Women, Murder and Femininity: Gender Representations of Women Who Kill (Cultural Criminology)

Women who kill rupture the assumptions about what a woman is. This book explores different socio-cultural understandings of women who commit, or are accused, of murder. It discusses a wide range of cases in order to highlight the ways in which such women have been perceived. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Preface and Acknowledgements......Page 10 Introduction: Women, Murder and Femininity......Page 12 Feminist research and women who kill......Page 13 Stories of women who kill......Page 15 Gender regulation and women who kill......Page 16 Murder, meaning and culture......Page 20 Developing a feminist framework......Page 23 Part I......Page 32 Five Gender Representations of Women Who Kill......Page 34 The masculine woman......Page 35 The muse or mastermind dichotomy......Page 49 The damaged personality......Page 61 The respectable woman......Page 74 The witch......Page 84 Conclusion to Part I......Page 94 Part II......Page 98 1 Gender, Murder and Mid-Twentieth-Century England and Wales......Page 100 Womanhood in mid-twentieth-century Britain......Page 102 Homicide law in England and Wales in the 1950s......Page 107 Mid-twentieth-century prosecutions for murder......Page 109 Sample selection......Page 110 Analysing textual material......Page 111 Techniques of discourse analysis......Page 114 The masculine woman......Page 117 The muse/mastermind dichotomy......Page 128 The damaged personality......Page 140 The respectable woman......Page 153 The witch......Page 165 Gender regulation......Page 175 Murder and meanings......Page 180 Alice Louisa Lyons (DPP2/3020)......Page 185 Notes......Page 187 Bibliography......Page 191 Index......Page 214 Women who kill rupture our assumptions about what a woman is. This book explores different socio-cultural understandings of women who commit, or are accused, of murder. A wide range of cases are discussed in order to highlight the ways in which such women have been perceived, and how such cases reflect important social and cultural shifts. This book examines how women who kill have been perceived in terms of their gender, exploring how murder by women is seen as especially transgressive, and examining the impact this has on how women who kill are viewed. The study focuses on murders by women that are considered to be particularly unusual. Lizzie Seal develops a typology of five main representations of such women, including the 'masculine woman' and the 'witch', and uses it in order to analyse specific causes. The book covers well known examples such as Myra Hindley, Rose West, Lizzie Borden and Aileen Wuornos, as well as presenting original research into cases from mid twentieth-century England and Wales, arguing that portrayals of women who kill can shed light on the hopes, fears and anxieties of the wider culture "Women who kill rupture the assumptions about what a woman is. This book explores different socio-cultural understandings of women who commit, or are accused, of murder. It discusses a wide range of cases in order to highlight the ways in which such women have been perceived"-- Provided by publisher Machine generated contents note: Preface Women, Murder and Femininity Gender, Homicide and the Mid Twentieth-Century The Masculine Woman The Muse or Mastermind Dichotomy The Damaged Personality The Respectable Woman The Witch Conclusion Notes Bibliography.