When Women Kill: Questions of Agency and SubjectivityWhy are we so reluctant to believe that women can mean to kill? Based on case-studies from the US, UK and Australia, this book looks at the ways in which female killers are constructed in the media, in law and in feminist discourse almost invariably as victims rather than actors in the crimes they commit. Morrissey argues that by denying the possibility of female agency in crimes of torture, rape and murder, feminist theorists are, with the best of intentions, actually denying women the full freedom to be human. Case studies cover among others the battered wife, Pamela Sainsbury, who garrotted her husband as he slept, the serial killer, Aileen Wournos, who killed seven middle-aged men in Florida between 1989 and 1990, Tracey Wiggington, the so-called "lesbian vampire killer", and Karla Homolka who helped her husband kill two teenage girls in St. Catherines Ontario in 1993. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 35
Page vii
... Feminist legal theory and the female subject 40 Narrated and performed selves: a model of subjectivity 53 Aileen Wuornos: unknowable other/performative self 63 Conclusion 6.5 3 Inconceivable survivors: battered women who kill 67 ...
... Feminist legal theory and the female subject 40 Narrated and performed selves: a model of subjectivity 53 Aileen Wuornos: unknowable other/performative self 63 Conclusion 6.5 3 Inconceivable survivors: battered women who kill 67 ...
Page 7
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 28
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 31
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Page 53
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Sorry, this page's content is restricted.
Contents
narrating the subjectivities | 30 |
battered women who kill | 67 |
the limit cases of Karla Homolka | 134 |
an odyssey around violent female subjects | 165 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abject abuse accomplices Aileen Wuornos argues Baldock Battered Woman Syndrome battered women beating fantasy Beck's behaviour Benhabib's Bernardo Butler Chapter cited claims concept considered construction Courier-Mail crime critique cultural demonstrate deny desire diminished responsibility domestic violence dominant Edward Baldock Erika Kontinnen evidence female agency female criminal female killers female sadism female violence feminine feminism feminist legal discourse feminist legal theory Freud gender performatives girls Hart heteropatriarchy Homolka and Beck Homolka and Valmae human identity insisted instance Karla Homolka law and media legal and media Lenore Walker lesbian vampire mainstream legal male masculine masochism masochistic media discourses mythic narratives of subjectivity Pamela Sainsbury partners Paul Paul Bernardo police pornography portrayals rape and murder recuperation representations Riggert role sadistic self-defence sentence sexual social stereotypes stock stories tale tion Tracey Wigginton trial understanding Valmae Beck victim victimology violent female subjects violent women woman women kill women who kill