A Look at Female Demons

As I was listening to this week’s media presentation on Jennifer’s Body and completing the quiz on various female demons, I became more and more curious about female demons and their origin stories, concurrencies, the different types of demons, etc. I hadn't thought about them and their interaction with witchcraft during this course; however, after viewing those horrifying clips from Jennifer’s Body, I became intrigued enough to do a deep dive into the internet. In this post, I will provide a brief history of the earliest mentions of female demons and discuss into how female demons and witches are similar. 

When searching for information about female demons, I was surprised to find that there are not many articles that detail the history of female or male demons; therefore, the following information has been referenced from this article. Moreover, it is said that the testament of Solomon–which details how he built his temple and dealt with demons and other creatures–is the earliest depiction of demonology. The article notes the two mentioned demons: Ornias and Obizuth. Ornias takes the form of a beautiful woman to mess with a boy working on the temple, whereas Obizuth travels around the world to women in childbirth and then strangles their children in front of them. One of the most notable and earliest female demons is Lilith, who is said to be the first succubus and travels the night killing newborns. Among Lilith, it seems that succubi, gorgons, sirens, harpies, and Echidna are popularly depicted as well. 

After reading about various female demons, it became evident that they share many traits with witches. To begin, witches and female demons are both, at their core, deviants of the traditional feminine woman. Both have promiscuous tendencies and use their sexuality to achieve their objectives (i.e., siren, succubus). Witches are depicted as unattractive individuals (A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult, 2020), and while female demons have horrifying qualities, they are typically portrayed as somewhat beautiful. They share a connection with the Devil/a bigger evil; however, witches are usually depicted as serving this evil, while female demons are more individualistic. 

There were a few things I found interesting about many of these female demons’ origin stories. The first being this consistent portrayal of female demons as these hybrid animal beings. I couldn’t find any information on why this is, but I assume that it is to further create a distinction between women and female demons. Moreover, this makes the demons seem even more terrifying and unnatural than they already are. The second interesting notion is that, like witches, so many female demons have this mission to hunt and kill children. I believe the reasoning for this lore goes back to what I mentioned earlier about the deviant form of a woman. Since women traditionally were defined by their role in raising and loving their children, it makes sense that to further amplify their demonic forms; they would turn away from their socially accepted roles as mothers in the most extreme manner. 

It is apparent that, similar to what was done with the depiction of witches, much of the demonology lore is centered around making a clear distinction between these monstrous forms of women and ‘real’ women in accordance with society's standards.