Usually, due to the strength disparities between male and female homo sapiens, the catfight is the primary method by which modern entertainment illustrates the feminine will to power. While I've shown several examples on this blog of fantasy-situations in which women triumph over men-- sometimes with erotic overtones, sometimes not so much-- the womano-a-womano battle is one that automatically seems to perk up erotic interest. Male audiences seem to be particularly attuned to the excitatory appeal of the catfight, but there seems to be (from what one can judge on the Internet) a sizeable female audience also interested in the phenomenon from an erotic standpoint. On one messageboard devoted to the subject, a purportedly-female poster even disparaged the tendency of TV shows like XENA to show the heroine defeating men and women alike. Apparently when the poster saw a female heroine kick male butt, this automatically destroyed the poster's ability to credence that a female opponent could give Xena any trouble.
This need for credibility in a female/female fight may account for the widespread appeal of the catfight, at least a little better than Jerry Seinfeld's more famous "maybe they'll kiss" explanation. After all, Jerry, if all you want is a lesbian encounter, why do you need the catfight at all? It's not like lesbo action is hard to find.
I'm led to the conclusion, then, that whereas the fight-fantasy in which a female triumphs over a bigger and stronger-looking male, which I examined here, is one more openly defiant of consensual reality, in that "the normal rules of weight and mass" do not apply. The catfight scenario might then be seen as more prone to stick to said reality, resulting in a fictional world where women can only exercise the "will to power" against other women.
