There are many stories about Medusa. Among other things that she was beautiful and was raped by Poseidon. As punishment for this, she was transformed into a kind of monster with serpentine hair that turned anyone who looked at her into stone. Of course, it was the woman who was punished for the crime against her, not the man. It is always the female beauty that seduces the poor man into committing an offense against her.
In Florence we can still “admire” a monument concerning this, which shows Perseus standing heroically with one leg on the dead body of Medusa, raising her cut-off head in the air. This represents that the man has silenced the woman, that the woman is to be deprived of the voice in this society.
