The Diary as Feminist Genre: Exploring the Dark Side of Teenage Girlhood

There are only two kinds of teenage girls: the pretty and sweet ones, and the dark and vicious ones. Every teenage girl has to pledge allegiance to a side, and there is no better example of the allure of the dark side than the witch. In the Hollywood classic The Craft (1996) four girls are about to discover their dark sides. As a coven they counter their daily struggles, until their power becomes so strong, it turns against them. 

In this workshop we use the tools of diary-writing, of exploring the special in the everyday and delving into personal memories, to wonder how the figure of the witch shows up in our lives. The camp, over-the-top role of the witch in The Craft is used to explore the belief systems of teenage girlhood. 

The Craft is part of the Witch Way Now film program and will be screened at LAB111. Tickets for this screening are available here.

About The Diary as Feminist Genre 
Adrienne Rich refers to the diary as “that profoundly female, and feminist genre,” for the diary, like feminism, questions and makes connections between previously hidden aspects of life. The diary as feminist genre is a series of writing workshops developed by Emma van Meyeren and Read My World to collectively question the relationships between genre and gender.  

About Emma van Meyeren 
Emma van Meyeren is a writer based in Amsterdam. In 2020 her collection of essays Ook ik ben stukgewaaid was published. She was nominated for the Prijs voor de Jonge Kunstkritiek in 2022. She is a PhD student at Leiden University, where she researches experiments in the prose of Astrid Roemer. She is an editor at Read My World and Perdu.