Paper Short Abstract:

Old or odd women who stray outside gender expectations, attain power, or whose bodies don’t fit beauty norms, often seem troublingly weird, witchy, “childless cat ladies.” We’ll examine inspiring moments of women (re)finding voice and ways to play, fly, sing, build worlds, and celebrate existence.

Paper Abstract:

Women considered odd, weird, and/or old are often distrusted, hated, or harmed, because their very existence troubles patriarchy, historically. Women’s bodies are held to different standards of aging and beauty than men’s, and women who stray outside gender expectations or attain power are “unwritten” as weird, witchy, maybe “childless cat ladies.” Nevertheless, many memes, jokes, parodies, performances, and stories revise such conceptions (unwriting the unwriting) into celebratory, playful, moments of cultural resonance despite dark times. Wit and will, often playfully employed, are key to (re)conceiving gendered and embodied “weirdness.” Many women called “witch” have been killed or harmed for seeming irritating, aggressive, inconvenient, old, or “weird,” which since Shakespeare’s weird sisters mostly evokes troublingly powerful witches. Yet jokes, memes, songs, popular culture, contemporary fiction, etc. lean into and (re)consider such notions, playfully, demonstrating resistance and ways women matter. Kamala Harris (whose laughter irked many), RBG, some pop-culture witches and other weird characters are (re)claiming and (re)configuring “weirdness” in playful, hopeful ways. Wicked’s Elphaba transforms the wicked witch, the weird woman, into a hero, who sings and flies (modes of play) joyfully, resistantly. Historically rare, such main characters are growing in popularity and power, magically unwriting and (re)building, during difficult times. Recent hopeful pop culture representations of women are magically transforming, (re)writing gendered possibilities for women to survive and thrive hopefully despite profound challenges. Women are taking up space, using bodies and voices (singing, laughing, flying, playing), (re)engaging agency to (re)embody persistence and joy.