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098 The Hidden History of Women Who Fly, Rebels, Witches, Divas, and Other Archetypal Airborne Females with Serinity Young (2021)
Archetypes. Fleeing. Freedom. Flight. And the roles we play. How do we break out of the limiting versions? And why has it always been important for women to express authentic and uncut versions of themselves.
Let's take a deeper look at women who fly, modern feminism, and how adventurous women are stitched into a narrative about freedom and control ranging widely through myth, religion, and iconography - this story of 'sky-going females'.
In this episode, Sylvia talks to Serinity Young PhD about her astonishing study into women and flight chronicled in the 2018 book, Women Who Fly: Goddesses, Witches, Mystics, and other Airborne Females. To take the concept of airborne women and unfolds a deep and thought-provoking investigation into the recurrent motif of women free from earthly constraints and empowered with the ability of flight, Serinity speaks to a timeless human aspiration to be unbound, free, and powerful.
From Sanskrit myths and apsaras to the Wonder Woman comics, from Dante's guide in Paradise (the winged Beatrice) and Freud's interpretation of dreams of flying, to the winged goddess of victory in Greece, Serinity masterfully weaves together a global history of women in flight. She talks about the symbolism of fleeing - by flying - the constraints of patriarchy.
They discuss legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions all while shining a light on how airborne women have been both influenced and understood by society and religious traditions and much more.
Topics Include:
- The archetype of flying women
- The depiction of ariel women in captivity starting in the dark ages
- Witches, shamans, mystics, goddesses
- Exceptionism and why it holds women back
- Wonder Woman, duality and the conundrum of love
- Amelia Earhart, more than a mystery
- Female power and sexuality
- And other topics...
Serinity Young Ph.D. is a Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History. She is a professor of Classical Middle Eastern and Asian Language and Cultures at Queens College in New York. Young is the author of several books including Women Who Fly: Goddesses, Witches, Mystics, and other Airborne Females where she examines the motif of the flying woman as it appears in a wide variety of cultures and historical periods, in legends, myths, rituals, sacred narratives, and artistic productions.
Resources Mentioned:
Women Who Fly: Goddesses, Witches, Mystics, and other Airborne Females, by Serinity Young Ph.D.
The Secret History of Wonder Woman, by Jill Lepore
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