The curse of the thinking woman: Encoded misogyny in the brilliant female detective

Abstract

The enormously popular contemporary genre of televised police procedurals that feature a brilliant female detective reflects and reifies enduring misogynistic beliefs and attitudes that pervade the cultural fantasies and social mores of our time. In her current form, the prototypical female protagonist of these series adheres to a rigid, stereotypical formulation that limits her capacity for mature, healthy object relations. In particular, her singular devotion to her work badly compromises her maternal function: thus, she is either barren or a bad mother, as well as a bad partner, sister, or daughter. Moreover, her professional excellence is itself pathologized, as the very qualities that make her extraordinary are typically attributable to the quintessential misogynistic trope of mental illness or emotional instability. The Greek myth of the birth of Athena explicates the threat embodied by the brilliant female detective, who, as a revival of the infantile fantasy of the all-powerful, all-knowing mother, infringes on the generative capacity of the mind: territory that men have since antiquity claimed in order to guard against envy of female procreative power. In return, she must be divested of her uniquely female powers, “the curse of the thinking woman.”