Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power

Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year This witty engaging analysis of female monsters in pop culture offers provocative and incisive commentary on societys fear of female rage and power (Soraya Chemaly author of Rage Becomes Her) Women have always been seen as monsters. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures capable of immense destruction. Maybe they are. And maybe thats a good thing. Sady Doyle hailed as smart funny and fearless by the Boston Globe takes readers on a tour of the female dark side from the biblical Lilith to Draculas Lucy Westenra from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Geins domineering mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel who starved herself to death to quell her demons; author Mary Shelley who dreamed her dead child back to life. These monsters embody patriarchal fear of women and illustrate the violence with which men enforce traditionally feminine roles. They also speak to the primal threat of a woman who takes back her power. In a dark and dangerous world Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers asks women to look to monsters for the ferocity we all need to survive. Some people take a scalpel to the heart of media culture; Sady Doyle brings a bone saw a melon baller and a machete. Andi Zeisler author of We Were Feminists Once