Does Feminine Power Always Equal Feminism?

However I have tried to look at it, I can’t see “Carmilla” as a feminist text. While Carmilla has enough power to be seen as a threat and is able to overpower the General when he confronts her, based on the time period in which LeFanu wrote “Carmilla” as well as her portrayal throughout, I don’t think Carmilla could be called a feminist ideal. She is powerful, but evil—female power of this kind is seen as ominous and dangerous. Her beauty is used for seductive purposes, making it a negative quality rather than a positive one. She already represents the “other” by being a supernatural being, and it contributes to the effect of horror and strangeness that she is female. While we may feel sympathy for her and look for her side of the story, that attitude is certainly not present in the text itself, which I think is important. In contrast, Laura, the “good” character, is unable to protect herself in any way or even understand what is happening around her, nor is she expected to... and yet, she is the heroine. The ideal here is to be demure, and independence or assertiveness is really completely unnecessary.

Buffy, on the other hand, is much more clearly a feminist figure. Her beauty serves to reinforce the idea that she is not simply an “imitation male hero,” as Byers asserts in her article. She is appealing and cheerleader-esque, which diminishes the idea from “Carmilla” that there is something ominous in feminine power. Buffy’s relative normality as an American teenager seems to communicate that there is no reason shoe shopping and kicking ass shouldn’t go hand in hand. She is also constantly lauded for her power heroic actions (at least by those who know about them).

Ampata presents an interesting middle ground between these two distinctly different representations of female power. Yes, she is beautiful, though in her human life this caused more problems for her than it solved, as the Incans presumably chose her to be sacrificed at least partially because of her beauty. She is not characterized as an exceptionally strong woman. She does have power, but she seems constantly anxious and distressed, and certainly not a particularly independent thinker. All she wants is a normal life, and it is not hard to imagine that if she were suddenly normal, she would not be much of a feminist. She sometimes slips into the role of seductive succubus (such as with the boy at the dance), but she is in many ways a weak character. She is able to rationalize killing, but cannot bring herself to kill Xander because all she really cares about is being with him. She makes no very clear choice, and her hesitation kills her. She is certainly far too sympathetic a character to be a conventional villain, but she comes across as more desperate than feminist. She is an odd combination of Laura and Carmilla, and it seems as if she has some of the worst traits of each.