Women and Other Monsters

A fresh literary and cultural analysis that uses female monsters from Greek mythology to reexamine traits women are taught to suppress, arguing for a wilder, more "monstrous" form of feminism

Through fresh analysis of eleven female monsters, including Medusa, the Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx, Jess Zimmerman takes on an illuminating feminist journey through mythology. She guides women (and others) to reexamine their relationships with traits like hunger, anger, ugliness, and ambition, teaching readers to embrace a new image of the female hero: one that looks a lot like a monster, with the agency and power to match.

The folklore that has shaped our dominant culture teems with frightening female creatures. In our language, in our stories, we underline the idea that women who step out of bounds--who are angry or greedy or ambitious, who are overtly sexual or insufficiently sexy--aren't just outside the norm. They're unnatural. Monstrous. Often, women try to avoid the feeling of monstrousness, of being grotesquely alien, by tamping down those qualities that we're told fall outside of natural femininity. But monsters also get to do what other female characters--damsels, love interests, and even most heroines--do not. Monsters get to be complete, unrestrained, and larger than life.

Today, women are becoming increasingly aware of the ways rules and socially constructed expectations have diminished us. After seeing where compliance gets us--harassed, shut out, and ruled by predators--women have never been more ready to become repellent, fearsome, and ravenous.