All events start at 19:00, for 19:15, please do not be late.

Cinema has long normalised, even glamorised, male violence, but when women commit violence on screen, the reaction is strikingly different. Female rage is pathologised, demonised, or explained away—framed not as agency, but as aberration.

This lecture explores the troubled history of violent women in film and popular culture, from slasher villains and psychological anti-heroines to contemporary figures like Pearl and Amy Dunne. Both Pearl (2022) and Gone Girl (2014) sparked waves of debate, as critics and audiences sought to rationalise their characters’ actions—citing trauma, betrayal, or isolation—while male characters like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho rarely provoke the same demand for justification. Why do we search for excuses when women are violent? Is it a question of perception, or of permission?
Through close readings of key texts, we will consider how female violence is framed in contrast to male aggression, and how this disparity reveals deep cultural anxieties about female anger and autonomy. The lecture will also situate these portrayals within broader contexts: the rise of “femcel” discourse, the so-called male loneliness epidemic, and media’s tendency to “rage-bait” audiences by pathologising female violence while excusing male brutality.
Finally, we will connect these screen narratives to longer mythological and folkloric traditions of unruly women such as Medusa, Lilith, Medea, La Llorona all figures demonised for their defiance and aggression. In doing so, we will ask: what is at stake when women’s anger is denied legitimacy? And how might more complex portrayals of violent women disrupt the cultural script that has long normalised male violence while silencing female rage?

This will not give you access to any online events. You will require a different ticket for that. These events are in-person only, and are not live streamed - sorry.