I am studying folklore as it pertains to the societal expectations and perceptions of women because I want to find out how it impacted the foundation of the patriarchy to grasp a better understanding of how women are oppressed in a society that sees women going against the grain as radical and intrinsically dangerous. I want to show you how women have been consistently used to show the fears of men who historically have put women down to exploit them and uphold patriarchal standards to explain the plight of womanhood throughout history and folklore.
A majority of my findings have been found from a vast number of databases including Jstor, Google Scholar, and the GMU library. I found that there was no shortage of knowledge as it pertains to women in folklore. Popular women such as Carmilla and Baba Yaga are the absolute easiest of my 5 women to research because of their deep roots in pop culture. Women like Aicha Kandicha and Grendels mother on the other hand posed a problem I was not ready to face.
While researching monsters I found many different women I could find information about, unfortunately, because this topic is based mainly on folklore much of what is known about these fantastical women is passed down orally and not much is written down. So after reviewing the source material I could find about these ladies of the night I had to make the executive decision to cut some of the women out of my project such as Frauntu and would have to write lesser stories about others such as Aicha Kandicha and Grendel’s mom.