Abstract
Deconstructing both biological and cultural essentialism, in Chapter 2 Taylor Porter evaluates the ways sex and gender have been constructed in relationship to violence. She traces the divisions within feminism itself regarding violent women and also points out the problematic ways of comparing men and women based on falsely oppositional claims of equality or difference. Most argue for equal opportunity for men and women, until it comes to aggression. Violence is generally accepted as a normative part of masculinity but rejected as an aberration when appearing in women. However, she points out the need to understand violence in all its multiplicity before it can be assessed. Taylor Porter looks at how we socialize male and female children differently and how violent media, particularly films featuring female action heroines as well as video games, provide potentially dangerous roles and scripts for players’ consumption and imitation. The unrealistic and efficacious use of violence in these formats make it attractive to young women, and while traditional expectations for their gender forbid such action, models for not only assertive but also physically violent women are proliferating. Taylor Porter considers the positive and negative impacts of these changing roles and conceptions of femininity. She ends the chapter by discussing the ethics of violence and its long-standing connection with theatre, theorizing how tragedy can give us a lens for viewing criminally violent women.
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Taylor Porter, N. (2017). The Sex and Gender of Violence. In: Violent Women in Contemporary Theatres. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57006-8_2
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