Evil Sisters

The Threat of Female Sexuality and the Cult of Manhood

Author: Bram Dijkstra
ISBN: 9780394569451

Bram Dijkstra's new book, ten years in work, is a stunning inquiry into the idea of woman as seductress: how, in many areas of twentieth-century high and popular culture, the female came to be portrayed as a regressive, primitive force whose sexuality could destroy the social order, undermining the supremacy of the white male - and shows the devastating historical effects of this portrayal. Dijkstra begins his analysis with the 1915 silent film A Fool There Was, in which Theda Bara first embodied our century's vision of the Vamp - kohl-eyed, predatory, seducing respectable men and destroying them with her voracious appetite. The part played by turn-of-the-century biologists, gynecologists, psychologists, geneticists, and sociologists in helping to develop distorted ideas of gender, sex, and race is examined. And Dijkstra shows how these distortions have been reflected in painting; in popular and literary fiction, from Bram Stoker's Dracula to the novels of Conrad, Fitzgerald, Hemingway

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Publish Date: 1996

Subjects: Social Science / Women's Studies

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: Literary Criticism)