Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Unbecoming Female Monsters: Witches, Vampires, and Virgins is a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary work that traces the construct of female monsters as an embodiment of socio-cultural fears of female sexuality and reproductive powers. This book examines the female sexual maturation cycle and the various archetypes of female monsters associated with each stage of sexual development as seen in literature, art, film, television, and popular culture. Recommended for scholars of Latin American studies, literature, cultural studies, women and gender studies, popular culture, and film studies.
Synopsis
Unbecoming Female Monsters: Witches, Vampires and Virgins is a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary work founded on the idea that female monstrosity is buried within cultural constructs. It looks at the cult of the female body as a contested site of patriarchal fears and anxieties around female sexuality and its reproductive power. Cristina Santos explores how any process of female sexual development occurring outside society s predetermined acceptable behavior patterns for women is considered deviant, monstrous, and/or degenerate. This type of socio-cultural censorship of female self-expression then leads to the prejudgment of the female by external forces within confining and inauthentic roles for the individual. Ultimately, those women who chose an authentic self-expression of their sexuality run the risk of possible exclusion from their community and punishment for not adhering to the dominant normative code."
Synopsis
This book traces the construct of female monsters as an embodiment of sociocultural fears of female sexuality and reproductive power. It examines the female maturation cycle and the archetypes of female monsters associated with each stage of development in literature, art, film, and television with a particular focus on Latin American work.