Sophia Fugazzotto 

ECL 305 

Professor Pressman 

May 7th, 2024 

The Contemporary Mermaid

Mermaids, although fantastical creatures, are created by humans, and can represent humans’ own struggle with the concept of gender. They are modern entities that are gender fluid, that do not assign roles or confine people, but are also like humans on their top half. Instead of being a foreign being of nature that is allowed to act differently than us, they are a hybrid that sits between human and nature. Mermaids of contemporary culture complicate gender roles with their refusal to conform to a gender, forcing us to reflect on our own need to categorize people into genders. In this essay, three different mediums of mermaids will be examined; Stephanie Burt’s “We Are Mermaids”, River Solomon’s The Deep, and my own photograph. 

Stephanie Burt’s poem “We Are Mermaids” is an example of a piece of work that encourages the reader to consider gender norms and roles by providing the perspective of a non terracentric world. Perhaps with this title, Burt is making the point that we ourselves are mermaids; we are gender fluid beings, and mermaids are a reflection of a part of us that does not need to be confined to gendering by genitalia. The poem focuses on a world in the water, one that seems constant, but is complex and full of choice. The water is a place of fluidity, freedom, lacking the pressures we feel on land: “You can spend your life benthic, or brackish, subsisting and even thriving where a fingertip comes away saline and still refreshing, exploring the estuary, the submerged lip, and congeries of overlapping shores on the green black water, the harbor, the bay” (Burt, lines 24-29). This gives a view into a world that is unconstrained by demands of human life, the aquatic world is allowed to be ever-changing and fluid–as contemporary mermaids are in their lack of gender conformity. The poem also constantly changes the point of view, through use of ‘we’, ‘they’, and ‘you’. By changing this point of view, it prevents the reader from creating a solid conception of a being, and allows for an interpretation of fluidity. Another relevant part of this poem is the author herself. Stephanie Burt is a transgender woman, and many of her poems in this collection focus on the transgender experience and activism. This perspective is important to gender fluidity because it shows that one can be fluid in expressing their gender. 

In addition, the poem also brings up the topic of purpose in our world, and the nature focused perspective allows us to see our society in a different light. “You don’t have to be useful, you are not required to come up with something to say” (Burt, lines 21-23). This stanza, by Burt, tells us that we don’t have to play by the rules of this industrial society; rather we can be whoever we want to be, we don’t have to meet the expectations of others. Sophia Raya discusses this stanza in her blog post, considering how our value as a person comes from the role we play in an industrialized world, and gender roles create social expectations within this world. She also says: “Being a mermaid, like more oceanic ways of thinking, is not constrained to rigid structures that have been imposed on them by society and other terracentric ways of thinking. Instead, mermaids and any other aquatic creatures can occupy any space or even become a part of that space where fluidity and water is found” (Raya, 2024). Without a society and the need to be useful, mermaids are allowed a free and fluid lifestyle, where they can choose to express themselves however they please.

Another text that represents contemporary, gender fluid mermaids is The Deep by Rivers Solomon. In this novel, the main character, Yetu, interacts with Oori. Yetu is a mermaid, who lives in the depths of the ocean, while Oori is a human, or ‘two-legs’ as the mermaids call them. The contrast between these two characters is important because it provides a perspective of our culture’s social norms from someone from a different culture, and even a different world. As Yetu and Oori converse, the topic of sex comes up. Yetu, being a mermaid, possesses a tail, as opposed to two legs, like humans. Yetu reflects on the perspective of gender of the wajinru: “Wajinru bodies didn’t tend to have differences along those lines, but like two legs, there were men, women, both, and neither. Such things were self determined, and Yetu wondered if two-legs had body determination too” (Solomon, 116). This passage illustrates the self determined nature of the wajinru. It opens the possibility of there being more than two genders, as well as the ability to choose for oneself. This presents a sharp contrast to our society, where gender is assigned at birth, based on the genitalia that one possesses. Rather than being determined by their orientation in a sexual relationship, their gender is chosen by themselves, which separates sex and gender. Although sex is determined by chromosomes, our culture associates gender with sex and the lines between the two are blurred. Gender often comes with roles and expectations as it is a social construction. Yetu adds later: “‘Wajinru have a place to envelope, and then there’s something else, and that is what gives sperm. Yet it is always tucked away until the time of mating’” (Solomon, 117). This quote is an important addition to the first because it emphasizes the point that wajinru are capable of taking on both ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ roles of sexual acts, yet their gender could be man, woman, both, or neither, regardless of whether they choose to envelope or to release sperm during mating. 

This part of this novel is an important example of how mermaids allow us to reflect on our cultural norms of gender through their lack of need to confine a mermaid to one, and through the innocence of Yetu. Yetu does not understand how our culture works, and how we choose to assign gender and categorize people, and this perspective can show us how unimportant our idea of gender is. 

Finally, this photograph, created by me, is intended to portray a gender fluid mermaid through the posing, model choice, and mermaid tail. The mermaid is a hybrid creature, and depictions of them often allow us to project ourselves into them because of their half human nature. In this photo, the model’s top half is human, with a piece of human clothing covering their chest. The bottom half, however, is in a mermaid tail. 

Posing was an important part of this shoot. I wanted to create a more masculine mermaid, since many depictions of mermaids tend to be feminine–even the name mermaid is feminine. In this photo, the mermaid is flexing their arm, which is a more traditionally masculine pose, since strength is often associated with men. Having masculine posing on a more feminine body creates a disruption in categorizing this mermaid into a gender, and allows us to rest in a place of fluidity. In addition, the choice to have the mermaid on a rock, and not in the water, represents mermaids’ ability to be part of our world. Even the rock on which the model sits is disrupted by a rusted pipe that is clearly manmade, showing the mix between two worlds. This photograph was taken on the beach, as it is a common place for mermaids to be across different mediums. 

The model for this shoot is also gender fluid, going by she/her, they/them, and he/him pronouns. This is particularly relevant to this topic, as contemporary mermaids represent a gender fluid entity through their intentional indecision on gender. Being able to work with a gender fluid model who was also comfortable moving between more feminine and masculine poses was an advantage in this shoot. 

And the mermaid tail, of course, contributes greatly to this photo. Mermaids do not have what we have; they possess tails on their bottom half. In this photo, the mermaid tail covers the bottom half of the model. Therefore, we cannot categorize them so easily, and although we may be tempted to, we do not need to. Representations of contemporary mermaids, such as this photo, and the wajinru in The Deep emphasize the point that we should perhaps reflect on our need to categorize and organize.  

These three contemporary works contain mermaid centered ideas that allow us to reflect on ourselves. These fantastical creatures can easily be seen as separate from us, part of nature, different, but the reality is that they can be used as a mirror to analyze ourselves, our social norms, and our history. They can show us how our norms, such as gender and gender roles, are not as significant or ‘correct’ as we think, with their own fluidity and lack of need to categorize themselves or each other. 

Works Cited 

Burt, Stephanie. We Are Mermaids, Graywolf Press, 2022.

Mermaid on Rock. 16 Apr. 2024. Windnsea Beach, San Diego.

Raya, Sophia. “We Are Mermaids .” Literature and the Environment: Mermaids, 29 Apr. 2024, 

https://spring2024-ecl305.jessicapressman.com/we-are-mermaids-2/.

Solomon, Rivers, et al. “Chapter 7.” The Deep, Saga Press, 2019, pp. 106–126.