by Grace Powell
The idea of women being violent, even murderous, is shocking. But why? Is violence at the hands of women somehow different to that at the hands of men? Regardless, we don’t treat male and female violence the same. Female offenders are often cruelly stereotyped by the media and they and their victims can be poorly served by the criminal justice system. A growing number of people are exploring the idea that to rehabilitate women offenders and support their victims better we must move towards a more progressive understanding of what makes woman harm or kill.
In the past, female power and violence was recognised and even celebrated. Female warriors such as the historical Joan of Arc and Boudicca and the probably legendary Amazon fighters are iconic. More recently, women in Western and non-Western societies have taken on leading roles in the military. This proves that they are capable of deploying violence in ways that seem to demonstrate choice. For example, the Nazis trained half a million women for military service, in which 3,500 served as concentration camp guards.
In May 1993, nurse Beverley Allitt, known in the media as the ‘Angel of Death’, was sentenced after being found guilty of murdering four children and harming several others. On May 5th, a UK daily newspaper said “Women should nurture, not harm. When women do things like this, it seems unnatural, evil, a perversion of their own biology.” The paper summed up what is known as the biological essentialist argument: that women, by nature, are hard-wired to care for and nurture, rather than to hurt and kill.
Men do, of course, commit more violence than women. But are our brains and bodies responsible for the crime gender gap? Or perhaps women tend to get away with crimes without being caught. The idea of there being a typical ‘male’ and ‘female’ brain or character is not backed up by current research. But while male violence is sometimes glorified in war, for example, or tolerated as a pub brawl or bar fight, it’s rarely the same for women. We either pity the women who commit horrible crimes or try hard to distance ourselves. We don’t want to feel any sense of identification. It is too dangerous.
So to answer the question “Why are we shocked when women commit violent crimes?” would simply be due to the gender stereotypes regarding crime, enforced on us mainly by media outlets and amplified by people’s personal beliefs. Somehow, we all have to see female violence more clearly, and with more empathy coming from a gender equal perspective. We have to address it head on, rather than twisting it through art, literature and the media.
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| Statue of Boudicca and her daughters riding her war chariot, London |
In the past, female power and violence was recognised and even celebrated. Female warriors such as the historical Joan of Arc and Boudicca and the probably legendary Amazon fighters are iconic. More recently, women in Western and non-Western societies have taken on leading roles in the military. This proves that they are capable of deploying violence in ways that seem to demonstrate choice. For example, the Nazis trained half a million women for military service, in which 3,500 served as concentration camp guards.
In May 1993, nurse Beverley Allitt, known in the media as the ‘Angel of Death’, was sentenced after being found guilty of murdering four children and harming several others. On May 5th, a UK daily newspaper said “Women should nurture, not harm. When women do things like this, it seems unnatural, evil, a perversion of their own biology.” The paper summed up what is known as the biological essentialist argument: that women, by nature, are hard-wired to care for and nurture, rather than to hurt and kill.
Men do, of course, commit more violence than women. But are our brains and bodies responsible for the crime gender gap? Or perhaps women tend to get away with crimes without being caught. The idea of there being a typical ‘male’ and ‘female’ brain or character is not backed up by current research. But while male violence is sometimes glorified in war, for example, or tolerated as a pub brawl or bar fight, it’s rarely the same for women. We either pity the women who commit horrible crimes or try hard to distance ourselves. We don’t want to feel any sense of identification. It is too dangerous.
So to answer the question “Why are we shocked when women commit violent crimes?” would simply be due to the gender stereotypes regarding crime, enforced on us mainly by media outlets and amplified by people’s personal beliefs. Somehow, we all have to see female violence more clearly, and with more empathy coming from a gender equal perspective. We have to address it head on, rather than twisting it through art, literature and the media.
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