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

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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