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MONSTERS
“The term ‘monster’ refers to a being that is a gross exception to the norms of some ecosystem,” cites Wikipedia. “Usually characterised by an ability to destroy human life or humanity, more than an example of ‘survival of the fittest’, natural law, or innate evil. A person referred to as a monster is taken as exceptionally evil, grotesque, unreasonably strict and uncaring, ‘sociopathic’, and/or ‘sadistic’. ”
The word is often levelled at women whose behaviour is considered so shocking and incomprehensible that it’s easier to dehumanise them and create a safe distance between them and us.
Take Aileen Wuornos, the lesbian serial killer in the US whose story was portrayed in the 2003 film Monster starring Charlize Theron, as well as documentaries featuring Wuornos herself. While not condoning the murders she committed of several men, it’s clear from watching interviews with her that she’s not a ‘monster’ but a woman who’d been sexually, physically and emotionally abused so many times that finally enough was enough.
In Australia in 1989, Tracey Wigginton, her lover Lisa Ptaschinski and two female friends Kim Jervis and Tracey Waugh lured Edward Baldock into a local park with the promise of sexual favours. Instead Wigginton stabbed him so many times that he was virtually decapitated.
During their trial the three other women claimed that Wigginton was a vampire and craved a large ‘feed’ for human blood. Despite a more logical diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder by two prison psychiatrists during the 14 months before her trial, the media tapped into society’s fears of the supernatural and went to town with ‘lesbian vampire’ headlines.
Then there’s the more recent story of Jessica Ellen Stasinowsky, 21, and Valerie Paige Parashumti, 19, the two “lesbian lovers” who “became sexually aroused while they bludgeoned a teenage girl with a concrete block and strangled her with a dog chain”, as the Sydney Morning Herald reported last week.
This was a horrific crime (and I’m not defending them at all), carried out by two young women with obviously severe personality disorders, but yet again the press seized the opportunity to brand them non-human, alleging that Parashumti was part of a vampire sub-culture.
Perhaps it’s our shock, shame or fear that leads us to brand women who commit heinous crimes as monsters and therefore not in any way like us. Perhaps their actions are an unwelcome reminder of what we’re all capable of if we reach that darkest of places in our psyche.
For some people it’s very scary to think of women committing acts that go totally against the grain – like running for president in the US. Obama aide Samantha Power obviously thinks so. “[Hillary Clinton] is a monster … You just look at her and think ‘Ergh’,” she told a reporter from a Scottish newspaper this week. Hmmm. I could be wrong, but methinks Ms Power may be harbouring a monster of her own – one with green eyes.
Katrina Fox
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