Chick Vampires Give College Women a Voice

When I rolled out my “monsters curriculum” at the university where I teach, it was unconventional to say the least. I teach English to college freshman and sophomores in an attempt to impart some knowledge about the English language and writing without embarrassing your boss/company. Personally, my absolute favorite monster is a vampire (my nickname in my undergrad was “the vampire girl”). My section on vampires often lacks a certain “oomph” when compared to my section on zombies, but I learned pretty quickly that the vampire section aided my female students the most. This was unexpected to say the least, but my female students accessed their inner feminists through the vampire creature.

There’s a great essay by Nancy Schumann titled “Women with Bite” which explores the evolutionary female vampire in folklore and film from the infamous, biblical Lilith to Bella Swan of Twilight fame. But her argument is simple and accessible: when females become vampires, they own their sexuality and exercise their agency.

Teaching in the college environment means most of my students are just now facing challenges to their previously held beliefs. The word “feminist” frightens most of them, but the girls seem oddly averse to a concept which gives them the same opportunity and respect as their male peers. Most the responses to this idea are, “I’m all for gender equality, but I would never identify as a feminist.” The general lack of understanding and the demonization of the feminist construct ingrained a certain distance in my female students from this word and its actual definition.

Using monsters in the classroom is my little trick to “Miyagi” my students into discussing tenuous topics in a more accessible and comfortable manner. If I were to walk into my classroom and announce that today’s discussion will be on Feminism, then I’ve already lost all the men and some of the women. However, walking in and discussing vampires who happen to be women is an entirely different proposal. Vampire women present the feminist cause in deeply nuanced ways: Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Damned create complex female characters who are not afraid of their sexuality or strength. But they do speak to 1980s and 1990s trends in feminism: women were strong and could have independence, but the power of male hegemony still reigned supreme. Claudia becomes too powerful and aware of her power; she became a threat to Lestat and Louis (her male guardians), so they killed her. Akasha, the Queen of Vampires and a woman fully aware of her potential for power and control, also dies at the hands of men and women because her power was doubly condemned for her dual identities as a female and person of color. In no uncertain terms, the film literally executes the conversation around intersectional feminism. Lastly, the female vampire Gabrielle is self-possessed, powerful, but non-threatening. Her decision to live outside of the human world, to escape into nature, renders her outside the structure of male hegemony; she is, therefore, left alone…and alive.

While many of my female students do not fully comprehend the cultural impact of Anne Rice, they completely understand Twilight. While I have no intention of defending the books or movies myself, Schumann presents my students with interesting constructions of one aspect of the feminist message: choice. Though there are deeply unfortunate parts of the story which relegate Bella to helplessness, her transformation into a female vampire coincides with her character shift towards strength, agency, and independence. While it should come as no surprise that this shift also matches up with her new motherhood, Bella makes choices that align with her personal beliefs about her role in this new vampire family and the person she genuinely wants to be.

My female students often doubt themselves in the class. Early on-set impostor syndrome often silences their voice before its had a chance to develop. By giving them a vampiric mouthpiece, my female students approach this topic without baggage or senses of doubt and examine the messages of choice, agency, intersectionality, and self-assuredness with new eyes. The conversations are no longer about male hegemony or the how their (grand)parents frame feminism and the feminist cause. They are allowed, finally, to speak for themselves in an environment conducive to learning and questioning.

For my classroom, and others I know that are like mine, female vampires give young women a voice they carry into their academic careers, their professions, and their worlds.