Women who kill : an analysis of ninety years of female-perpetrated homicide
Date
1997
Authors
Crum-Ewing, Andrea Louise
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Abstract
Both criminologists and feminists have neglected the study of violent women; this oversight masks the sexist nature of traditional criminological work on women who kill and perpetuates the use of stereotypical images of homicidal women as either "mad" or "bad". This thesis is an effort to better understand female-perpetrated homicide. I use homicide data from Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia over a ninety year period to explore three questions. Does investigating specific aspects of homicide such as victim type, circumstance and location help us to understand women' s homicidal behaviour? How well do three interpersonal theories of violence, Strain, Legal Activities and Illegal Activities, predict female-perpetrated homicide? Are these same theories able to predict women' s homicidal behaviour over time? My findings suggest that exploring homicide as a variety of behaviours can be supported both theoretically and empirically; the theories were able to predict variation in women's homicidal behaviour and did so most effectively for cases that occurred after 1970. While all three theories predicted variation in victim type, Illegal Activities theory was the most successful in explaining variation in the circumstance and location of female-perpetrated homicide. I also identify several control variables including ethnicity, marital status and substance use prior to the crime that effect female-perpetrated homicide. These results suggest that criminologists need to develop gender-based homicide theories that examine female deviance as a part of women' s place in patriarchy and are sensitive to historical and cultural trends that may influence women's lives. Furthermore, the findings suggest that we should abandon the traditional approach of treating female homicide offenders as a homogenous group and their crimes as monolithic behaviour. By exploring variations in victim type, circumstance and location, we may better understand the differences among women that kill and the factors that precipitate women's involvement in violent crime.