Revenge Against Men
A woman who is motivated to avenge herself against men or a man who did her wrong. A classical "female empowerment" plot that can come in many flavours.
The heroine may have been raped. She may have been beaten to a pulp. She may have had her children taken away from her, or worse, killed. Her husband may be an abusive douche. She may be the unwitting mistress of a married man, and finds out he has been lying to her all along. Either way, she has been seriously crossed by men or just one man and the abuse has been so extreme and so vicious that the heroine wants more than just vengeance against her abusers: she wants ALL MEN to pay for what was done to her.
And how is she going to do that? She can undergo an Adrenaline Makeover, taking some self-defense classes and destroy her abusers physically. She can set up a Humiliation Conga for them. She can turn herself into a Gold Digger and fleece rich guys dry, double points if they're also old or ugly. She can also become a Black Widow and kill them rather than live off them.
Expect her to proclaim herself a "bitch" or an "independent woman" and declare than no man will ever possess her or hurt her again.
But the point is, she will not stop with just her abusers. As said above, she will treat all men that way. There may be An Aesop later on about taking things too far and the heroine ends up lonely and bitter. Or she may eventually find that one guy that will treat her well, not abuse her and make her drop her bitchiness. Or she may just chose to become a lesbian and never have to deal with men again. Or she may become some sort of a Dominatrix, embrace her newfound dominance and look for weak-willed men so she can control them.
Often found in Lifetime Movies or feminist-themed movies.
Contrast No Woman's Land.
Film
- Baise Moi
- Dispara
- Enough, Jennifer Lopez's vehicle.
- The First Wives Club
- The highly controversial and widely banned I Spit on Your Grave.
- John Tucker Must Die
- Lethal Woman
- Lipstick
- Ms. 45
- She-Devil
- Thelma and Louise
- Thriller - A Cruel Picture
- Waiting to Exhale
- The Joshuu Sasori series.
Literature
- Attora in The Plains of Passage didn't like her man, so she killed him and made all the women-folk give up their men too.
- Red Sonya from Ron E. Howard's story "The Shadow of the Vulture."
Tabletop Games
- A common theme in the tabletop game Macho Women with Guns.
- Both played straight and subverted in Werewolf: The Apocalypse with the Black Fury tribe.
Western Animation
- The Justice League episode "Fury."
Webcomics
- The Vespa-riding crusader who periodically appears in Questionable Content, as seen here.
Video Games
- One of the girls in Criminal Girls has this as her backstory.