What The Hell Is Wrong With You?

I wrote three short plays for a Halloween play festival, once upon a time.

First play, a dying woman discovers that she has, in fact, been poisoned by her "loving" husband.

Next play, a curious girl becomes convinced that her neighbor is a vampire. She's wrong, but that doesn't save her.

Next play, a hectoring woman and faithless wife send a man back to his premature grave.

I wrote a play that starts with a woman being shoved- beaten and bloody- onto a bare stage. I wrote another which features a woman planning to blow herself up. Another where a woman poisons a man, and still another where the cutest little grandmother in the world turns out to be a serial killer on the run.

The question has arisen... What the hell is wrong with you?  Oh, and the companion question- do you hate women?

I remember- sitting in the audience, after watching one of my pieces- an older lady wondered aloud what kind of person could write such a thing. I could not introduce myself fast enough.

Truth is... Nothing much is wrong with me, and I don't hate women. You could pass me by in the grocery store without having any sense of danger or depravity. Indeed, I am a big teddy bear.

But I tend to write horror, and there's something about placing women in jeopardy that works very, very well.  If that's sexist- and, yeah, it is a little- it's something men and women share. With men, the audience seems to expect the character to punch Evil in the face, kick it in the balls and scamper. Or die nobly, trying to save the damsel at hand.  Of course, there's nothing stopping a woman from doing so. But she has to be jeopardized first. The man, on the other hand? The audience has trouble accepting it.

Having said that... One way I've found to tweak things, to crack the mold?  Is to give the women agency. She gets into trouble by her own actions, and whether she lives or dies, she makes the relevant decisions.

Which has led some people to call me a feminist writer.

No. I'm a feminist person- thanks mom and dad- but as a horror writer? I just want to scare you shitless. And a woman in danger provides a nifty way of getting under everyone's skin. So as to make scaring you out of it easier.

So. Nothing to worry about. And if I sound defensive? It's because writing about  dark things slithering up the bed post at night makes people look at you with suspicion. I can live with that. But people thinking that I have a problem with women? I bristle.