Epoch of the Harpies

Used to be a woman named Stephanie Grisham, now 

a harpy gold digger making big bucks hating Trump

For a woman aspiring to influence and power, when did teeth become such an important accessory? I don’t mean pretty teeth. I mean teeth as threat display: big teeth, the aggressive overbite, even buck teeth thrust forward in a sneer. Because of the way media works, most of the attention and blame for this phenomenon has been diverted to a single individual, but as we’re going to to see, she is only the tippy-top tooth of an iceberg of dentition in the new world of female predators. Who have been exemplified since ancient times by the Harpies and related icons of mythology.

What is a harpy? 

Sirens were closely related to harpies, adding the element of 

potent, even magical, vocal capabilities designed to destroy men.

The Sirens may have been first in terms of myth origins, seen as sea creatures (i.e., mermaids) who evolved in legend to become winged killers with talons and fangs as weapons. These accessories figure prominently in their depictions.

Mythology is not real life, however. Harpies and other female terrors like the Gorgons and the Furies served to remind men throughout history that the female was potentially a lethal sex. Women who aspired to influence and power learned, were trained in fact, to keep their mouths closed and bodies covered (mostly) in portraiture. The highest feminine achievements apart from motherhood and dominion of the home were for centuries confined to literary works. The canon of female writers is a vivid proof of the closed-mouth phenomenon, which lasted almost to the very end of female poetry and fiction production.

It wasn’t until the 20th Century that things began to change. Women became political after being drafted into the workplace in a World War I. They tried to make men stop drinking and the organizations that brought about the Great Experiment called Prohibition continued working on a second Great Experiment called Women’s Suffrage. They prevailed in this too. Women got the vote here in 1920, and by 1932 they had also succeeded in electing a President for Life named Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who liked taking money from people who too much of it and giving it away to people he liked. This man (or That Man As opponents dubbed him) had a wife named Eleanor Roosevelt, whom every single person in the world (mostly) loved and admired to death. She was not beautiful to look at. But she wasn’t afraid to show a feature no woman had ever been willingly photographed with before. Buck teeth.

She lived for a great many years after her husband’s death, 

and her teeth became a cultural icon to the liberals she loved.

Maybe not because of Eleanor’s teeth but maybe because of her comfort with her own body, teeth began to play a greater role in feminine appearance. Show business gradually accepted that outsized, even protruding teeth could be, well, attractive. They also seemed to inspire more fiery clothing statements, acting portrayals, and entertainment careers.

Not surprisingly, this change in the standards of how much physical oddity and overt aggression was tolerable and even praised in women permeated other aspects of the culture, including politics. A new wave of powerful women began to grow in the congress, House and Senate both.

Another infiltration began at about the same time, as First Ladies turned from an Easter Egg hunts to politics and presidential power via vote or influence. In time, there were enough of them surrounding Presidents that they became, if you believe in the supernatural power of women, a kind of White House Coven.

Next came the formerly staid, quiet, and dignified halls of justice, where judge and prosecutors dared to open their mouths and go for the throats of men whose very existence aggrieved them.

It goes without saying that a wholesale invasion was also underway in the news and pundit ranks of the mass media. They became famous for the fact their bite was as blood-curdling as their bark. 

How it comes to pass that the right sort of harpy can work her way up via congressional staff work and such, become a member of the White House Coven, then move on the lucrative pastures of the mass media by turning on her old mentors and baring her teeth in ways favored by the ruling men’s elite. Witness the ace dandy of one Stephanie Grisham, late of the Trump Administration and now a bronze-taloned and glass-breaking voice for the flocks of predators who are trying to bring Trump down.

What’s a harpy? That’s a harpy. Our government and media are chock full of them.