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The Medusa Project is an initiative to reclaim Medusa - the mythical Greek woman whose gaze could turn anyone to stone - as a symbol of female empowerment.
The Medusa Project is an initiative to reclaim Medusa - the mythical Greek woman whose gaze could turn anyone to stone - as a symbol of female empowerment.
The Medusa Project was founded in 2021 by Devin McDonald, a Classical Honors Program student at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, after seeing the Medusa image used regularly to demonize, discredit, and devalue powerful women. Hillary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, Angela Merkel, Martha Stewart, and Oprah Winfrey are just a few among those targeted. For example, during the 2016 presidential campaign, a shocking illustration of Donald Trump as Perseus holding the severed head of Hillary Clinton as Medusa turned up on everything from tee shirts to coffee mugs.
The Medusa Project has three goals:
To reclaim Medusa as a symbol of female empowerment
To stop the appropriation of the Medusa image to suppress female advancement
To inspire Gen Z to empower a new generation of female leaders
The Medusa Project was founded in 2021 by Devin McDonald, a Classical Honors Program student at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, after seeing the Medusa image used regularly to demonize, discredit, and devalue powerful women. Hillary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, Angela Merkel, Martha Stewart, and Oprah Winfrey are just a few among those targeted. For example, during the 2016 presidential campaign, a shocking illustration of Donald Trump as Perseus holding the severed head of Hillary Clinton as Medusa turned up on everything from tee shirts to coffee mugs.
Help us reclaim Medusa as a symbol of female empowerment. Join our social media movement:
#mymedusa: Whenever you post content celebrating a powerful woman, whether a friend, family member, or woman in the public eye, use the hashtag #mymedusa.
#mymedusamoment: Post a photo of yourself at a moment when you felt powerful and nominate three strong women you admire to do so too.
Share with us:
DM us on social media or email us at hello@themedusaproject.com
to tell us how you’d like to get involved with The Medusa Project, to share your story with us, or to tell us if you have seen an image of Medusa being used to discredit a powerful woman so we can take action.
DM us on social media or email us at hello@themedusaproject.com
to tell us how you’d like to get involved with The Medusa Project, to share your story with us, or to tell us if you have seen an image of Medusa being used to discredit a powerful woman so we can take action.
Listed below are a selection of resources relevant to The Medusa Project that you may wish to explore.
Welcome to The Medusa Project Forum. Please check back soon to read, watch, and listen to interviews that we have conducted with some of the most inspiring Modern Medusas.
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2020-12-14
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2020-12-14
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Devin McDonald
Founder, The Medusa Project
Devin McDonald is a junior at the University of Chicago, majoring in Classics and pre-law. She is the recipient of the Maureen O’Donnell Scholarship for Academic Excellence and the 2025 John G. Hawthorne Prize and leads UChicago’s chapter of Eta Sigma Phi, the national honor society for classical studies. She spent her high school years at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, where she was a member of the Classical Honors Program, the recipient of the school’s Dickey Prize for Excellence in Greek, president of the Classics Society, and a Cum Laude Society member. Passionate about the Classics and gender equity, Devin has devoted much of her time to researching the connections between the way women are portrayed in classical myths and modern-day gender issues. Recently, she completed interdisciplinary research examining Medusa’s depiction in classical literature and art, from Hesiod and Ovid to modern sculpture, analyzing evolving cultural attitudes toward female power and transgression.
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Dr. David Camden
Advisor
Dr. Camden currently holds the Alexander Smith Cochran Chair in Greek Language and Literature at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. Dr. David Camden graduated summa cum laude in Classics from Harvard University in 2005, and he received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 2016. Before coming to St. Paul’s School, Dr. Camden taught for a year at Emory University and for two years at the Gunston School, an independent high school in Maryland. In the past, Dr. Camden has taught both introductory and intermediate courses in Latin, Greek, and Italian. He has also taught more advanced classes in Greek and Latin literature, Greek prose composition, and ancient medicine. In 2008, he contributed to the digitization of the Bodleian Euclid and is currently writing a book on Greek medicine.
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Elizabeth Englehardt
Advisor
Elizabeth Engelhardt graduated from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in ancient Greek and is currently working toward a Ph.D. in classical philology at Harvard University. Before coming to St. Paul’s, she taught a variety of undergraduate Greek and Latin courses at Harvard and ran a one-woman high school Latin program for three years at Severn School in Severna Park, Md.
