![]() They reference historical materials from the nineteenth century as well as fictional works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein they reference modern movies and TV shows. 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. ![]() ![]() ![]() The research and thought on display here is impressive.ĭoyle divides the book into three parts: daughters, wives, and mothers. 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. 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. Doyle’s follow-up to their 2016 Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear. That’s the thesis of Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Jude Ellison S. ![]() Women are monsters, according to the patriarchy. ![]()
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