapid, and obsessed by men, weight and weddings.

In Hollywood less than 10% of films are written by women, and less than 6% are directed by them. We need to support more movies which show women in a more complex way.  In the Golden Age of Hollywood, women were portrayed as strong, gutsy and gritty; take Vivien Leigh´s Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, a complex character, who was no virtuous heroine, yet incredibly strong, courageous and willing to overcome adversity.  She had an instinct for survival and was way ahead of her time.

Keeping with the spirit and goals of Artemis, is The Artemis Women in Action Film Festival.  They spotlight independent and revolutionary women in narrative and documentary films. The festival is dedicated to honoring female action and empowerment.  The organization celebrates powerful women taking action on the silver screen. From female action heroes to female activists.  Founder Melanie Wise says the festival –

“…seeks to redefine the image of women, not only in film, but in culture as well.”

Cheers to all the modern day Artemises; among them brave Malala for fighting for girls’ rights to an education; and the pioneer Jane Goodall for revolutionizing our understanding of chimps.  We need Artemises spirit to be present in all our lives and all over this planet.

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