Are Female Zombies Deadlier Than The Male?

I recently posted a zombie pastiche on 50 Shades of Grey. It took place in a cinema and in it there is a rowdy group of women out on a hen’s night. I think what frightens me most is that a newspaper headline today appears to report on life imitating art.

The headline read “Police arrest three women at Valentine’s Day screening of Fifty Shades of Grey after ‘man is glassed for asking group to keep the noise down’.”

I write zombie horror because it generally fun and Cathartic. Unfortunately I am never quite prepared for the horror that actually takes place in the real world. Apart from being fuelled by booze, what makes someone such a mean drunk that he or she wants to glass someone in the face? I know it’s probably completely un-PC of me but I used to hold women to higher standards, but as I age I realise a great many seem to want to emulate men. I can’t think of a single reason why, after all, most women jokingly call themselves the better half of a heterosexual couple – I’ve always thought this to be only a half joke in fact.

Why should this difference be?

Maybe women really are better than men. Maybe when they do, they emulate men better than men. Know what I mean? After all, some of the scariest and most memorable terrorists in our past have been women. The White Widow – Samantha Lewthwaite, is a modern example; Fusako Shigenobu, founder in 1971 and leader of the Japanese Red Army, was labelled by critics as “the most feared female terrorist in the world” – she helped plan the 1972 attack at Lod Airport. There are many more examples than this of course, but one thing is always evident when reported in the media, they get more airtime as ‘truly evil’ than their male counterparts who are mostly dismissed as wild-eyed fanatics – perhaps because there are so damn many of them. Women often get the handle of ‘Black Widow’ after the spider name-sake.

In our culture we almost never think of women as perpetrators of evil deeds. We see them as nurturers and a stable part of society. I think this is why when they go ‘bad’ it feels more shocking and most people cannot understand how these acts could be perpetrated by a woman. I also think that if the perpetrator in this news article had been male it would not have made a headline. For one I think that society is but a veneer and it can be quickly broken down under the right circumstances. Does this mean that women are no better than men after all? I for one would be sorry to see this fact laid bare for all to see. I’ve always like the idea of a little sensitive domination (maybe I should watch 50 Shades of Grey after all – nah!).

Female Zombies

Back to the point, would a female zombie be more or less vicious than the male? Would there be a difference? Probably due to the birthing imperative and the pain it brings, along with the usually larger percentage of brown fat laid down, it is possible that a female zombie could have more ultimate staying power than a male, but I’m not entirely convinced. I can’t help getting the feeling that we probably aren’t from different planets after all.

~david-k-roberts.com