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

Sady Doyle

4.25 · Rating details · 1,151 ratings · 180 reviews

The Female Monster is alive and well in the pop-cultural imagination. What does she tell us about ourselves and how we live today?

Funny, smart and encyclopedic, nimbly addressing everyone from the biblical Lilith, to the movie Carrie, to Hae Min Lee (whose death was the focus of the first season of "Serial"), this book is dedicated to exploring the female dark side, as rep ...more

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Paperback, 330 pages

Published August 13th 2019 by Melville House

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Feb 27, 2020 Becky rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, 2020, ebook_kindle, highly-recommended, lgbtq, reviewed, horror, mythology, politicalish

I requested this book from my library when I saw a friend reading it (because honestly, who could resist that title??) and then impatiently waited the 13 weeks for it to be available. And I think the wait was totally worth it. I have been reading a lot more nonfiction books the last few years, on a variety of different topics including a fair bit of feminist work, but this was a very different beast (pardon the pun). This book examines how patriarchal norms have influenced culture and media, and I requested this book from my library when I saw a friend reading it (because honestly, who could resist that title??) and then impatiently waited the 13 weeks for it to be available. And I think the wait was totally worth it. I have been reading a lot more nonfiction books the last few years, on a variety of different topics including a fair bit of feminist work, but this was a very different beast (pardon the pun). This book examines how patriarchal norms have influenced culture and media, and... honestly, a lot of it made me feel ignorant as hell for not noticing the trends myself, especially since I'm a big fan of these genres, and some of the works referenced are ones that I've seen or read multiple times. I don't know if I'll be able to look at a lot of literature, pop culture, and cult classics the same way again. (In fact, it's already begun. My husband watched "Unabomber: In His Own Words" on Netflix the other day, and one of the people interviewed in the documentary was Peter Vronsky, and I was like "Oh shit, that's the dude who demonized Ed Gein's mother!" Hubs was understandably confused as to why I was ranting about a completely unrelated murderer's mom, but I kept a much closer eye out from that point on to see what Mr. "His Mama Made Him" Vronsky had to say about Mrs. Kaczynsky, you can bet that. Turns out... nada. He assigned his blame elsewhere.)

This is my future, folks. After reading this book, the world can never be the same. And I think I'm OK with that. So much of my reading lately has been the kind that teaches me something, helps me to better understand the world and different people's experiences in it, and politics and policies and biases and history, and just... so many things. I read to learn and grow and be a better human.

A lot of that reading is of the soul-crushingly hard to read variety, though. (My other TWO currently reading books are of that type. One of those I just started this morning before work and already highlighted 15 times and nearly had a rage aneurysm 18 pages in. Good times!) So reading THIS book was refreshing because, though it's serious in terms of analysis and subject matter and purpose, it doesn't feel so heavy and brutal (though at times it definitely does get dark as hell!). The way Doyle writes manages to mostly give this a lighter tone and feel, despite the often horrific situations described, without making light of them at all. I don't really know how to describe it, but it could have EASILY gone very dark and soul-crushy, and she managed to not let it. And that's commendable. It felt... conversational. Like a chat between friends, one of whom is like "Oh, let me tell you something about The Exorcist!" And then she proceeds to describe it, and in particular THAT SCENE, in disturbing new terms. Terms that are so obvious once called out, but ones that leave their friend reeling and shocked. (More shocked than the original scene left her, even. You know the one. Yes. THAT one.) Because, when you think about the connotations of how pubescent girls are viewed through the male lens, as though we are ineffable, strange creatures going through some mysterious transformation of body and mind, turning us into unrecognizable, untouchable, unfathomable, and worst, unmanageable OTHERs, it changes EVERYTHING. The "demon possession" is no longer an external thing that happens TO girls, it IS girls.

One criticism I have for this book (and there are only two) is that during her examination and analysis of literature and movies featuring women as either monsters or monstrous, she spoiled the plots of several movies and books that I've yet to experience, despite some of them being classics. I didn't really expect that to be what this book was, and it does somewhat annoy me when writers do this... because I feel like they should know, better than anyone, that every book (and movie) is new to every reader (and watcher) at some point, and there are bound to be readers of THEIR book that haven't read every book (or seen every movie) referenced within it. I would have liked a warning, maybe a head's up list of the books and movies discussed so I could at least enter into this knowingly and willingly, instead of it just being thrown at me.

Now, when I watch these movies or read these books (because I love horror and true crime and gothic classics, and still do intend to do so) I won't have the same experience as I would have otherwise. And partially, that's because I have a different experience every single time I read a book, because I am a slightly different person every day. I have more life under my belt, and more experience, and maybe a new perspective based on something I've read or seen or heard or whatever. And so, having read this, my experience reading any book going forward will be altered, now that my attention has been drawn to these issues... But it will also suffer knowing some of the influences and stories BEHIND the inspiration for the work(s), as well as the plot of some of them. And that's something I wish I didn't necessarily have going in. Oh well.

My other criticism is that I felt that Doyle got a bit hyperbolic occasionally, and even if it's justified (which I think it is in a lot of cases) I don't think that it was justified well enough in the text for that particular statement or conclusion. It's like "I make this statement, and based on everything else I've said before, you should just go with it." An example:

"True crime, like the slashers, require a dead girl."

No... they don't. That's a patently false statement that comes across as sensationalist. True crime just requires a crime, and someone to investigate it and provide the story a medium for retelling. Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 men, and has nearly as many books written about him (based on my 10 seconds of Googling). I consider myself a feminist and I'm OK with taking a certain amount of liberty in interpretation of attitudes and social norms etc, but I also strive to be fair and as accurate as I can be with my arguably non-expert self when it comes to verifiable, objective fact.

That being said, I found the great majority of Doyle's arguments to be well-reasoned and persuasive. I highlighted the hell out of this book, and made a ton of notes (INCLUDING the entire bibliography and movie reference list, because I am just that kind of nerd.) There were a lot of sections that I found myself wishing that she'd analyzed this book or that movie. I really, REALLY want to know how she would view some of the characters, and OH MAN, I would love to see what she has to say about King's "feminist" book "Sleeping Beauties". I bet it would be a glorious takedown that would be magnificent to behold. Alas, I'll just have to imagine it in my mind and be satisfied with my own rant about it.

One thing that Doyle absolutely got right in HER feminist book that King absolutely got wrong in his is the fact that trans and non-binary people exist. I loved the inclusivity and acceptance of every kind of feminist, no matter what their body looks like or what their birth certificate says. I really appreciated that.

Anyway, for the most part I really loved this, and I wish that I could articulate effectively all the thoughts and impressions that I had while reading it, though we'd be here a long time if I did... but I won't. Instead, I'll leave you with this anecdote:

I started reading this on my mom's birthday (unintentionally, it just worked out like that because I was on a plane and needed something to read and this had jumped to the top of my list by being available FINALLY from the library) and when I took her out for lunch a few days later (We had to work and I took her on the weekend... I'm not a monster! Oh wait... Apparently I am. O_O) I told her that I was reading a book called "Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers" and she was like "Which one am I?" I laughed and said, "Well... you're not blonde... soooo...." Poor mom. She walked right into it. ...more

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Sep 03, 2019 ❤️ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, feminism, pop-culture

As someone who loves horror, has an interest in women's history, and has a darker sense of humour, I fell in love with this book before I was even finished reading its introduction.

The book covers everything from odd true crime cases (and often how they go on to influence pop culture), The Exorcist and several other horror gems (like Dracula, The Craft, Carrie, and even Godzilla and Twin Peaks), witchcraft, menstruation, motherhood, female sexuality, etc. It's super informative - though not wit ...more

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Jul 04, 2019 Lindsey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

If you feel like women are reaching a boiling point; if you question why we think about daughters, mothers, and wives the way we do; if you've always wondered where it all came from and where it might be heading..... read this book.

In her compulsively readable, feminist manifesto, Sady Doyle takes a sharp look at mythology, pop culture, and real women through a lens to see how patriarchy was, is, and always has been how we see women.

Completely fascinating (the couple pages of Jurassic Park alo ...more

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Mar 08, 2020 Vivian rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Liliths

Recommended to Vivian by: Becky

Shelves: 2020-odyssey, lilith-fare

Solid Lilith Fare.

Doyle approaches the immense spread and pressure of patriarchy via popular media through the ages: myths to movies. This is an easy to grasp format that doesn't sacrifice while demonstrating how pervasive the concept of heterosexual male dominance has been and still is as given through the lens of storytelling from history--a narrative told by subsequent peoples--to mass hysteria, Salem witch trials, e.g., to horror film genre to literature and so on and so on . . .

Doyle's insi ...more

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Dec 02, 2019 Kara Babcock rated it liked it

Shelves: culture, own, non-fiction, 2019-read, philosophy, feminism

Women are monsters, according to the patriarchy. That’s the thesis of Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Sady Doyle’s follow-up to her 2016 Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why . To elaborate a bit more, Doyle argues that the portrayal of women (and femininity) in our media and culture overlaps with our understanding of the monstrous, the Other, the unnatural or unholy, and in this way patriarchal structures encoura Women are monsters, according to the patriarchy. That’s the thesis of Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Sady Doyle’s follow-up to her 2016 Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why . To elaborate a bit more, Doyle argues that the portrayal of women (and femininity) in our media and culture overlaps with our understanding of the monstrous, the Other, the unnatural or unholy, and in this way patriarchal structures encourage people of all genders to view “male” as normal and default and “female” as deviant. It’s one of those theses that seems obvious once you sit and think about it, if you’re of a feminist bent like myself, but what makes this book special is the consummate skill Doyle brings to synthesizing all these various real life and fictional portrayals of women-as-the-monster. The research and thought on display here is impressive.

Doyle divides the book into three parts: daughters, wives, and mothers. Each part has two or three chapters devoted to social structures or cultural constructs (puberty, virginity, seduction, marriage, birth, family, and bad mothers, respectively) that Doyle then analyzes through a feminist lens and through the intertextuality of horror and true crime. She references historical materials from the nineteenth century as well as fictional works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; she references modern movies and TV shows. Thus spanning several centuries of culture, the book seeks to establish that these phenomena are not limited to any one time or place. They are inherent in the fabric of any patriarchy, this need to oppress women (and influence the behaviour of men) by portraying them as monstrous.

Why only 3 stars? Honestly, the book doesn’t live up to what I was expecting to find. That’s not a criticism: this is a good book. I just had a wildly inaccurate idea of what it would be in my head, something that didn’t involve such a detailed tour through the landscape of horror fiction—a genre that just isn’t something I tend to enjoy watching or thinking about. If you are a fan of horror and of horror criticism, you will like this book a lot more than I do, I hope; the subject matter that Doyle uses just doesn’t quite align with my interests, as interesting as her writing and ideas remain. I enjoyed this book and found it thought-provoking, but it doesn’t sing to me, much in the way that a book about math might teach someone else something but not stir the same type of love it will for me.

That was a long-winded way of saying “your mileage may vary,” I know!

But I needed to put that out there, because my other difficulty in this review is trying to decide what I’ve learned from this book versus what I already knew but just enjoyed hearing someone else say. By this I mean, everything in here basically makes sense to me. I’ve read other texts that examine the portrayal of women and women’s bodies as monstrous (Doyle cites Ginger Snaps, which is 19 years old at this point, oh wow, and is a horror movie I actually did enjoy). Now, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers has a broader scope and deeper analysis than most of those texts, which tended either to be fiction or shorter articles. So I do think Doyle is making a valuable contribution to this field. It’s just tough for me to get excited about any of her particular ideas. One of the most significant feelings I have coming out of this book is a desire for some writing along these lines specifically about Supernatural, a fantasy/horror show which I absolutely adore but which I have to admit, when examined from a feminist lens, is problematic as all-get-out.

Here’s one specific piece of praise: Doyle articulates why TERFs are not actually feminists quite well. She points out that the long-held historical need to marginalize and demonize trans people (particularly trans women) serves the patriarchy’s agenda: “Though the hatred for trans and queer women is louder and more intense … it nevertheless stems from the same basic patriarchal need for control.” (This comes from a much longer section discussing trans people and their exclusion/othering.) Well said! TERFs claim that trans women are not, somehow, as “real” women as cis women are. Yet this need to control what defines a woman (and as the Virginia Woolf epigraph of this book explains, that is a nearly impossible task) stems itself from patriarchal ideas about sex and gender roles in our society, grounded firmly in the idea of male access and control over reproduction. Doyle discusses and generally attempts to make as much space for trans people in this book as she can, given her own identity as a cis women—she points out that trans people can and should write books along these lines using their own perspectives to guide the analysis, and as she says, I would totally read those books too.

I think the best audience for this book would be people who have a bit more interest in horror or true crime stuff than I do. Don’t let this pronouncement dissuade you from reading this if you’re at all intrigued, mind you—but this is ultimately a book of feminist literary criticism grounded within an early 21st-century awareness of cultural commentary. It would make an excellent textbook for a university class analyzing the modern horror genre. And it is fit for general reading consumption too. It didn’t wow me quite as much as Trainwreck or, indeed, some of the other feminist writing I’ve read recently. But that’s ok! It still left me with lots to think about, and that alone is an excellent thing for a book to do.

...more

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Aug 20, 2020 Tamara Agha-Jaffar rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-ve-reviewed, 2020-read-women, non-fiction, 2020-reading-challenge

In Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Sady Doyle examines the influence of patriarchy on culture and media; describes how patriarchal norms fuel attitudes toward women and women’s roles; and illustrates the way in which acts of violence against real women are intertwined with popular cultural depictions of women, with each feeding off one another and reinforcing one another. Doyle divides her feminist exploration into three parts: patriarchal str In Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Sady Doyle examines the influence of patriarchy on culture and media; describes how patriarchal norms fuel attitudes toward women and women’s roles; and illustrates the way in which acts of violence against real women are intertwined with popular cultural depictions of women, with each feeding off one another and reinforcing one another. Doyle divides her feminist exploration into three parts: patriarchal strictures on daughters, wives, and mothers.

Doyle provides a historical perspective going all the way back to Aristotle and his claim that women are deviant males. She traces the concept through the ages and includes Freud’s contribution that women are traumatized because they don’t have a penis. Doyle argues the patriarchal projection of women as monsters, deficient, and deviant ultimately stems from fear of the power of women and their capacity to reproduce. Labeling women as monsters represents the extreme and violent lengths patriarchy is willing to go to punish women for daring to disrupt or undermine patriarchal control.

The real-life crimes Doyle describes are of women murdered, persecuted, tortured, dismembered, and flayed. The examples horrify. Some women suffered from mental illness; some were driven to madness; and some were murdered simply because they were strong, independent women who refused to cower down to their husbands. Her analysis of horror movies depicting pubescent girls was particularly insightful. She argues the male lens portrays young girls transitioning to womanhood as something other than human, as demonic, possessed by the devil, ineffable, and spewing all manner of filth from every orifice of their bodies. Her analysis of The Exorcist analyzes scenes from the movie in terms of cultural revulsion at menstruation and a girl’s sexual awakening.

In spite of some of the deeply alarming content, Doyle avoids saturating her book with doom and gloom. She lightens the tone by injecting humor and sarcasm where appropriate and is not averse to poking fun at herself. Her research is impressive, as is her ability to synthesize the experiences of real-life women with fictional portrayals in movies and books depicting woman as monster. The scope of her analysis is wide, stretching all the way from Shelley’s Frankenstein to Jurassic Park. She concludes with a call to action for all women to celebrate and embrace the monster within. An extensive resource guide, notes, and index are included at the end of the book.

Although prone to the occasional hyperbole, the work is highly recommended for its contribution to feminist scholarship. It will appeal to those interested in understanding how popular culture serves to reflect and reinforce patriarchal norms which are designed to oppress women and restrict their choices.

My book reviews are also available at www.tamaraaghajaffar.com ...more

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Aug 14, 2019 Marcus Kaye rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Holy shit this book was so good. Love horror? Love women? THEN HAVE I GOT A BOOK FOR YOU! Don’t? Then why are we even friends?

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Aug 23, 2019 Casey rated it liked it · review of another edition

As much as I loved Doyle's last book, this one was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I think her analysis of culture casting women as monstrous is both valid and important, but in condensing her examples, I feel that she sometimes leaves out crucial details that don't support her case. For instance, she contrasts Aileen Wuornos's six death sentences to Gary Ridgway's life imprisonment but fails to mention a) Ridgway has 48 life sentences plus 480 years and b) he was spared the death penalty in exchan ...more

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Sep 28, 2019 Punk rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, feminism

Men have long believed that women—our desires, bodies, and demands for equality and autonomy—are monstrous. You see, if women are free to make their own decisions, it would destroy the patriarchy, and we can't have that. Here Sady Doyle takes a look at myth and horror through a feminist lens to discover what these stories can tell us, and how all those horror movie lessons are meant to oppress women by making their autonomy (from men, from pregnancy, from motherhood, from the patriarchy) into so Men have long believed that women—our desires, bodies, and demands for equality and autonomy—are monstrous. You see, if women are free to make their own decisions, it would destroy the patriarchy, and we can't have that. Here Sady Doyle takes a look at myth and horror through a feminist lens to discover what these stories can tell us, and how all those horror movie lessons are meant to oppress women by making their autonomy (from men, from pregnancy, from motherhood, from the patriarchy) into something monstrous.

"Women are defined from the outside, in terms of how they seem to men, rather from the inside, as thinking, feeling subjects. They are not fellow people, not even a different or worse variety of person, but simply the opposite of men, and hence, the opposite of human."

The book is divided up into the three things women are expected to be: daughters, wives, and mothers, and as part of each Doyle focuses on menstruation, heterosexual sex and marriage, pregnancy, and motherhood, not—as she says in the introduction—because these are the only ways to be a woman, or married, or a parent, but because of the societal expectations, and pressures, surrounding these issues.

The myths and monsters she investigates mostly concern cisgender girls and women, but at least once a chapter Doyle reminds the reader that trans people exist, and non-gender conforming people exist, that queer people exist, that men can get pregnant, and that women can impregnate their partners—we just don't have as many cultural expectations about them, instead what we have is horror stories, like Silence of the Lambs, one of the films Doyle discusses in the book.

Despite these periodic reminders, there's not much trans inclusion here. Part of that is because of Doyle's central argument, but the rest is due to the patriarchy's tendency toward gender essentialism, and Doyle thoroughly explains how the patriarchy developed this system to benefit itself, and it isn't benefited by acknowledging the diversity of human life. There's just men, and women, and those women need to simmer down.

"The promise of patriarchy is that every man will exercise absolute power and control over at least one woman, and that lucky men will exercise power and control over other men as well. The evils of patriarchy—laws against gender transition, against same-sex marriage, against abortion, against anything that provides a challenge or a workable alternative to the nuclear family ruled by the male father/god—are inexhaustible. And the weakness of patriarchy—the big, red, 'DO NOT TOUCH THIS BUTTON' button, the exhaust vent on the Death Star of Western Civilization—is women."

There is some discussion of race, mostly with regards to black women, but you can tell by the title "dead blondes" this is going to be mostly about white women because that's where the patriarchy's interests and anxieties lie. JonBenét Ramsey, for example. Because, yes, this book is also about true crime! Fans of the podcast My Favorite Murder—which Doyle mentions by name—will recognize the argument that women (and other marginalized genders) take an interest in true crime as a way to deal with the anxiety of living in a world that openly wants to kill us, and often does.

At times this gets a little in the weeds, particularly in the motherhood section where it can feel like a bunch of sweeping generalizations taken to extremes, like motherhood is monsterhood, but maybe it's only that I couldn't relate and so her conclusions felt like a stretch to me. Still, I got where she was going, even if I didn't entirely buy everything she was saying. But then, while I was reading this book, I was also re-reading Maggie Stiefvater's Blue Lily, Lily Blue and I came across a passage that perfectly illustrated a number of the points Doyle was making:

"Ah! Are you afraid?" she jeered. "Did you hear that I'm a witch? I have three breasts! I have a tail, and horns! I am a giant down below. Oh, I'd be afraid of me, too, young knight. I could get you pregnant! Run! Run!"

It's all right there. Women who disrupt the authority of men: are witches (burn them), monstrous, part snake (always), have multiple breasts for suckling their young, sure, because monstrous women can reproduce at will (without men!!), have unexpected genitals, can change genders—or be all genders at once—and impregnate men, making them monstrous in return. It's rich stuff and Stiefvater got it all into a couple of lines. I was pretty surprised when I read this. I'd understood the points Doyle was making but felt she was taking a few examples to the extreme, but these myths about women truly are so pervasive that they show up in young adult fiction set in modern times, and this is just a brief exchange in the middle of a bunch of other stuff, in no way the point of the scene, just illustrating how this particular female character, having been shut up in a box for 600 years, is now a tad eccentric. But it also reflects centuries of male anxieties back at a modern male character.

As I said, the motherhood section was something I couldn't relate to much, but I found her interpretation of the "domineering mother" of the true crime genre to be enlightening, as well as the history on the medicalization of birth and what this meant for black mothers and midwives, many of whom were also black. I also enjoyed her feminist analysis of the horror genre and Frankenstein as well, but I felt impatient with the parts of this that delved too deeply into the metaphorical or even the spiritual. It was just too abstract for me in many ways.

In the end, this is almost pure theory—even the ending call to action relied heavily on metaphor (witches! metaphorical witches!)—and that's not really what I need right now. So I found it somewhat disappointing on that front, but Doyle's prose is always easy to read, funny, profane, and relatable. So I also enjoyed much of it. This might be just the thing if you need to step out of our dystopian hellscape for a second and...take a look at how things could be so much worse? in a horror movie sort of way? But it also acknowledges all the freedoms being a monster gives you. Witches don't have to conform to societal expectations and that's what makes them so dangerous. A network of self-sufficient single women living alone on the fringes of society? A HORROR STORY: FOR MEN.

This has a thorough index, extensive end notes with sources, the occasional footnote, and a helpfully annotated resource guide arranged by chapter/topic, then by medium and genre, and Doyle happily calls out the wrong-doings of men like Johnny Depp and Roman Polanski in her notes, acknowledging the conflict between artist and product when the artist is a slimeball/criminal.

I gave this four stars, but it's closer to four and a half.

Contains: cannibalism; attempted incest/rape (The Exorcist); exorcisms in place of medical care, leading to death; references to mental illness; child harm/death; descriptions of violence, blood, mutilation, dead bodies; sexual violence and domestic violence, ending in murder; transphobia (also ending in murder); discussion of rape; mention of suicide; Ed Gein, Ed Kemper, and descriptions of their works; animal harm/death; internet harrassment, death threats, Reddit; misogyny. ...more

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Oct 20, 2020 Anatl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

By far one of the best non fiction books I've read this year. It shines a spotlight on how men's fear of women manifests itself in popular culture, and how these depiction can have an impact on women's lives. The first example is the popularity of exorcisms in real life, that stems from a popular horror film The Exorcist, a dangerous and violent practice that prevents women who are in real need of help from getting it. She explores why so many women are drawn to horror movies and true crime stor ...more

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Oct 23, 2019 Nev rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, 2019

I love Sady Doyle’s writing. She’s able to weave together stories about actual historical and current figures, fictional characters, and women from myths into an entertaining book about the patriarchal and misogynistic fear of “monstrous” women.

The book is broken down into three main sections: daughters, wives, and mothers. I definitely enjoyed the book as a whole, but I was more interested in the daughters and wives sections than the one about mothers. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for ...more

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Jan 13, 2020 Angela Hetrick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: r-a-book-club

I'm so amped. Female power let's goooo.

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Dec 06, 2019 Sarah rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2019-read, nonfiction

Didn't really care for this. It wasn't what I expected.

There were some good quotes and I liked the idea, and the references to media.

The title says "female" but while some parts touch on being female, there's a lot of gender-essentialism. Gender is not only a social construct but a patriarchal tool, but here it is treated as though innate.

For the most part, a lot of the misogyny depicted here is the standard, traditional misogyny. There are some more recent methods of misogyny I thought would Didn't really care for this. It wasn't what I expected.

There were some good quotes and I liked the idea, and the references to media.

The title says "female" but while some parts touch on being female, there's a lot of gender-essentialism. Gender is not only a social construct but a patriarchal tool, but here it is treated as though innate.

For the most part, a lot of the misogyny depicted here is the standard, traditional misogyny. There are some more recent methods of misogyny I thought would have tied in really well here but weren't mentioned.

A huge concern I had is that Doyle references Andrea Chu more than once, and Andrea Chu is extremely misogynist, and gender essentialist—a lot of her writing argues that biological sex determines your personality and that females are inherently submissive and "wanting to be filled." That is super gross and insulting. She also fetishizes woman/girlhood (the "touching at sleepovers" comment, hello?). Andrea Chu is not a viable source for anything but the use of gender politics to perpetuate misogyny. So I did not like that Doyle references them positively.

Again, some parts were decent. If Doyle hadn't been so gender essentialist it could have been better, and included the new liberal "woke" forms of misogyny (like what Andrea Chu perpetuates). But Doyle is a liberal feminist so she has to get those woke points.

I liked all the references to popular media and even went through the references to mark off some items I’d like to read or watch.

Favorite quotes from the book:

“Female monstrosity inspires terror because it really can end the world—or our current version of it, anyway. But our world is not the only one, or the best one, and in fact, the more time I spend with monsters, the more I think its destruction is overdue” (xxii)

“We would rather see girls stopped dead—stuck in a constant childhood that never decays—than let them grow into women who can pursue their desires” (30)

“But if the Final Girl is an exception to the female rule, she can’t be our avatar. Most of us, by definition, are not exceptional. It’s when we shift out focus to the margins, and all the non-Final, ordinary, disposable girls who are stripped and splayed and stabbed and ripped apart, that the next part of our story becomes clear” (34)

“Women are defined from the outside, in terms of how they seem to men, rather than from the inside, as thinking, feeling subjects. They are not fellow people, not even a different or worse variety of person, but simply the opposite of men, and hence, the opposite of human” (67)

“The ultimate violence patriarchy does to women is to make us believe we deserve what has been done to us—a loop forever closing, breaking us so that we will raise broken women” (216) ...more

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Oct 20, 2019 Melinda Borie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Reading this book was like discovering a favorite song, one that is perfectly in tune and on best with you.

I wish I could take back every five-star review I’ve given any other book and give them all to this one, as though love was a zero-sum game, a competition that demands to be won. I feel seen and recognized by the writing here in a way I truly did not expect, and which I think many other women will be also. Doyle is clearly brilliant and thoughtful and skilled, and she also works to be incl ...more

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Oct 02, 2019 Megan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: standalone, nonfiction, dnf, audiobook, psychology, history, normal-people-books, lead-female, overdrive-yes

There are a lot of good ideas in this book that are worth discussing, but unfortunately the author didn't do a good enough job of assembling damning arguments. It's several steps above a rant, but still not cohesive enough to be a good analysis. Too many holes in her arguments, and I think she chose weak examples and went off way too strongly on them. Better targets and a less bitter tone would have helped. Wasted opportunity.

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Oct 02, 2019 Rachel Elizabeth rated it liked it

Shelves: feminism-fuck-yeah, non-fiction, women-misbehaving

I adored Trainwreck, but was majorly disappointed with this piece of work. Despite the hype, it really struck me as a structure-less collection of pop culture references, which began to feel less developed the further into the book I read.

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Dec 07, 2019 Artemis rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary, lbgtq, geek-culture, horror, mysticism-of-life, witchcraft, vampires, humorous, feminism, poc-and-diversity

Like every modern feminist text, just read it. It is crucial. It can help save humankind.

"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."
— Margaret Atwood.

And men do kill women. All the time.

It's a well known fact that men have always feared women. And because fear, like nearly every emotion aside from anger, is not allowed in men by the patriarchy, lest they be mocked and labelled as un-masculine and a "pussy" (read: like a woman, a fate worse than deat ...more

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Oct 29, 2019 Sam Cooke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was a good one! It sort of goes without saying that this book is chock full of spoilers. It’s a critical examination about women viewed as monsters and how we have allowed this notion to shape our nightmares. Doyle strings together real and fictional stories to tell this tale, and she does it very well.

This book mirrors many conversations I’ve had with women, about periods, being a mother, rape, and how scary it can be to walk home to name a few. It wraps these conversations into a nice suc ...more

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Nov 12, 2019 Kristin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I devoured this on the plane, one because the subject matter is interesting but also because this book is an easy read with large print. Very accessible, I really enjoyed Doyle's take on a lot of classic tropes of monstrous women in literature, movies and popular culture (bonus points if you are familiar with most of the stories she references, but it's unnecessary for you to have read them on your own). She covers a wide range of things, from Laci Peterson to demonic possession to "Rebecca" by ...more

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Nov 21, 2019 Kinsey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

i really wish i could coherently convey how crazy good and truthful this book is but all i can hear is the opening to immigrant song playing in my mind at full volume

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Mar 28, 2020 S.G. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A terrific and enraging book. Now I'm off to devour the reference works.

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Oct 22, 2019 Peter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: essays-reports-social-sci, female-author-count, feminism, ohioans

This book has everything—insightful cultural history, cutting insight, wonderful humour, and smooth, clear writing. Did you know that the majority of slasher pic fans are young women? Do you know why? You can find out here. Do you know that 40 years ago exorcism suddenly became popular in America? Then you probably know why. The answers are here. Do you know the source of Silence of the Lambs and Psycho are the same? Okay, maybe that was too easy. How about the source for Frankenstein? It was no ...more

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Feb 13, 2020 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, nonfiction

I found Doyle’s points rather insightful and intriguing. Her writing style sometimes annoyed me as she attempt to insert humor in odd places, but this did not really take away from the book as a whole.

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Aug 15, 2019 Emily Chandler rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

I spent months eagerly anticipating this book after reading Sady Doyle's debut Trainwreck, but this blew all my expectations out of the water. I devoured the entire thing in less than 24 hours both because its case studies and arguments were so compelling, and because its prose was moving, maddening and hilarious. I absolutely adored it, would recommend it to anyone with an interest in women, history, horror, true crime, gender and/or feminism, and am raring to read anything Sady Doyle comes out ...more

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Sep 15, 2019 Ula rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

To say I’m obsessed with this book is almost an understatement. Not since my 1st women’s studies class in college did something resonate with me as much as this book. Specifically, in the way that Sady summarizes and makes big connections between women’s bodies and men’s fear of them that makes perfect sense to me. The book is about how men make monsters out of women in every stage of our lives. I’m also a huge horror/scary stories/myths fan and Sady expertly ties these stories to the wider patr ...more

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Oct 21, 2019 Samantha rated it really liked it

Shelves: masculinity, feminism, body-stuff, pop-culture, non-fiction

One thing that separates Sady Doyle from other modern feminist writers is that her writing, while detailing the history of oppression women experience under patriarchy, is somehow fun to read. She draws on mythology and pop culture to make her points, which I guess can be more enjoyable than reading about the real-life ways women suffer at the hands of men (though there is plenty of that in this book, too). That said, she also doesn't make light of the ways society turns on women in this way. I ...more

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Sep 26, 2019 Aidan Fortner rated it it was amazing

Required reading

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Sep 06, 2019 Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Enjoyed Sady Doyle's last book so I knew I would enjoy this one. I'm not a fan of horror but have seen enough to know that healthy interrogation of them is necessary to fighting back against a misogynist patriarchy. This book really does name a lot of the problems of misogyny through our canonized literature and movies--always seeming to blame victims and erasing the rape culture embedded in the conciousness of the men who worship patriarchy. I liked her reexamination of Scream because it was on Enjoyed Sady Doyle's last book so I knew I would enjoy this one. I'm not a fan of horror but have seen enough to know that healthy interrogation of them is necessary to fighting back against a misogynist patriarchy. This book really does name a lot of the problems of misogyny through our canonized literature and movies--always seeming to blame victims and erasing the rape culture embedded in the conciousness of the men who worship patriarchy. I liked her reexamination of Scream because it was one of those movies growing up that has stood the test of time in breaking some of the misogynist tropes. I'm not a professional reviewer (obviously, I always seem to note this) but I'll say the structure of the book is very approachable and accessible. It is never dense or overly academic and the endnotes are helpful if you want to learn more. I think women harnessing the power of their rage and not letting it be squelched through patriarchal oppression is a theme in this book--that the witches, the demons, the rebellious young women fighting off the killer can be a source of renewal and resource as opposed to fantasy or some kind of corporate branding of feminism. These representation s mean things--so do the misogynists who are proclaimed to be heroes in our culture obsessed with the mythology of the handsome, lovely hero. Great writing, great chapter titles, great analysis--I am glad to have intersectional, feminist critique out there. You won't regret reading this book. Because it is brave enough to call out the bullshit of white, straight, cis, male dominated cutlure. I'm sorry if I'm reading like a parody of someone who read a book but I find expressing my feelings about books can be varied and spotty. I personally think things in our culture need to be deconstructed and torn down to become less harmful--to study trauma and abuse and not pretend that misogyny isn't promoted from the get-go. The same is true for transphobia--the book goes into the Gein case a bit and how it influenced contemporary slasher movies. The last thing I'll say in this ramble is that Freud needs t of finally be chucked out. His theories are coded with misogyny and rape culture myths and the way white straight cis males wrote psychology in the 1950s informed that. Always blaming the mother and never the abusive, breadwinning patriarch. I tend to think of my own abuse in that regard. Other things analyzed: irish folk tales, teen horror flicks, media representation of male violence, Scott Peterson, Norman Bates, Aliens, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Henry James, the author's own experience with death threats and online harassment, how we treat working mothers like shit, Doris Lessing, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

I'm a fan of the work! It's good to learn and unlearn things and this book provides that insight. How do we manage a rape culture that insists it doesn't exist? How do Brock Turners get away with what they do? Why the fuck do we treat women like shit so much?

Think about your own upbringing. I have absolutely have thought about my own. And I will continue to think about how being raised in a rape culture has informed my opinions.

But mostly I think men need to read work like this. If they don't they won't understand that maybe they are obsessing over horror for the wrong reasons. I've seen men who are self-proclaimed horror fans and it seems like they just like seeing women scared and chopped up.

I could go on and on as I listen to a live version of Fugazi playing in Philadelphia during the 90s but I think I've laid my case for why this is a good book and if you want to challenge yourself--read it! The writing is clear, brisk and without a wasted word. It is a vital work we need for pop culture.
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Sep 04, 2019 Suz Jay rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“This is a dark book, but some things are clearer in the darkness. This is a violent book, but an unsparing confrontation with violence can bring us to what lies beneath and beyond it. Female monstrosity inspires fear because it really can in the world—or our current version of it, anyway. But our world is not the only one, or the best one, and in fact, the more time I spend with monsters, the more I think it’s destruction is overdue.”

The book is divided into three parts: Daughters, Wives, and M ...more

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Oct 29, 2019 Alexis rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019

In this book of analysis of pop culture and horror culture, author Sady Doyle looks at the monstrous feminine and how the patriarchy creates the myth of the female monster, particularly as it relates to the mother. This is not an academic book, and she looks at horror movies, popular horror, tabloids, true crime, literature, and news. I enjoyed this book very much, but I didn't find it to be groundbreaking.

It's an interesting pop culture book, and now I much rewatch Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracu ...more

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About Sady Doyle

Sady Doyle

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Sady Doyle is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York.

In 2008, Sady founded Tiger Beatdown, a pioneering blog in the "3,500-word-long rants about Tina Fey's career" space. While at Tiger Beatdown, they led several successful social media awareness campaigns, including #MooreandMe and #MenCallMeThings, and won the Women's Media Center Social Media Award in 2011.

Sady has been a staff writer at In The ...more

Books by Sady Doyle

Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why

Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America

Marilyn Monroe: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations (The Last Interview Series)

Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World

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“Women are defined from the outside, in terms of how they seem to men, rather than from the inside, as thinking, feeling subjects. They are not fellow people, not even a different or worse variety of person, but simply the opposite of men, and hence, the opposite of human.” — 5 likes

“The ultimate violence patriarchy does to women is to make us believe we deserve what has been done to us—a loop forever closing, breaking us so that we will raise broken women.” — 4 likes

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