Category: Latest Posts

In literacy, we’ve been learning and researching about Ancient civilization specifically Ancient Greek; therefore, we were assigned to write a research report about Ancient Greek mythology and Greek god or goddess. Everyone was assigned a god/goddess to do research about and I’m the goddess of marriage, women, and childbirth, HERA. Researching about the family trees of Greek gods/goddesses were quite complicating, but managed to pull out vital information about them. Here is my research report about my goddess:

GODDESS: HERA

General Information

HERA was one of the goddesses of the Olympian gods. Name “HERA” derived from a baby girl’s name which means “protectress‘. Therefore, Hera was the queen of Greek gods with certain roles including goddess of marriage, childbirth, and women. She had super strength of immortality, resistance to injury, and since she is the goddess of marriage, she had the power to bless or curse marriages; furthermore, she also had the ability to protect women from all causes and to help preserve women’s health longer. She didn’t have the physical weapons like swords or bows, all she had was the power of her cleverness and affection. This queen of heaven was found at Mount Olympus where most gods and goddesses live.

Family and Relatives

HERA was a daughter of the Cronus and Rhea along with her siblings: Poseidon, Hades, Zeus, Hestia, and Demeter. She married to Zeus (her brother) and gave birth to five children including Eileithyia, Ares, Hebe, Hephaestus, and Eris.

History

HERA had been swallowed by her father, Cronus, at birth. However, she was saved by Zeus who tricked and poisoned him to vomit her out. Her siblings also suffered the same fate of getting swallowed by their father. The reason was that there had been a prophecy saying that Cronus will be deposed by his children. Therefore, to prevent that, he swallowed each and every single one of his children at birth. However, when it was Zeus’s turn, Rhea decided to switch Zeus and let Cronus swallowed a rock instead. Then, when Zeus grew up, he successfully overthrew his father and became the king of the gods. HERA didn’t have many memories during her childhood because she spent most of her time inside her father’s stomach.

Physical appearance and symbols

HERA was described as stunningly beautiful. Everything that was on her body was pure gold including her sandals, chariot, and throne. She wore a high cylindrical crown! She always dressed up elegantly, feminine, but not exotic fashion. She was serious about her appearance and no one could beat her on that; she was considered purely beautiful even topping the beauty of Aphrodite. HERA’s most known sacred animals are cuckoo and peacock. Cuckoo symbolized Zeus’s love for HERA because he disguised himself as a cuckoo as he first approached her. Since HERA was immortal, peacock exemplified immortality. Other minor symbolisms were: lily flower which is believed came from HERA’s breast milk when she gave births, pomegranate which symbolized fertility since she was the goddess of childbirth.

Celebrations

To honor HERA, they created a game called “Heraia” that was like Olympic, but only women can participate which is a foot-race. They celebrated every four years in August. HERA’s Roman name was JUNO. Likewise, the month “June” was named after her; furthermore, since she was the goddess of marriage, most people prefer to get married in the month of June.

Important Myth

On the other hand, there was one major myth that involved HERA. It was called the tale of HERA and Heracles or Hercules. To start, Hercules was a son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Alcmene. Since HERA was known for her vengeful character, Hercules and she never had a good relationship. She was always jealous of Zeus’s extramarital affair and illicit child and Hercules was one of them. Due to HERA’s jealousy, she made Hercules’s life miserable. She hated him so so much that she caused troubles at every opportunity. For instance, as part of his sentence, he had to do 12 labors, but HERA didn’t let it go smoothly. She stirred up the Amazons against him or sent gadfly to destroy the herd in one of his labors. After these labors, he was known for Greece’s greatest hero which increased HERA’s hatred towards him to its ultimate. Even after the labors finished, HERA always got into his way, notably, when the hero sailed the sea, she sent violent storms that cast the boat around like a toy. Hercules did try to calm situations between this angry queen and him down, but HERA doesn’t seem to lessen her anger until he died. Once Hercules died, HERA’s hatred seems to cool down, surprisingly, after he died and ascended to the Olympus, he married to Hebe, HERA’s daughter!

Conclusion

To sum up, HERA was one of the most respected goddesses. Despite her vengeful character, she was a symbol of fidelity because she was always faithful towards her loved ones. Once again, she was a goddess of marriage, childbirth, and women. However, don’t ever forget her vindictive characteristics!

Works Cited

Study.com, Study.com, study.com/academy/lesson/the-greek-goddess-hera-stories-lesson-quiz.html.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-greek-goddess-hera-stories-lesson-quiz.html

“Appearance, Personality, and Special Abilities – Per,.3 Hera.” Google Sites, sites.google.com/site/per3hera/place-on-the-mountain/apperance-personality-and-special-abilities.

https://sites.google.com/site/per3hera/place-on-the-mountain/apperance-personality-and-special-abilities

 

“Goddess Symbols: Hera.” Goddess Symbols: Hera Symbols and Myths., www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/goddess_symbols_hera.htm.

“Greek Stories about Hera-The Sacred Wedding of Zeus and Hera.” Greek Gods, www.greek-gods.info/greek-gods/hera/myths/zeus-hera-wedding/.

“Hera’s Powers.” Hera the Supreme Goddess, griffinquestproject.weebly.com/heras-powers.html.

“Hera: Goddess of Love and Marriage.” Crystal Wind™, www.crystalwind.ca/mystical-magical/pantheons-and-myths/greek/hera-goddess-of-love-and-marriage.

“Queen Hera (Juno), the Olympian Goddess of Marriage.” Greek Gods, www.greek-gods.info/greek-gods/hera/.

 

If you do a google image search of “human trafficking” the majority of the images are of women.

We often refer to human trafficking as the act of abduction in the favor of prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, organ removal, and many other types of exploitations. But, little do we know that it’s almost entirely inadequate to women, WOMEN and issued on sex trafficking and sexual slavery.

A phrase elders in Cambodia often said is, ‘យើងស្រី កុំស្លៀកខ្លី ដើរលេងយប់ច្រើនពេក ប្រយ័ត្នគេចាប់។’ It translated as, ‘As a woman, don’t wear too short, don’t stay out at late night or you’ll get abduct.’ This crisis intimidates women every time, every night.

Women seem to be self-publicist their appearance toward others (men) – and that’s the normal thing. There shouldn’t be any criticism upon that. However, men interpret it in a different way. It made them think that these women deserve to be one of theirs.

Late at night, along with some streets of Phnom Penh, you would see groups of motos full of men. A girl passed by, they commented unsettling comments like, ‘What a nice leg you’ve got there’, ‘Can I have your number?’. These are something women are frightened of, it doesn’t mandatory mean that human trafficking occurs. However, it’s just something to be aware of to everybody especially women.

According to UN sustainable development, some 71% of human trafficking victims are female, hence, one-third of them are girls. Women comprise a large proportion of the overall number of people trafficked, that is transferred within or across national borders from their place of habitual residence.

Besides that, approximately 80% of the overall trafficking involves sexual exploitation, and 19% involves labor exploitation. Human trafficking is the third leading crime in the world after drugs and arms trades.

‘More People had started to become migrants and refugees which is a greater risk of human trafficking.’ Corresponding to the report during UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants in New York.

Human trafficking is global; however, is almost entirely confined to women. It is the modern form of slavery. They are tricked that they’ll get a better job but result to keep as slaves.

Simultaneously, women are more likely to become the victims because we stereotyped them. There is, of course, Men trafficking in the favor of forced labor in agriculture, fishing, and construction industries. However, it’s just rare. Furthermore, we live in a world that is dominated by men, therefore, the perspective of seeing women as victims in cases like abduction, harassment, and trafficking is likely to be acknowledged.

Women, once again feel contaminated because the world is targeting them. Seeing them as the ‘victim’. Can we be more disinterested? Can we set this policy of not referring to women as victims of crimes? It’s quite disappointing to see how this contemporary world continues to portray this devastating stereotype.

“It is not surprising that women are trafficked more often than men; it is what I would have assumed. However, it is both unfortunate and disappointing. Women are taught to take care of themselves, be on the lookout, be on the defense, not trust people at first, etc. but yet they still end up being the victim of trafficking and other crimes. I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that many men are physically stronger than women, and as such, women are unable to defend themselves from the perpetrators. I also think that often there are family members who are involved or friends who gain a woman’s trust, but who are really planning to traffick her for money. Or sometimes a woman thinks she is signing up for another job, often to make money for herself and her family, when in fact, it is a hoax.” – Caroline Bell, female, Lead Learning Facilitator at the Liger Leadership Academy.

Now, let’s see male’s perspective towards this.

“When I think of the term human trafficking, in modern times, I definitely think mainly of women, but I think it goes back to slavery, which wasn’t limited to women. However, I don’t know a lot of examples in the news in the past 20-30 years of human trafficking that included men. Furthermore, I personally don’t always think of women as victims, but I think in general we live in a male-dominated society, most politicians and CEOs, etc. are male and I think that contributes to some people viewing women as victims.” – Jeff Boucher, male, Learning Facilitator at the Liger Leadership Academy.

“We live in a world that is dominated by men. It has always been that way because men are physically larger and stronger. That said, I think we now live in a world where physical size and strength are not important for survival. Women are just as capable in every way. Yes, I believe that women suffer MUCH more than men when it comes to rape and human trafficking which is not a stereotype, but a fact. Men still use their physical advantage to abuse women and the worst part is that in the world most laws are created by and enforced by men so that women’s rights have not been protected. In terms of the world seeing women as victims, if that were true, then laws should change to protect them.  Many cultures (including Khmer) do not value girls and women the same as boys and men.  They do not allow them the same freedom of choosing their profession and spouse, same educational opportunities, and different expectations for them.” – Jan Krieger, male, Teacher

All these perspectives give insight into why trafficking victims are mostly female. Neither way, all purposes of women trafficking should never be considered as an existence. No one deserves to be raped, sold, captured by anyone. Furthermore, we’re not trying to convey the idea of us stereotyped women in crimes.

Currently, this topic emerges everywhere. It is a controversial and important issue. As a result, there are many campaigns and organizations that have been established to combat and convince people to fight against this tragic form of trade.

Likewise, there is a small campaign participated by some popular celebrities to stop human trafficking called, “Shine a Light on Slavery Day” which engaged hundreds of thousands of people who associated with to call to action by drawing a red “X” on their hand and posting to social media.

Alternatively, there are uncountable number of NGOs that work to combat this catastrophic crime as well. For instance, ‘Polaris’ is one of the most influential groups that works to combat human trafficking by setting policies and creating advocacies to end this modern-day form of slavery. There are way more than just described of how these NGOs care about us. We all care about you, you’re not alone. Let’s stop reading these statistics and start ending this misery. NO ONE can own anyone.

‘This could be your daughter.’

In literacy, gender equality and equity have once become our brand new unit. We used a new resource called “CommonLit” in order to read and analyze articles about gender. For instance, articles about Hillary Clinton’s speech, Emma Watson’s speech, and Afganistan’s Bacha posh have been read individually among students and separately each student took a small assessment regarding the topics. 

Literally, we almost held a class discussion every day. Discussing this and that relevant to gender. Once, we were assigned to read one article from the website called “Girl’s globe” and bring its main idea to the class discussion. Everyone in class has fully participated regardless of boys or girls to discuss this controversial topic. As a girl learning about rights that woman has now is devastating. The ideas of women not having the same rights as men do hit every girl like a sudden strike and like a big boulder creating more weight for women. 

Many relevant points were made during discussions. Bringing up the eager to fight for equal rights, so that by the end of sometimes, we can make this statement, “There WERE gender inequalities.” Plus, women are not being able to receive equal rights doesn’t mean it’s only women’s issue, but men’s as well. Without women, this world wouldn’t be able to process. 

“I hope that by 2030 we can talk about gender inequality in HISTORICAL TERMS.” – Phumzile Mlambo