Women Who Kill

2290 Words5 Pages

Traditional ideas about women who kill are that they are less violent than men, they commit murder out of reaction and not their own initiations. Homicides by women typically take place in the residence of the offender; usually these residences are shared with the victim. Relative to those of women, a higher percentage of homicides by men occurs in bars and taverns. Women most often kill husbands, exhusbands, and lovers, followed by children and other relatives in frequency (Wolfgang, 1958; Ward et al., 1969; Wilbanks, 1982; Zimring, Mukherjee, & VanWinkle, 1983 as cited by Jurik, Winn). Criminology has treated women's role in crime with a large measure of indifference. The intellectual tradition from which criminology derives its conception of these sexes maintains esteem for men's autonomy, intelligence and force of character while disdaining women for their weaknesses of compliance and passivity. Women who conform as pure, obedient daughters, wives and mothers benefit men and society (Feinman, 1994: 16 as cited by Kelta). Those women who don't, that is are non-conforming, may simply be one who questions established beliefs or practices, or one who engages in activities associated with men, or one who commits a crime. These women are doubly damned and doubly deviant (Bottoms, 1996: 1 as cited by Kelta). They are seen as 'mad' not 'bad' (Lloyd, 1995: 36 as cited by Kelta). These behaviors frequently lead to interpretations of being mentally abnormal and unstable. Those doing the defining, by the very act, are never defined as 'other', but are the norm. As 'men' are the norm, women are deviant. Women are defined in reference to men (Lloyd, 1995: xvii as cited by Kelta). In the words of Young (1990), 'sexual difference is on... ... middle of paper ... ... She Was Bad, How and Why Women Get Away With Murder, Penguin Putnam, New York, (294 p., 1997). Pretorius, H., & Botha, S. (2009). The cycle of violence and abuse in women who kill an intimate male partner: a biographical profile. South African Journal of Psychology, 39(2), 242-252. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Ramsland, K. (2007) When Women Kill Together. Forensic Examiner, 16(1), 64. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/207642900?accountid=9715 Silverman, R.A., & Kennedy L.W. (1998). Women who kill their children. Violence and Victims, 3(2), 113. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/208569189?accountid=9715 Susan Crimmins; Sandra Langley; Henry H. Brownstein; Barry J., S. t. (n.d). Convicted women who have killed children: a self-psychology perspective. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 12(1), 49. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

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