The Monstrous Female Ambition of the Harpy
“When women grab for space men thought reserved for their use alone, those men will surely call us foul.”
This is a series on monstrous female archetypes by Jess Zimmerman.
Myth and folklore teem with frightening women: man-seducers and baby-stealers, menacing witches and avenging spirits, rapacious bird-women and all-devouring forces of nature. In our stories and our culture, we underline the idea that women who step out of bounds—who are angry or greedy or ambitious, who are overtly sexual or insufficiently sexy—aren’t just outside the norm: They’re monstrous. Women often try to tamp down those qualities that we’re told violate “natural” femininity. But what if we embraced our inner monsters?
*

somewhere
harpezein,

Aeneid
The New York Times
is
Jess Zimmerman is the author of Women and Other Monsters and an editor at Quirk Books. Her essays and opinion writing have appeared in the Guardian, the New Republic, Slate, Hazlitt, Catapult, and others.
Enter your email address to receive notifications for author Jess Zimmerman
Success!
Confirmation link sent to your email to add you to notification list for author Jess Zimmerman
More by this author
I Gave Up Pants—But Femininity Is Just As Binding
I stopped wearing pants in the name of physical comfort, with the emotionally uncomfortable result that I now present as a woman who wears dresses all the time.
Theory of Knowledge
An example of the just-world phenomenon: If anyone found out, they would think I deserved it. When it’s the girl who gets hurt, they always do.
Who Is Steven Hotdog? Or, Untangling the “Braided Essay”
A personal essay of the Steven Hotdog form needs the interior experience, the exterior fact, and the meaning that connects them—in order to work its magic.
More in this series
What If We Cultivated Our Ugliness? or: The Monstrous Beauty of Medusa
“Medusa’s ugliness grew and grew, becoming something greater than herself but still part of her legend.”
Alone in Wyoming, I Found My Place Through Karaoke
As a woman of color moving to Laramie, Wyoming, I was afraid that I wouldn’t fit in, that I would be unsafe. But at karaoke night at The Ruffed Up Duck, I found my place among the the defiant.
My Mom’s Pandemic Piano Taught Me You Can Always “Find Yourself”
It was the first time I’d ever noticed growth or newness this way: reclaiming, or returning, rather than overhauling and chasing.