Pandora is Marie Curie,
isolating radium and determining its atomic weight,
creating means of measuring radioactivity.
To this day, she is credited
for the weight her works have
regarding cancer treatment.
Yet she died of radiation sickness,
demon literally of her own making.

Pandora is Shirin Ebadi,
put on trial for revealing the truth –
on the grounds that she was lying.
To this day, she promotes human rights.

Pandora is Matilda,
driven out before the coronation for daring
to be a woman, and heir to the throne.

Pandora is Rosalind Franklin,
and her groundbreaking Photograph 51
and the discovery of the shape of DNA,
the one difference between all of us
that we all share.
Credit was stolen by the men
who examined her work without her consent,
who were applauded with awards
while a woman also deserving of the spotlight
was sidelined, too long forgotten,
and we don’t give Nobel Prizes to dead people.

Pandora is Sojourner Truth,
fighting for her own freedom
and that of others.
She was once accused of being a man
since she was so tall,
and spoke with a low voice,
and most of all since she fought.
She stood tall. She spoke up.
She supposedly revealed her breasts in response.

Prometheus, celebrated fire-bringer,
yet not by the ashes
after the inferno he incited.

Pandora damned us with our demons.
Pandora let my own depression loose on the world
and plagued me with doubts,
but I don’t know who I am without them.
After all, dubito ergo cognito ergo sum.
I doubt therefore I think therefore I am.
I am capable of questioning,
therefore capable of finding an answer.
I am perhaps dependent on my anxiety,
but I love my curiosity.

Pandora is vilified by men
who say she was gifted with beauty
but cursed with curiosity.
It’s what the woman is reduced to:
her pretty face, not her brain.
Pandora’s a bimbo, a witch – burn her!
She’s the bitch to blame
for the suffering of mankind.
She’s the madness of your mind,
you, a man. Are you blind?
Can’t you see that she’s still the only woman in the story?

Pandora, I will rewrite your story.
Think outside the box.
It is claustrophobic being confined to their expectations.
You are the makings of the perfectionist artist,
moulded by men’s ideas of what a woman is.
But you are of stone
and you may weather millennia.
They forgot this crucial fact,
hidden in the old idiom:
curiosity may have killed the cat
but satisfaction brought it back.
Pandora, you are hungry for knowledge,
and resurrected with each discovery.

Pandora is a pioneer.
She paves the way for change.
And no matter what path the patriarchy takes,
It’s still a step behind her.