“The reason why men have one missing rib is because god created Adam first and he made Eve from his rib.”

Context: Alyena told me this story at the University of Southern California. She is a student at Santa Monica Community College. She was born and raised in Agoura Hills California, and is not religious. She heard this story from her family and from her peers all her life.

Analysis: Alyena heard this story even though she did not grow up in a religious home. The fact that she still knows this information from word of mouth is a testament to our highly religious American society. This is also an indicator of how patriarchal American society is, that a woman stems from a man’s rib. This was probably partially the intent behind this mythology: to depict women as inferior to men.