Keywords: Ecriture Feminine, Female, Writing, Medusa, Myth, Fear

Myths have been considered traditional sacred narratives that intend to explain the relationship between the entire universe and the human experience. (Kapoor, 2021)

A single explanation of myth is never adequate as its definitions vary significantly. (Kapoor, 2021)

The Laugh of The Medusa is an essay by a French feminist critic Helen Cixous, the original writing was "Le Rire de la Méduse" in 1975 written in French. She suggested that women should write by using their actions and their bodies as their own language, to express and speak of their identity instead of being identified by the opposite gender. Her writing also inspired me to stand in my own identity and furthermore use creation ( writing, and painting in my perspective) to show the public and make changes in society.

In Kapoor's article (Kapoor, 2021), they also mentioned Ali Smith’s writing, a mythological tale of Iphis and Ianthe from Metamorphoses in her novel. I am interested that they talked about the word ‘queer’ being used as an insult in the ancient classical period, considering in relationship with homosexuals and a strong homophobic significance in the previous time. Meanwhile linking to Sappho’s fragments are related to the love and intimate relationship between the same gender, I see the difference and embracement of standing in the position of queer and how society responds to it. They use writing as a tool to export their own thoughts and independent thinking worldwide, no matter if that is a fictional space like Ali’s work or the realistic documentation of personal experience like Sappho’s, these writings portray the power of gender and equality. It is like a fight back to the phobic society, with aesthetics, and the beauty of love.

Moreover, I also look at my personal experience as a queer in the present society, living in the western world, and born in the traditional eastern world with uncountable misunderstandings and stereotypes towards gender and sexuality.

She must write her self, because this is the invention of a new insurgent writing which, when the moment of her liberation has come…(Cixous, Cohen and Cohen, 1976)

Talking about the myth, the unknown

Dark is dangerous. You can't see anything in the dark,

you're afraid. Don't move, you might fall. Most of all, don't go into the

forest. And so we have internalised this horror of the dark. (Cixous, Cohen and Cohen, 1976)

Why doing things in the dark, why bury ourselves

…as when we would masturbate in secret, not to go further, but to attenuate the tension a bit, just enough to take the edge off. And then as soon as we come, we go and make ourselves feel guilty so as to be forgiven; or to forget, to bury it until the next time. (Cixous, Cohen and Cohen, 1976)

Why do females have to bury themselves, what made this happen? The appear of masculinity and male figure, where this horror comes from, and why we allow ourselves to feel so.