ILLUSTRATION: PAPERLILY STUDIO

'The Wandering Uterus': An Ode to BuzzFeed Unsolved and 'Spooky Ladies' Across Cultural Boundaries

A conversation with Abbey Carson and Sofia Scaturro

This conversation was recorded in a longer podcast format, intended for listening. An abridged ‘highlights’ is transcribed below for our ardent readers.

TW: Mentions of physical assault, rape, sexual references, suicide.

Introductions and BuzzFeed Unsolved

Sofia Scaturro: Hello, my name is Sofia and I'm a 21-year-old student living in Fremantle in Boorloo at the moment. I'm just about to finish my degree and I'm studying professional writing and publishing. Very excited to get out into the publishing world. So, I'll just let Abbey introduce herself as well.

Abbey Carson: Thanks Sofia. Hi to all our listeners. I'm Abbey. I'm a third-year creative writing and professional writing and publishing student currently studying at Curtin University. I'm in my final semester.

So, I have always loved reading from a young age. I particularly love reading young adult books, fantasy books. I try to read far and wide, but I find that particularly young adult fantasy is mainly the genre that I come back to. It's my comfort genre. And that sort of ties into mythology, which we'll be talking about today.

Sofia: Yeah, so Abbey and I have both met through uni, and I recommended her for an internship at Portside Review, which we've both been doing together, and it's been really fun. So, through our conversations at the internship, we kind of talked a lot about our interests in feminism, in mythology, in stories. And it's kind of led us to the topic that we want to talk about today.

So, I don't know about you Abbey, but I've always been a big fan of this show called BuzzFeed Unsolved. I'm a massive horror snob, but I really like watching some light horror content as well. And it's perfect for that kind of viewing. So, have you watched it before?

Abbey: Yes, I have. In fact, BuzzFeed Unsolved is sort of my comfort series. Like, when I go on a YouTube and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to watch, I just click on there, look on BuzzFeed Unsolved and see what episode I haven't seen yet or which one I want to rewatch.

Sofia: Same here. Definitely a very comfort series kind of vibe. You know? So yeah, like you said, BuzzFeed Unsolved is a YouTube series. It began in February of 2016, and it technically ended in November of 2021.

The show takes on both true crime and supernatural topics in alternating seasons as showrunner Ryan Bergara tries to convince Shane Madej of his little conspiracy theories. Now, although it takes on some very serious topics, it's a pretty funny show. Shane and Ryan almost gave ‘good cop, bad cop’ kind of vibes. I don't know if you agree.

Abbey: Yeah, definitely.

Sofia: And I love seeing them play off each other. Fans have been split into what had been called ‘Boogaras’, which is believers in all things spooky and freaky, and ‘Shaniacs’ who are the scientific ones. Now, if you are a true Unsolved fan, the in-betweeners are called ‘Shitfishes’…But that's highly controversial. So, we'll pretend that doesn't exist. So, before we do anything, we need to pick a side.

So, what do you think you'd call yourself?

Abbey: I am definitely a Shaniac. I don't believe in ghosts or spirits per se. But I do believe that other people believe in them and have seen spirits or energies or ghosts, and that it can be a really powerful tool to deal with grief or to deal with your own self or your place in the world. I think it's a really important thing, and I'm not going to look down upon anyone who does believe in ghosts or spirits. But just me personally, I've never seen one. So, I can't claim that I believe in them.

Sofia: You know, seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing.

Now, when it comes to me, I always said I was a Shitfish cos I believe in energies, but not traditional conspiracy theories. But we aren't allowed to talk about that forbidden word. So, I do believe that our sentience can be an energy that might have echoes behind it and that the energy you put into world can come back to us. But not really in like a ghosty way, if that makes sense. So, I do feel like I'm more of a Shaniac. I'm big on how mental health affects you. And I really believe that your brain is a really big, powerful force in making you see what it wants you to see.

There's been a lot of scientific studies where scientists have been able to even trick the brain into feeling ghosts or seeing visions. So, in Sweden, they've succeeded in tricking test subjects into feeling presence in the room and even like phantom touches, which I think is really freaky, but also cool. I also don't really like how people often use ghost or demons to explain away really sad deaths or suicides like Elisa Lam, as I feel it’s super disrespectful to the pain the families are going through and [it] kind of trivialises the effect mental illness can have.

In saying that though I do feel our lore and ghost stories are often just that – a means to make sense of tragedies, things we don't understand or common fears across cultures.

Miss La Llorona

Sofia: Which brings me to a particular episode of BuzzFeed Unsolved I'd like to bring up, which is the La Llorona episode. So, have you heard of La Llorona, or did you watch the episode?

Abbey: I have seen the episode. I had not heard of La Llorona before I saw the episode, and I sort of went into it…I swear, I was like sitting on my bed, you know, relaxing. It was late at night. I tend to watch these things late at night. It didn't give me the same atmosphere, like the spooky atmosphere that a lot of their episodes do have. But the more I've thought about it, I think it's because a lot of their episodes are tied to the history of a particular place and a person, whereas La Llorona is a bit more of a myth that's across cultures and across many different places at once. So, there isn't going to be one place where you go and you're going to see La Llorona.

So, I think they're walking along river and for me it just didn't really give off spooky vibes. But I was really interested in the myth itself and I did more Googling after I'd seen it because I was really interested cos I hadn't heard about La Llorona before and wanted to know more.

Sofia: I definitely agree with you there. And I think it's interesting as well with that episode, because I think it was sponsored by the La Llorona movie, which was a very bad movie.

Abbey: Haven't seen it.

Sofia: Don't watch it. And anyone listening don't watch it. It's just not worth it. It's not scary. They cast an Italian woman as a Mexican woman. Very interesting casting.

Anyway, we're not going get into that. So, I'll tell you a little bit more about legend, though you probably know. So, La Llorona is legend that every country has some kind of version of. But this particular version in the episode is super popular in Mexico and Latin America. The name translates directly to ‘the Weeping Woman’, as legend has it. Her harbinger is her shrieking wail through the night.

So, there are many stories about her. But the main gist of them is that she was a woman, a mother who lost her children somehow – or possibly drowned them – and is now doomed for eternity to search for them forever. So, she's often said to hang around water and canals and is said to be a malevolent spirit. Dangerous to encounter.

She's often used as a bedtime story to scare children into coming home before dark or stay away from the water, which I think is interesting. Hysteric women, phantom women, or how we like to call them, ‘spooky women’ are often used across folklores to teach lessons or interpret history. There’s a version of her in Singapore and the Philippines, the faceless ‘White Lady’ or ‘Red Lady’; in Dahomey in Africa, the ‘Crying Wind’; and, of course, Bloody Mary. I know Bloody Mary always scared me away from staring in the mirror too long as a kid, which definitely sounds like a warning against vanity, if you ask me.

Abbey: Bloody Mary…I definitely came across as a child. You know, you always go into the bathrooms in primary school and kids are screeching Bloody Mary at the top of their lungs, not a care in the world.

Sofia: Yeah, I very much agree with you. My childhood was very much influenced by Bloody Mary. I was always terrified, screaming my little head off. It was ridiculous.

Local ‘Spooky Lady’ Ghost Stories

Sofia: Have you ever heard of the Fremantle Arts Centre?

Abbey: I have, but I actually don't know a lot about the building or the history itself.

Sofia: So, the Fremantle Arts Centre is a beautiful little building nestled in the heart of Fremantle. A great example of Gothic architecture, if I do say so myself.

Today it acts as a cultural and artistic hub, hosting musicians, art exhibitions, workshops, and more. I personally love heading down there to have a look at what local art is on display, or just have a walk amongst the beautiful grounds and grab a cup of coffee from the café cos it's very relaxing, very quiet.

However, a lot of people actually don't know this, but the Arts Centre has an extremely rich and sad history dating all the way back to 1861. So, the Fremantle Arts Centre actually used to be known as the ‘Fremantle Lunatic Asylum’, which is a bit of a horrid name.

Anyways, the Fremantle Colony was a pretty abysmal place to live. Made up of a majority convicts, the place was filled with despair, poverty, and alcohol. And if you were an Aboriginal person, just a terrible place to be. And with those locked up in Fremantle Prison succumbing to the conditions and falling into extreme mental illness, the state began construction of the asylum between 1861 and 1865. Surprisingly, the place was actually built with good intentions.

Abbey: Very rare. very rare with asylums.

Sofia: Very, very rare. But it didn't last long. It was designed to be extremely spacious with beautiful gardens, which you can still see today. You can see the remnant of that. And the doctors mostly had very progressive ideas about the treatment of mentally ill people. I say the doctors, not the nurses. This sadly, as I said, came to nothing as a building, which was designed to only hold 35 patients, ended up having more than 219 in its peak, which is around 20 people to each room.

Abbey: 20 people per room?

Sofia: Yeah. 20 people per room.

So, colonial women were also considered long-term inmates. If you were a woman who was widow, deserted, abused, rebellious, sick, or just considered uncooperative by your husband, you'd have a big chance of having your children taken away and being thrown into the asylum.

I remember there was one example of a woman whose children were taken away by the state because she was too poor. And then when she tried to tell someone that her children were taken away, she got put in the asylum.

Abbey: Oh God…

Sofia: Because they said this can't be true. She's obviously insane.

Abbey: Seems like, you know, paradoxical logic.

Sofia: A little bit, right?Now the asylum had a very long history, as you can tell, and was eventually closed due to these horrible conditions and turned into a smaller women's home. At one point it was even a military base and part of it was blown up by accident before the building was abandoned.

Now, if you're interested in knowing more about its history and why it's considered haunted now, I definitely give May They Rest In Peace by Jane Hall a good read, which was a major source for my research.

But in short, the place is considered big, huge mega haunted now. And one of its more famous ghosts is this woman in black figure, which is where we get back to our point. As one of the most reported sightings there, the Fremantle Arts Centre’s ‘spooky lady’ is said to be between the age of 40 or 50 and wears a black dress with a white collar and frills. Kind of a fashion icon.

Abbey: I was gonna say!

Sofia: Right? So, according to legend, this poor woman was admitted in the 1900s after a mental breakdown when her beautiful redhead daughter was abducted, and she eventually succumbed to suicide. Apparently, she spends her day searching for this long-lost daughter. There was even a report in the 80s that she was captured on film by a little redheaded girl through a window that was too high for someone to look through.

So, the lady in black from the Fremantle Arts Centre is a mother who lost her children. And now is said to be constantly searching for them forever. Sound familiar to you?

Abbey: Yes.

Sofia: I think so. But what is so strange is that these stories are separated by continents, times, and cultures. So why are they so similar?

Abbey: Great question!

Sofia: Right? I personally think that this shows two things: that these stories are an expression of collective fears, fears that connect us across oceans; and that legend is often an easier way to digest and understand horrific events. Just how we're using humour to understand horrific events.

So, I read this interesting article from The Conversation – which Abbey is going to talk about a little bit later – which talks about similar stories in Indonesia as an expression of society's reaction to violence against or mistreatment of women. These stories act as representations of our fear as women whilst also presenting the fear of men that women will reclaim their power in death and seek revenge. Do you agree with this Abbey?

Abbey: Yes, I do. So, yeah, after hearing your conversation around Fremantle Arts Centre and the sort of history and myths surrounding that, I got interested in doing my own research online about the ghost stories we have with vengeful female ghost spirits that we have here in Perth. So, while I was scouring the internet, I found the tale of the ghost of Pinjarra Bridge.

This account is a well-developed ghost tradition that’s based in Pinjarra. It comes from the journal of Thomas Scott who wrote this journal in 1870—1874. What's unique about this story is that it's not like a word-of-mouth story, which most ghost stories are. It's written down, which is quite interesting. It’s written down in quite high detail as well. Scott actually really spins a good yarn out of this story. It’s very interesting, although it might be a bit long- winded, which is why I sort of abridged the version for us here today.

So, really, to cut it short, there's this guy called Thomas Scott who's visiting WA in the 1870s, and in particular he visits Pinjarra. He was there for about three days when he mentioned that he passed an elderly woman dressed in a light white billowing dress standing on the Pinjarra bridge.

Sofia: Ooh!

Abbey: He didn't know it at the time, but what he had seen on the Pinjarra Bridge was actually a ghost who is said to haunt the bridge, which is over the Murray River. So, when he [Thomas Scott] is recounting this story to one of his friends, who is only known as Mr C. Which is very mysterious…

Sofia: Mr C. Very unique names. You know?

Abbey: Definitely. Well, anyway, so this aunt is said to have carked it, and then each year her ghost comes back and for nine days around the anniversary of her death – which is said to have occurred in early July – the woman in this light white dress will appear on the bridge at around about midnight. Curious, Mr Scott asked Mr C if they could form a party and go on the next night to search for her.

Sofia: Little ghost viewing party. Mr John and Mr C.

Abbey: Exactly. Anyway, they went out at night, and they all appeared on the bridge. And in fact, Mr C’s aunt’s ghost reappears. And I've actually got a quote from the journal, which says:

‘The apparition was in the centre of the Bridge and seemed to be on the move. It was quite recognisable by all parties and the same that has already been described. We instinctively stopped to watch it for a few minutes. The signal was given by the other party to apprise it, and simultaneously we all rushed to the spot where the apparition stood, visible as plain as day, and – aghast, we stood gaping at each other scarcely believing our own eyes. The figure whether earthly or spiritual had vanished.’

So, the plan was to ambush this ghost on the bridge, walk up to her and just like, see what happens. I think they wanted to know if it was a ghost or an actual person.

Sofia: Okay.

Abbey: And of course, they approach it, and it disappears. And that's really all the journal had to say about that. So, what do you think about this ghost story, Sofia?

Do you think that Scott really did see a ghost? Or do you think that this is just a well-crafted made-up tale?

Sofia: I can see both ways. I have heard a lot of stories about collective hallucinations where if you really believe in something and you really want something to be there, it will be there in some form.

Abbey: Exactly.

Sofia: It also could have been a trick of the light, which I know I sound like the biggest annoying person when I say that. Also, what I was saying before about grief being a really powerful thing…if this was that guy, Mr C’s dead aunt, it could have been him just really wanting to see his aunt again.

But yeah, I also can see how they could make this up. They could've done it for monetary gain. They could have done it just to have all a little tension in the little town, you know.

Ramblings on Reddit and Real Life

Abbey: So, like I said, taboos and ghost stories sort of go hand in hand. So, this leads me to my next story that I found on Reddit. It was written by bornwithatail.

Their story is pretty short. But they just said that their aunt and uncle used to own a property up in Chidlow. They [the aunt and uncle] used to then scare the shit out of these little kids by telling them about the Chidlow Cougar. According to [their] cousin, who was about 12 at the time, it was bigger than a Rottweiler and had a shriek like a woman being raped.

What got me thinking about this story is not necessarily the Chidlow Cougar itself, but it's this idea of a woman being unsafe or raped at night. For me, it ties into this idea that ghost stories and myths, they act as a warning, whether that's to kids – which generally the Chidlow Cougar is to get kids to stay home at night – or whether that's directed at women to, you know, be good wives, be good mothers, don't cheat, all of that sort of stuff.

So, it got me thinking as well about how women always feel unsafe at night. I mean, everywhere in every city, this is an issue. But I do feel like particularly in Perth. I will talk on an anecdote in a bit, but I first wanted to get your thoughts on how do you feel at night? Do you feel safe walking through the city?

Sofia: Absolutely not. I used to work in the city for three years on Hay Street. And we finished quite late at night, around 10:30pm. So, I'd be walking to my car very late at night. I had multiple instances of people following me to my car, trying to ask me for things, ask me for money, which is like fair. I get that. But also, don't follow me to my car.

I've had people get aggressive with me. Yeah. I don't feel safe as a woman walking at night. And I also live in Fremantle which is kind of a similar issue. Definitely more exacerbated in Perth city, I'd say. Also, I know that the cops do nothing in the city.

Abbey: Yes. That's sort of segues into my story. So, this Chidlow Cougar sort of warning to not stay out at night got me thinking about a story that I had from when I was in high school.

I went to an all-girls school, a private school. And what they tried to instil in us across all our years [there] was safety, whether that was safety around drugs or alcohol, or as the case may be in this story, safety around being in the city at night.

So, what they did, I think was Year 9 or Year 10, we were gotten into groups of like 20 different girls at once [and] we went out into the city at night. It started around like 7pm maybe. And we were with one teacher, the group of 20 girls, and then one cop. And we just walked around the city.

They were trying to teach us how to be safe in the city. There was particularly one moment that really stuck out to me. So, we went down, it wasn't alleyway per se, but it was a narrow one-way path that went through a construction site. It was in the middle of the city. We were probably two or three minutes away from the Perth Busport. So, very central.

Sofia: Near Elizabeth Key?

Abbey: Roughly that area. We were like halfway through this alleyway and the cop stops us and you know, we're a group of 20 girls plus the teacher and then he stops, and he says, ‘Can I have a volunteer who wants to scream at the top of their lungs?’ So, one of the girls, one of the theatre kids just sticks her hand up and she goes, ‘Yep, I'll do it.’ And so the cop said, ‘Look, is it okay if I put my hand over your mouth? I just want to test something.’ And the girl agreed that it was fine.

And what he [the cop] was trying to do is…this girl was going to scream and then he was going to muffle her scream. And we're going see if anyone around was going to come and help or see what was going wrong. So, this girl, hand over her mouth, screamed as loud as she could.

It sent a shiver down my spine. It was very high pitched. And I thought, ‘Surely someone's heard, right? Surely someone is coming.’

And we waited a few minutes. The cop was talking to us while we waited, just sort of telling us other things. And no-one came. Like no-one, not a single human being except for our group came.

Sofia: I’m not even surprised.

Abbey: I know. And then he asked the girl to do it again but this time without his hand on her mouth. She screamed at the top of her lungs, louder than last time, like I almost wanted to block my ears, it was that loud.

Sofia: My God.

Abbey: Still, no-one came. So that just like really reminds me that even in a city, where there are people around them all the time, women – particularly women anyway – we’re unsafe. It made me feel aware of the fact that there are people out there who will do bad things to you and that no-one's really going to help you.

Sofia: I remember this piece of advice I once received, which was if you are ever attacked or like in threat of being assaulted to scream ‘fire’ instead of ‘rape’, because people will come running, which I think is so sad to me. That people will come running for something that is a destruction of property, destruction of money, destruction of goods. But not for the destruction of a human being.

Abbey: That is so interesting. And it also gets me thinking that like these women who are harassed, or raped, or murdered, they're often blamed for it, unfortunately. It’s always things like, Oh, she shouldn't have been wearing that. She could have said, ‘No.’ She shouldn't have been alone. She shouldn't have gone out alone at night, and you know, it all comes back to really to victim blaming. And I think that really ties back into our ghost stories as well. That we're not supposed to feel sympathy or sorry for these women who are trapped in these purgatories, and we're not supposed to feel angry about what's happened to her. We're supposed to feel scared of her.

Sofia: One hundred percent.

Abbey: And you know, scared. Scared that this might happen to us as well. And to try and avoid that and therefore be the good wife, be the good mother. Don’t step out of the boundaries that society has defined for you, you know.

Sofia: One hundred percent, I agree with you. And I think that ties back to that excursion you were brought on with your school. In a way, these ghost stories are that excursion. So, instead of this cop bringing the boys around to your school and saying, ‘Here's why you don't catcall people. This is the effect it has. And you shouldn't make women feel uncomfortable. Don't follow them home.’

Instead, they put the blame on you guys. And they said, ‘This is how you keep yourself safe. We won't tell boys not to make you feel unsafe, but we will tell you how to protect yourself because the blame is on you.’

Abbey: Exactly.

Sofia: And I feel like these stories are the exact same thing. It's telling women, you need to keep yourself safe because no-one else will. Which is so sad.

‘Spooky Ladies’ Across Cultures

Abbey: As written by Gita Putri Damayana in her article analysing the popularity of Indonesia's female horror movie figures – which Sofia referenced earlier – she notes that there's a thread connecting all the female ghosts beyond just their gender. They are all victims.

And I think this was a really important point to make because, there are these female women ghost across all cultures. And aside from the fact that they are female, the one connecting thing is that something tragic or horrible has happened to them, unfortunately. Whether that's like mistreatment or abuse, like we saw in the Fremantle Arts Centre, or it's like a sudden death as seen in Thomas Scott's ghost story found in his journal, these women have just unfortunately had very tragic back stories and that's what's led them to become malevolent spirits in the afterlife.

Sofia: Mm. Yeah. I definitely agree with that.

Abbey: You mentioned Sofia that there were other versions of the vengeful female ghost spirit. They really exist across all cultures. So, like in Brazil, Canada, Czechia, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Switzerland, Thailand, the UK, the US, and more.

So, this La Llorona myth has been adapted and changed depending on the country and region. You mentioned before Indonesia's version of La Llorona, which I found really interesting. I sort of dove into more [research]. And Malaysia has a very similar representation of this La Llorona, Weeping Woman figure. So, I'm going to combine those into one and talk about them in the same spot.

So, its name in Indonesian is the kuntilanak, and then there's also the pontianak, which is the Malaysian version of this spirit. Have you heard of either of these?

Sofia: I have not actually.

Abbey: Alright. So, these spirits appeared in two horror films in 2006 and 2018, but of course their myth has existed for many, many thousands of years before that. So, the pontianaks are women who have died during childbirth, and they're also known to be vampiric ghosts. And of course, they're the long-haired women who are dressed in white billowing dresses and they're active at night. During the day they actually reside in banana trees, which I found quite interesting.

Imagine like peeling back the leaves and just seeing a face.

Sofia: That's actually terrifying. That was a visceral image in my brain.

Abbey: So, the pontianak, they locate their prey by sniffing clothes that have been left out to dry. And they kill their victims by digging their sharp nails into the victim's stomach and then devouring their organs, which is pretty graphic. And they usually announce their presence through baby cries.

And it's said to fend off these pontianaks, you must plunge a nail into her neck.

Sofia: Into her neck?

Abbey: Yep. And if you put a nail in her neck, as long as that's there and it stays there, she'll become a good wife. And as soon as you take that out, apparently she'll revert back to her old ways of feasting on organs, you know?

Sofia: Interesting.

Abbey: So, like Damayana said in her article that we keep referring to, these women are victims. So, they've died in childbirth, given birth outside of marriage. They are dubbed as sinful women and then therefore they die a tragic death. And this is sort of a repercussion of their actions for straying from the path of what is deemed ideal for being a woman.

Damayana then compares with these ghost stories the grim maternal mortality rates in Indonesia for women in childbirth, as well as the harrowing figure that one in three Indonesian women aged 15 to 64 have experienced physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime.

Sofia: Wow. That's a big number.

Abbey: Which is pretty upsetting. And this is a sad fact about these ghost stories, whether they stem from fantasy or fiction, they're written and remain as cautionary tales to keep women in check, you know, be a good wife, look after your children, provide for your husband. Don't cheat, don't be promiscuous, obey the rules.

And it's sort of reflected in reality, but in the opposite way, you know, women are becoming the victims in these circumstances. And yet these stories are telling them to, you know, be good. And don’t transgress the societal norms, even though unfortunately for them, they're just not being looked after. And they're not getting…they're not getting the bare minimum, are they? And yet they're being told that they need to be better all the time.

The History of Hysteria

Abbey: Women have historically been viewed as a symbol of purity. And then when we stray from this idea, we become victims. We are labelled as crazy, emotional or a mad woman. So, this sort of goes into my next point. What's your understanding of the history of madness?

Sofia: Of madness as a concept?

Abbey: Yes. As a concept.

Sofia: Okay. Well, I do know that a lot of the time, obviously, like I said, with the Fremantle Asylum, mentally ill people were not treated as they should have been.

Abbey: They didn't get the care they needed.

Sofia: Yes. A lot of the time women who were having pains that men did not understand where marked as ‘hysteric’ and ‘mad’. Which [was] absolutely not what was going on. That's my understanding of the history of the word.

Abbey: So, in an essay by Lindsay Haralu about the historical vilification of women in fiction, she says that:

‘Madness is a concept that has long been gendered female in its many forms: insanity, lunacy, hysteria, irrationality, anger, fury. In today’s culture, these terms are constantly used to invalidate women, both implicitly and explicitly, as women are regularly villainized, invalidated, and dismissed in their experiences.’

Very similar to what was seen in the asylum that is now the Fremantle Arts Centre. It's this idea of forced detainment, particularly for people who didn't necessarily need it. I mean, no- one, no-one needs forced detainment.

But there are mental health treatments out there that could have been done, that could [have] improved the mental states of these inmates. And instead, the absolute opposite is happening, you know.

Sofia: It’s like the 20 [people] to a room situation.

Abbey: Exactly. It's just going to make things worse. Intensely, intensely worse. And just a horrible experience for everyone.

So, I was doing research again on the word ‘hysteria’, and it's really interesting where the root of that word comes from. So originally, it came from the Greek word for uterus. Even before then, the idea [or] concept of ‘hysteria’ originated in Egypt. It was attributed to behavioural disturbances, particularly in women, to do with – as they claimed – a wandering uterus.

So that idea or concept was then later expanded by the Greeks to include the inability to bear children or the failure to marry in women. So, historically women in Western societies have been connected with this idea of hysteria, this idea of sort of going insane, particularly because you can't bear children, or you're not married. And that's also characterised with women being emotional or irrational. So, that's where hysteria stems from.

And this idea of like women being emotional or rational, it's still very prevalent today. Like if, you think about it, women, particularly ex-girlfriends, are called crazy. Or like women in the workplace are called difficult or mad or like high strung. And there's always this idea that women are in-tune to emotions and sometimes too in-tune and going to burst into tears at any given moment.

Sofia: Or that like, ‘They're on their period.’ They're emotional, they can't make like sane decisions. You know?

Final Thoughts

Abbey: So, I guess why do we think that this Weeping Woman, woman dressed in white, La Llorona [figure] exists across cultures?

Sofia: The spooky woman, if you will.

Abbey: Which we will. I think for me…I think we talked about it a bit before, but these ghost stories act as a vehicle for misogyny, a way to keep women in line, particularly when it comes to being a wife and a mother, keeping them on the ideal path for femininity.

Sofia: And I think that's a big thing to take away from here is that a lot of the time, these stories are actually expressions of our society and expressions of taboos, expressions of our fears, rather than an actual scary lady in the middle of the night that we all need to run away from.

Abbey: And again, like I've said this before, but I'd like to reiterate that these women are victims. So, it's very interesting that they become the story that we are supposed to be scared of because at the heart of it, they are a woman who has had something tragic happen to her, whether this is a true story or not. And yet we are supposed to be scared of her and not the thing that happened to her.

Mother ghosts are so prevalent in our ghost stories and folklore, and yet we don't have a similar figure for the father. And why is that? You know?

Sofia: Very interesting, I guess to wrap up our little podcast, vibey BuzzFeed Unsolved little situation, I guess we'll bring it back to where we started off and that is BuzzFeed Unsolved.

Abbey: Before you do, I just had a question here that I think you wrote down before that I figure we may as well ask. Has reading these ghost stories changed our opinions on the truth of ghost stories?

Sofia: I'd say, if anything, it has only reinforced my opinions.

Abbey: Yeah. I think I'm the same. Like I…a lot of these, I don't believe they are particularly the truth. But I do believe that they are based off of true stories that happen to real women or at least very reflective of stories that have happened to women. And I do find it very interesting that it's reflected across various cultures, and what that means to us and why they're so consistently prevalent. Even today, when ghost stories don't really exist other than to have a good laugh or like during horror movies and things like that. They don't exist beyond that really anymore.

Sofia: Yeah. I agree. And I think that's another thing of trivialising things to make them easy to digest. Yeah. Because a lot of this came from horrific events, horrific statistics, horrific facts. And I think it's easier to believe that there's a little woman running around in a little white dress, just spooking people out. Yeah. Rather than the fact that these women were brutally treated or murdered or raped. And I think that's something to think about.

Abbey: In a way, I feel like these women ghosts, I'm rooting for them, you know?

Sofia: I am!

Abbey: They should get their revenge.

Sofia: And it shows how sometimes…Obviously we are very privileged as white women, but a lot of women have that lack of power and maybe live vicariously in an emotional outlet through stories like this.

Bringing it back to BuzzFeed Unsolved, in our vibey little podcast spooky woman session. Definitely give the show a watch. If you haven't watched the La Llorona episode, I’d definitely give it a watch. This has all very inspired by their kind of way of setting things out.

Sofia: And with that, we bid you adieu.

Abbey: Will women ever get their revenge in these ghost stories? The mystery will remain [in unison] unsolved.