The complicated history of women being seen as ‘monstrous bitches’ – from ancient Mesopatamia to modern film

By Andrea Holck, Lecturer in English Literature and Publishing, City St George's, University of London

It’s news to no one that women have been consistently demonised in popular culture for a very, very long time. In her new book, Monstrous Bitch: A History of Terrifying Women, feminist academic Eleanor Johnson takes us on a detailed and delightfully macabre tour of the history of female monstrosity.

Johnson maps the 4,000-year-old tradition of framing nonconforming women as murderous, monstrous anomalies. Her central argument is that the perennial monstrous bitch, in any of its many forms, is a spectre formed in response to the patriarchy’s fear of women and belief that they’re inherently…

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