Media Images of Women Who Kill
![handle is hein.journals/alterlj15 and id is 4 raw text is: 14 VMYent women
Media
images of
women who
kill
Bronwyn Naylor
This article examines
the news media's
fascination with
female violence.
The media are unerringly drawn to sto-
ries about women who commit violent
crimes; they generate some of their most
powerful imagery. This article examines
this fascination with female violence,
particularly in the news media, and the
images used in its reporting. It is argued
that these images tell us a lot about
expectations and perceptions of women
in Western society today.
The media use images which reflect
dominan:, taken-for-granted 'under-
standings' of the world. Thus represen-
tations of women who kill are significant
for what they can tell us about how
society, or at least an influential part of
society, views women offenders.
Images of deviant women must also
be understood in the context of the dis-
courses on women generally. Feminin-
ity, as a concept, prescribes passivity
and gentleness; violence is 'unnatural'.
Women who fail to conform to these
expectations are likely to be treated, and
depicted, severely. This is in contrast to
the male 'macho' stereotype, within
which aggression and vioknceexist more
or less as extensions of the norm. Indeed,
it has been proposed that 'violence func-
tions as a critical attribute of Western
masculinity, distinguishing masculinity
from femininity'.'
Crime and deviance can be seen to
promote social cohesion by providing
occasions for concerted action against
them, as has been observed by Durkheim
and others. Crime news also serves this
function of marking the boundaries of
social consensus - crime news as mo-
rality play.?
High on the scale of crime news is
violence, as a basic violation of the per-
son. Smart Hall notes that violence:
rep esents a fundamental ruptur in the social
order. The use of violence marks the distinc-
ion between those who am fundamentally of
soiey and those who am ouside it. It is
coterminous within the boundary of'society'
itself.'
The press interest in killers reflects
the wider public fascination with homi-
cide as a 'boundary'. The press can be
seen as taking on the function previously
carried out by public torture and execu-
tions, providing a forum for the public
denunciation of crime and the affirma-
tion of public morality.
Women who kill are doubly devianL
They breach 'normal' expectations by
committing the offence and they contra.
vene the female stereotype. Violentcrime
by women 'challenges our stereotypes
not only about crime but about thecapa-
bilities associated with [being female]'.
As Frances Heidensohn comments:
Women involved in very serioem almcs mb
as murder scmn to provide the media with
some of their most wmpellint unages of
crime @ad deviance.'
An example is the obsessive cover-
age through the 1980s of Lindy
Chamberlain's trial for the murderof her
baby Azaria at Ayers Rock. Australia
was swept by dingojokesand'Undy' in
a headline came to have only one mean-
ing. Books and television programs on
the case continue to appear in Australia
and elsewhere; Lindy Chamberlain is
reported to have sold her 'story' more
than once for large sums of money. A
film was made of the trial, called (in
Australia) 'Evil Angels'. Celebrity sc-
tress Meryl Streep played the part of
Lindy Chamberlain. and the public's
(and media's) conflation of fantasy and
reality at one stage obliged Meryl Streep
to issue denials in the press of reports
that she planned to purchase property
with Lindy Chamberlain. The blurb for
John Bryson's bookEvilAngels, tells us
that the crime and trial touched 'a raw
and ugly place in the national subcon-
scious'. It should, of course, be recorded
that Lindy Chamberlain ultimately had
her conviction quashed!
Myra Hindley, who with her lover
Ian Brady killed several children in the
north of England in the 1960s, is a long-
standing icon of female deviance in
England. Numerous books have been
written about the so-called Moors Mur-
ders. Plays, films and even a musical
have been proposed at various times -
although most were suppressed by one
means or other. Two English tabloid
newspapers (the Daily Star in 1979 and
Today in 1985) were launched on 'new
stories' about Myra Hindley and the
Moors Murders.
Books and articles, several plays and
fdms- and a ballet - have been pro-
duced on the story of Lizzie Borden,
who was acquitted of the hatchet mur-
ders of her father and step-mother in
LEGAL SERVICE BILlETIN
Bronwyn Naylor teaches law at Monash
University](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/alterlj15&div=5&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Media Images of Women Who Kill
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