Transgressive Womanhood: Investigating Vamps, Witches, Whores, Serial Killers and Monsters

Book excerpt: This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2014. Despite the triumphs of the feminist movement, the cultural stereotype of the evil woman remains. Images of wanton, treacherous, malicious and monstrous females pervade art, literature, film, mythology, psychology and history. This eBook is a compilation of some of the papers presented at the 5th Global Conference on Evil, Women and the Feminine, and provides a collection of fresh perspectives on the construction of transgressive femininities. A core theme throughout many of the chapters is that the concept of evil is gendered, and what appears as a sinister action is often contingent on the gender of the perpetrator. While many behaviours are considered relatively unproblematic for a man, they are seen as evil when executed by a woman. The notion of female evil remains intimately tied to transgression and subversion of the norms regarding acceptable femininity.