Evil, Women and the Feminine

Welcome to the Evil, Women and the Feminine project home page. This inter-disciplinary project seeks to examine issues surrounding the conjunction between evil and the feminine. In many cultures women have been long suspected as the source of sundry human miseries, however basic to society they may be. At the same time as ideals of purity and dedication to family have been exalted and feminine beauty lauded, women have been viewed as embodying sinister forces of evil. Mistrusted as seductive and beguiling, women are also often thought of as vengeful, manipulative and even malevolent. In grappling with our understanding of what it is to be ‘evil’, the project aims to shine a spotlight on this dark area of the human condition and explore the possible sources of the fear and resentment of women.

Among the core themes which are being explored are:

~ Evil Women and Feminine Evil: Representing and Misrepresenting the Female
~ Motherhood; Monstrous Motherhood: Monstrous Births and Infanticide
~ Matriarchy / Matricide
~ Devious Sexuality and Feminine Perversions
~ Women and the Abject
~ Fears and Myths: Feminine Blood
~ The Evil Woman in Literature
~ Psychoanalytic perspectives: “Vagina Dentata” etc
~ Sexualizing the Female or Evil Objectification
~ Jezebel, Delilah, Lilith, Harpies and the Femme Fatale
~ The Bitch
~ Women and Power
~ Beauty as threatening or evil
~ Portrayals of Evil Women
~ Fantasy
~ Mythology
~ Vampires, Witches and Sirens
~ Case Studies

Related themes will also be identified for development and exploration. Out of our deliberations it is anticipated that a series of related cross context research projects will develop.

E-mail Discussion Group
A discussion group exists to support the work of the project, to continue the conversations started at the project meetings and to extend the invitation to join the dialogue to any one seeking to explore and wrestle with these issues.

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