Stone cold eyes and a mane of snakes; sounds like a villain, doesn't it? What if I told you this was a tragic story of a victim—Medusa. The Medusa tattoo has grown over the years for very unfortunate reasons. While many people have a Medusa tattoo for their own personal and nonrelated reasons, more and more people are wearing her as a symbol of strength from sexual assault. While generally, women find this tattoo more meaningful, it resonates regardless of gender. Medusa symbolizes a force of resilience and empowerment in an ancient mythology story of her assault and victim blame.  

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Now, there are many versions of Medusa’s story. Two competing ones are Hesiod’s Theogony, Greek, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Roman. Hesiod illustrated Medusa as one of three Gorgons, monstrous sisters, born. She had sex with the sea god Poseidon in a meadow. However, Medusa becomes more popular when Ovid depicts her as a beautiful maiden with a vow of chastity assaulted by Poseidon in the temple of Athena (Michael, 2022). Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, Medusa turned into the snake-haired monster known today.  

To this tale, sexual assault survivors have used Medusa’s story as a symbol of their own. They wear her as armor for protection. Her story, her experience and her pain resonate with theirs. 

According to RAINN, one in every six women in America falls victim to sexual assault.  

“When you’re looking at tattoos of Medusa, it doesn’t matter what style the tattoo is in, whether it’s in traditional or neo, color, black and grey, realism, you get the same feeling every time you look at them; it’s just a strength in there,” Haylee Cotter, known as Haylee Tattooer, said online. “They’re taking the power back from their own assault experiences and using Medusa as a symbol of strength and what they’ve been through.” 

In 2020, Medusa joined the #MeToo Movement, a movement that helps spread awareness, accountability and justice of sexual assault and helps survivors to heal and feel seen.  

Originally crafted in 2008, artist Luciano Garbati took inspiration from Benvenuto Cellini’s 16th-century bronze statue: “Perseus With the Head of Medusa.” Garbati sculpted Medusa, holding Perseus’s head in one hand with a sword in the other, standing tall, nude and bronze in front of the New York Criminal Court, where men accused of sexual assault were prosecuted (Spacciante, 2023). Garbati created his sculpture to reverse Cellini’s story by “...imagining it from Medusa’s perspective and revealing the woman behind the monster” (Jacobs, 2020).  

Medusa resonates with how belittled and betrayed survivors have felt and turns it into recognizing their story for what it is. It acknowledges their strength and recognizes the validation and even closure of their experience. It means something unique to each person who gets it and their story. They are re-writing their story by using Medusa as ink for the pain they’ve been through that’s gone unseen.  

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To those getting it, you’re strong, you’re seen, you’re not alone, it’s not your fault and most of all, I’m sorry.