Monstrous Women

Dianna Taylor

doi:10.22329/p.v5i2.3086

Abstract

In this paper I argue that “monstrous” women – violators of both moral and gender norms – mark the limits of acceptable behavior through such violation and thus provide particular insight into the workings of gendered power relations within contemporary western societies. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s 1975 College de France course titled Abnormal, I begin by arguing that gendered power relations in western societies can be characterized as “normalizing.” Next, I refer to Foucault’s discussion of “natural” and “moral” monsters in order to provide a sketch of the monstrous woman, and then show how specific monstrous women violate moral and gender norms. By way of conclusion I argue that the figure of the monstrous women is not wholly negative but rather ambivalent. As Foucault asserts, monsters are “limit figures;” monstrous women challenge limits – including prevailing norms governing the feminine and the human – in ways that render them explicit such that they are denaturalized and ultimately opened up to critical interrogation.

Highlights

I Foucault argues that the rise of modernity saw techniques of pastoral power gradually being generalized to society more broadly.[3]
Over time, repeated behaviors become embedded to the point where they are not perceived as a particular set of prevailing norms but rather, when they are perceived at all, they are perceived as natural, inherent behaviors
While the specifics of what is considered acceptable gendered behavior may change over time, the idea that women and men are different in some fundamental ways that must be accepted, persists

Summary

Introduction

I Foucault argues that the rise of modernity saw techniques of pastoral power gradually being generalized to society more broadly.[3]. This emergence of criminal psychiatry as a new domain of knowledge and power illustrates that through violating and thereby threatening laws of nature and society the monster (re)asserts law and norm as such, as well as the distinction between normal and abnormal.

Results

Conclusion