Call for Chapters

Feminine Rage: A Companion

I have a thing about feminine rage. I get a lot of [scripts of] men doing really terrible things and women sitting silently whilst one tear slowly falls. I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. We get mad. And we get angry. – Anya Taylor-Joy

The stigmatizing of women’s rage and resistance to that stigma have been the subject of increased popular discourse in recent years. Headlines like “How Women and Minorities are Claiming their Right to Rage” (The Guardian 2019), “The Power of Enraged Women” (The New York Times 2018), “#MomScream Events Allow Women to Release Anger” (The Washington Post 2022), “Olivia Rodrigo Gets That the Girlies Are Pissed” (Teen Vogue 2024) alongside countless social media posts and podcasts episodes, center on the idea that embracing expressions of anger is a potentially transformative means of resistance to gender inequality.

However, interest in understanding and depicting feminine rage is not a recent phenomenon. From ancient mythology’s Medea and Clytemnestra to #GoodForHer films like Midsommar and Pearl, the potentially horrifying power of furious women have remained a topic of intense interest across generations. Feminine anger has been depicted as the darkest form of monstrosity,  righteous assertions of feminist empowerment, and complex negotiations between those poles.

This edited volume will exam feminine rage as a genre of popular media, and seeks chapters of approximately 2,000-3,000 words that explore its various uses historically and contemporarily across contexts. The primary focus is on film and television, but literary/historical submissions are also welcome. Send abstracts of approximately 300 words and a brief bio to Caroline Guthrie - guthriecl1@cofc.edu by January 15, 2026. First drafts will be due by May 1st and final submissions by December 1, 2026.

Suggested topics include (but are not limited to):

• Different cultural/international perspectives on feminine rage
• Intersections of anger with ethnic and racial identity
• Queer feminine rage
• Maternal anger
• #GoodForHer
• Hauntings/Return of the repressed
• Anger and agency
• Witches, medusa, and other forms of monstrosity
• Women’s anger in gothic storytelling
• Defiance of authority/expectations
• Anger and burnout
• Transformative rage
• Fan responses to feminine rage depictions