News & Politics
Lady Killers and Why We Are Fascinated by Them
How the media create the ideal violent female.
Photo of Amanda Knox by Oli Scarff/Getty Images. Photo of Elin Nordegren by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images.
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On Saturday, in Perugia, Italy, 22-year-old American Amanda Knox was sentenced to 26 years in jail for killing her study-abroad roommate, Meredith Kercher. Knox’s family—and journalists like the New York Times’ Timothy Egan and CBS correspondent Peter Van Sant—believe that Knox is not guilty. Egan calls her “an innocent abroad,” a scholar/athlete from Seattle who worked three jobs to pay for her time in Perugia. Even the Italian tabloids, who basically convicted Knox in the court of public opinion, called her “angel face”… though they were sure to add that behind that scrubbed, middle-class visage hid a diabolical soul.
Because most people are deeply uncomfortable with the idea that a woman—especially a fresh-faced young woman like Amanda—could be a violent criminal, they must create a more palatable narrative. Generally this involves a predictable twist: first normalize, then demonize. When a man commits a violent act—a far more common occurrence in this country, as only about 10 percent of murders between 1976 and 2005 were committed by women—there is almost never a move by the media to make him sympathetic. But women killers are still as exotic as they were in Lizzie Borden’s time. In Knox’s case, she has been turned into a girl next door (with an inner sadist). On the one hand, according to her friends, Knox is “the most kind, warmhearted optimistic person” who saves spiders from being smooshed. On the other hand, she is capable of outlandish behavior, like cartwheeling in the police station and conducting a minor flirtation with Satan.
This discomfort and concomitant fascination we have with these rare, violent women shows up in the Oxygen show Snapped. Each episode of the series, which premiered in 2004, tells the story of one woman accused of murder, through interviews with family members, local press, law enforcement officials, and, when possible, the accused herself. When they choose their subjects, they specifically go after women who have no criminal records, says Donna Dudek, the show’s series producer. “You wouldn’t expect this behavior from ordinary women with seemingly normal lives. We want the viewer to wonder, ‘How does this happen?’ ” Dudek says. Even the title implies that its subjects are average women who were pushed to the edge, rather than intrinsically violent beings.
One of Dudek’s favorite episodes of Snapped involves Amy Bosley, a Kentucky woman who ran a successful roofing business with her husband. “From the outside, she was as nice and all-American as could be,” says Dudek. “They were building this beautiful new house and had two beautiful kids. … I mean, I went to high school with this woman! We all did.” But, of course, underneath that shiny Southern exterior, Amy had driven the family business into a mess of tax debt, and Bob was busy boffing the ladies of Campbell County on his luxury boat. Amy was convicted of shooting Bob seven times with a Glock while he was asleep in their bedroom and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years.
For prosecutors operating in the real world, this bias against believing that women can be inherently violent creates a tricky problem. Often they have to create an exotic past to make it credible, and sometimes this means making the defendant look promiscuous. “A lot of prosecutors in these cases are men, and as soon as there is a hint of sexual activity, they’re off to the races. Even when the relevance is pretty much impossible to see,” explains Rory Little, a professor at the University of California-Hastings College of Law.
Jessica Grose is the managing editor of Double X and the co-author of Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home. Click here to follow her on Twitter.
Comments
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By: toebda3 | Wed, 08/18/2010 - 23:29
fashion, fashion O,
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German Catholics are psychopathic killers???
By: Rahela | Sat, 12/12/2009 - 18:57
Sorry, Sharon Pretty,
I am a German, even Bavarian, Catholic woman with an American Protestant mother (and on her side Jewish ancestry). You'll probably surprised to hear that my American family has more antisemitic tendencies than my German one.
While some of the Nazi nomenclatura mght have been of Bavarian-Catholic descent, they rejected christianity (including catholicism) and tried to introduce a pseudo-Germanic paganism.
Interestingly, the support for the Nazi party was generally comparatively low in Bavaria, because it was a agricultural state and supported religious parties, while the more industrialised states of Germany supported mainly the Nazis or the Communists.
Another thing about those anti-semitic Catholics in Germany: while the Vatican kind of cosied up to the Nazis, in Germany itself, the Catholic bishops were much more distanced to the Nazis than the "German Christians" which were members of the Lutheran church. Also, catholic priests from the occupied territories, especially from Belgium, Poland and France were preferably imprisoned and persecuted by the SS. In the concentration camp Dachau a whole section was comprised only of catholic priests.
So, I guess all I want to say, is that if Amanda Knox is a killer and psychopath, it's not because she is a Catholic with German roots.
Extraordinary claims = extraordinary evidence
By: goffers | Fri, 12/11/2009 - 13:36
Sure women kill. But usually we can find a reason for it. Amanda Knox? Killed Meredith for being a priss? Really?
Statistically, female on female sex related murders are extremely rare. In those cases, when is the woman not a total psycho, or under the spell of some controlling psychopath (e.g. Paul Bernardo & Karla Hamolka)? Or, alternatively, occurring between two lesbians? The chances of her being involved are extremely low. Not only that, but they had already convicted a man with a history of sociopathic behaviours for the crime.
Don't extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? My guess is that the pure absurd lasciviousness of the prosecutors claims helped to convict Amanda. It was so taboo violating that nobody even bothered to just look at the total unreasonableness of these claims. The evidence, as I had read, may have been suggestive at best, but very far from conclusive, particularly when you are planning on putting a potentially innocent person in jail for 26 years.
"Jesuits are notorious
By: Bo | Thu, 12/10/2009 - 16:58
"Jesuits are notorious anti-Semites."
Proof? Or are generalizations now considered to be proof?
My people killed your people
By: Sharon Pretty | Thu, 12/10/2009 - 14:56
No one seems to have picked up the most obvious element in all this: the convicted murderer's self-identification with her Roman Catholic German heritage; and that her victim was a dark-skinned, Protestant English girl of mixed race.
Meredith Kercher’s mother is of Indian descent. Knox's mother is a Roman Catholic German-American, whose own Roman Catholic German mother left Germany after the war with a US GI who was a member of the Western forces occupying Germany after its defeat at the end of World War II.
To understand Knox’s sociopathic outlook, and why she could murder Kercher so easily, read Charles Mudede’s The Education of Amanda Knox - A Report from the Hills of Italy, the Scene of an International Mystery (6 Feb 2008).
Here’s an extract:
Most of the Nazi hierarchy were from Bavaria. One exception was Hitler who was born on the Austrian side of the Bavarian border. With the exception of Goering, who in common with those from many Bavarian aristocratic families at that time was brought up a Protestant, most of the others were all brought up as Roman Catholics. Hitler’s mother was especially devout.
Knox attended the Jesuit Seattle Preparatory School. Jesuits are notorious anti-Semites. My guess is that Knox's anti-Semitic views were learnt from her mother and maternal grandmother and strengthened at Seattle Preparatory School. It's not hard to go from being an anti-Semite to being a racist in general - the capacity to hate another person on the basis of their race has already been learnt.
It seems likely that Knox regarded Meredith Kercher as a member of the untermenschen, those members of other races whom many Germans, the Roman Catholic element in particular, have traditionally regarded as subhuman. Knox murdered Kercher with as little concern as the German people have traditionally shown for all those whom they regard as racially inferior.
Interestingly, the public hysteria in the US that one of their own could be convicted of such a ghastly crime against a foreigner reminds me again of the mass US public outcry against the conviction of one Lieutenant William Calley:
Knox's reported love of non-human animals, protecting spiders from getting smooched? Hitler loved most non-human animals too - he was reportedly particularly fond of dogs. Supposedly, he also loved children - human children that is: Jews, Gypsies, Poles and Russians didn't qualify. It seems that where Knox was concerned, poor Meredith Kercher didn't qualify either.
Stopping Worshipping Women
By: Usama3 | Thu, 12/10/2009 - 04:56
I'll take it another level: all humans can kill. The seemingly universal perception advocated by feminism suggests women have special rights. modern media suggests women are to be adored and desired and even listened to. In fact, the elevation of Sarah Palin, the increase and spread of porn, and the increase in violent women are all tied together somehow. Behind all of them are nefarious forces promoting something that serves ulterior motives.