An edition of Evil sisters (1996)

Evil sisters

the threat of female sexuality and the cult of manhood

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Last edited by MARC Bot
August 4, 2024 | History
An edition of Evil sisters (1996)

Evil sisters

the threat of female sexuality and the cult of manhood

  • 2 Want to read

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, and Faulkner; and in cinema's femmes fatales, from Louise Brooks, Garbo, and Dietrich to the fatal women of the 1990s.

Finally, the book makes shockingly clear how the parallel paths of the new style of misogyny and racism merged in the 1920s during the rise of nationalist politics - converging in Hitler's Mein Kampf and the politics of genocide.

Publish Date
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Language
English
Pages
480

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Previews available in: English

Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. 445-459) and index.

Published in
New York
Series
A Borzoi book

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
305.42/09
Library of Congress
HQ1122, HQ1122 .D55 1996

The Physical Object

Pagination
x, 480 p. :
Number of pages
480

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL17186469M
Internet Archive
isbn_9780394569451
ISBN 10
0394569451
LCCN
96007448
OCLC/WorldCat
34412871

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History

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August 4, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 13, 2019 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
April 26, 2018 Edited by Tom Morris merge authors
June 24, 2017 Edited by ImportBot import new book
December 11, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page