I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar.

• Date: 01 April 2021
• Author: Bader, Eleanor J.

It's an engaging parsing that addresses the ways that sexism and misogyny constrain women, a provocative weaving of the personal and the political.

Zimmerman, an editor, essayist, and occasional fiction writer, begins by introducing a group she calls "sister monsters." There is Scylla, a six-headed beast with snake legs, a pack of dogs ready to lunge from her crotch. There's the Sphinx, hovering over male victims with an unanswerable riddle, forcing them to beg for their lives, and Medusa, a grimacing, sharp-toothed creature with a protruding tongue, eager to pounce.

Other monsters include Circe, a sorceress who can turn men into pigs, and Charybdis, a whirlwind who can swallow men whole. Another batch, called the Sirens, have women's heads atop bird bodies and sing in clusters. Their goal? To entice sailors into murky waters to drown.

Zimmerman argues that...