Maiden, Mother and Monster: Construction of the Killer Female.

Introduction -

Classic fairy tales such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Hansel and Gretel have communicated stereotypes of women as either being the perfect victim or the hysterical and irredeemable harridan for centuries. Contemporary cinema and the news media are still casting women in these roles. This case study examines the construction of gendered representations of the female killer from the Ninetieth Century to the Twenty-first Century within the United Kingdom and the United States, a comparison will be drawn to equivalent portrayals of male criminality within the news media and entertainment industry to expose the gendered binary of murder.

Mirror, Mirror: The Female Dichotomy -

Before one can understand the contrast between femininity in Western culture, the ideal female model has to be identified. The binary set between men and women is primarily based on a biological difference regarding sexual and reproductive organs, the wide reach of Christianity and its dogma reinforced an already established but small difference between the sexes in the West. Women within biblical lore were presented as naïve or quarrelsome and in need of male guidance and supervision, although most women were still expected to do as much manual labour as their male counterparts. The dichotomy between masculinity and femininity began when women were portrayed as slaves to their bodies and emotions and men, in contrast, were rational thinkers in control of their desires, it was a tidy way of explaining why the male perspective was dominant in Europe and North America. The male was the embodiment of civilisation, made in the image of God – women are a constant reminder of man’s primitive ancestry; animalistic, and closer to nature, for example; menstruation and reproduction. The feminine is defined by the ability to procreate and to nurture and thus the idea of ‘The Perfect Woman’ was constructed for women to aspire to be: virginal, submissive, unselfish, caring, empathetic, and pleasing. To transgress from these values was to be less than feminine, women were expected to ‘better’ themselves; to distance themselves from their true primal natures. This leads to the dualism within the female identity of good versus evil, or the domesticated versus the wild, what a woman should be versus what a woman might be if unconstrained.

It was not until the 19th Century that upper-class bourgeois values and expectations of 'the female' began to filter down newly emerging middle-class families. Women were now expected to be confined to domesticity and child-rearing, to be kept by their husbands or fathers; whereas, working-class women were burdened with duties of full-time work, family care and the expectancies of lady-like etiquette which could never be met due to the class divide.

In mainstream media; television news, newspaper press, and cinematic entrainment are framed from a male perspective. It can be argued that the male-centric position highlighting masculine values allows these values to become a standard way of thinking within society. This illusion that this male point of view is equal to and indistinguishable from gender-neutral and egalitarian discourses, perpetuates gendered binaries and chauvinistic ideologies, consciously or unconsciously (Sjoberg and Gentry, 2007).

Journalism constructs reality through the documentation and publicising of a culture's behaviour and opinions like a dark mirror on the face of society. The dissemination of these magnified and distorted descriptions also influences those same dominant attitudes. Journalists compose society's reality when they write a story based on the accounts of other people, consequently, news stories are directly influenced by the values and beliefs of social and cultural institutions. Deliberately or unintentionally, reporters are likely to conform to socially acceptable templates of explanation for deviant criminal behaviours. Journalists are also less likely to use alternative explanations which stray from their cultures' easily digestible and generalisable narratives, as scandalous and sensational stories sell more copy. The most common stack narrative when describing crime is the morality play which sets the dichotomous values of 'good' and 'evil' against each other on a mortal playing field –in the hope that good conquers all. The morality play is best suited to the reporting of murders, as the narrative has the same formula as cultural folklore and literature, for example, Macbeth and Dracula, as the structure is easily transferrable to contemporary cultures and events (Morrissey, 2003).

Legendary Vampire: Countess Bathory –

Any person who commits particularly heinous acts, such as murder or torture, is twisted into monsters and their humanity is warped until unrecognisable; this allows society to divorce themselves from the culprit, and the perpetrator as a human being altogether. This permits public institutions to deny any responsibility for the perpetrators' actions. (Morrissey, 2003) One of the most notorious female serial killers who has taken on the legendary status of the monster is Countess Elisabeth Bathory, better known as ‘The Blood Countess’; she helped inspire Bram Stoker to create the Character of Count Dracula. She lived a life of privilege in Sixteenth-Century Hungary, married by the age of 16 to a man twice her age who was gone for years at a time. The countess was alleged to have murdered and tortured more than 600 servants, the majority of them peasant girls. She had an extensive catalogue of cruel acts but, just as Pharaoh Cleopatra bathed in milk, she particularly enjoyed bathing in the blood of young, virgin girls. She believed this would maintain her beauty. When caught, she was convicted of Witchcraft bricked up in her chambers and left to die (Creed, 1993). It is still debated in contemporary discussion whether or not she was framed in a bid to seize power over her estates.

Barbara Creed argues that the creation of the legendary female vampire was due to male insecurity surrounding masculine sexual inadequacies in the face of uncompromising female sexuality, and fear and anxiety regarding their lack of control and understanding of the mysterious female form and its seemly primal biological. Creed (1993, pg 61) stated “…the female vampire is monstrous – and also attractive - precisely because she does threaten to undermine the formal and highly symbolic relations of patriarchal society.” Like the Countess, female vampires threaten the status of women as passive, whether it be sexual playing field, or within the corridors of power. The female vampire takes on the active role (the seducer) in any relationship between her and her prey, her bite holds the penetrative strength over men and women alike, equalising all genders as submissive before her. In contrast, male vampires are feminised in the sense that they are portrayed as flamboyant, alluring, sensual, and acerbic, although having the same active role as the female vampire, he is still shown as monstrous by holding these stereotypically feminine qualities. Dracula, for instance, however, male, still embodies the abject female as he displays the same supposed despicable character traits of an unruly woman. Male and Female vampires are both emasculated in their deaths, as they are physically penetrated by a wooden phallic-like stake, which could be argued is symbolic of corrective rape, as the aim is to vanquish and contain an unacceptable female and queer sexuality (Creed, 1993).

The Gorgon: Myra Hindley -

Serial murder and sexual violence are commonly thought of as male-dominated crimes due to their physicality, and the vast majority of convicted violent offenders are committed by Men. Women are most often the victims of these violent crimes and are considered vulnerable targets. Society’s unwillingness to accept women as serial murderers is due to the construction of the weak and nurturing wife/daughter stereotype, who are both physically and psychologically incapable of killing. Socially accepted narratives of the female murderer are that of the battered wife who is driven to defend herself, or her children from an abusive man, this narrative still portrays the female as loving, tolerant, and maternal which sets her as the protagonist within it. When a female killer is found and their story does not resemble this structure they are portrayed as folk devils, far worse than their male counterparts as they have strayed from their appointed gender role of maternal caregiver (Holmes and Holmes, 1998). Women who deviate from hetero-patriarchal standards are still portrayed as witches in contemporary press media, the imagery of harpies, witches and the succubus originate from classical art, mythology, and literature. Traditionally the imagery of the witch is used to demonstrate the difference between ‘a good woman’ and ‘a bad woman’; a good woman is shown to be obedient and chaste, while a witch is sexually active and aggressive. The witch stereotype was further demonised by claims of infanticide and cannibalism, again undermining the narrative of the loving Mother (Schimmelpfennig, 2013).

Rape committed by men is so common in society that most do not get reported in the press unless they are exceptionally violent, and the victim is a flawless example of femininity – the perfect victim. When an as heinous as this is committed by a woman it is instantly newsworthy, as it is so unusual However, men are less likely to report such a crime if it happens to them, especially if it was perpetrated by a woman; culturally speaking, these men may consider their experience shameful and emasculating, or may not even consider their experience as rape (Jewkes, 2015). It is far more likely women will be reported as committing sexually assaulting the most vulnerable in society. Myra Hindley and her lover Ian Brady murdered five children; she became a crucial part of the ploy to entice children into trusting the couple and having them accompany her and Brady to the Yorkshire Moors. There Brady would rape, torture, and murder them. She helped procure the children, bury their remains, and in one instance record the torture and abuse on an audio device. Hindley's defence was that Brady had overwhelming control over her actions, and could not resist him, or risk facing his wrath. The question of her agency during the crimes did not induce empathy toward her case due to the nature of the crimes (Sjoberg and Gentry, 2007). Hindley passed away in 2002; but is still widely known and hated, however, not feared in the same way other male sexual predators are, like the Yorkshire Ripper – who acted alone and attacked females regardless of their age. The revulsion and loathing the general public holds of Hindley, who is truly a despicable creature, is far more than they have for Ian Brady, and this is because what she took part in opposes the female gender role and ontological expectations ascribed to her (Downing, 2013). The idea that mothering instincts are innate in all women is a patriarchal fallacy to absolve men of emotional labour and caregiving duties, but as we can see a fondness for children does not come inherently to all women, it is most likely a learned quality during the primary socialisation process, which means boys are just as capable of learning these traits as girls. It is atypical for women to be convicted of rape. Yet, it is not unheard of; there are many cases much like Hindley’s, for example, Rosemary West, and Maxine Carr, again these women worked in tandem with their male partners to victimise young women and children.

These women became press obsessions, their entire lives dissected and scrutinised to find an adequate explanation for their deeds and their abandonment of the most ‘innate’ of female qualities. Their lovers received less press attention than them regarding sexuality because the male desire is considered far more easily explainable through accepted discourses and excuses of extreme male sexual fantasies encouraged by pornography, inherent male lust, or psychopathy (Jewkes, 2015). Their partners were also not evaluated in the public press on their attractiveness, as a means of pathologizing their evilness, tabloids and shrinks speculated that these women were maybe complicit in these evil deeds because they might feel the need to compensate for their lack of natural femininity to get male attention – any male attention. In Hindley's case, the press still compares her appearance to that of the serpent-haired Medusa of Greek mythology, who turned men to stone with a look. Writer for the Guardian, J. Glancey, stated: “…Hindley was fixed forever in the public eye as the peroxide-haired Gorgon… her defiant, evil eyes … she probably had a head of snakes, covered by a blonde wig…” (as cited in Jewkes, 2015, p.138).

The Predatory Feminine: Aileen Wuornos –

Femininity and masculinity are socially constructed within an individual’s culture; gender roles are acted out each day automatically and influence nearly all social interactions. Each person is assessed by their appearance and their gender is assumed based on their chosen presentation. Generally, in many cultures, we are expected and responsible for behaving in a way which corresponds to that gender; however, I recognise this is slowly changing. When a woman rejects the standards of femininity, she is usually demonised and thought to be grotesque. The serial killer Aileen Wuornos represents perfectly in contemporary discourses as she can be categorised as an outcast, and completely abject. Wuornos worked as a prostitute in Florida and killed seven of her clients in the space of a year. After shooting them to death she would rob them, using the money to care for herself and her lesbian lover. They led a nomadic lifestyle hitching between places and living in motels. Wuornos is regarded as the first female serial killer to typically use ‘masculine’ murder methods according to the FBI; the predatory fashion in which she killed opposed all preconceived ideas of “the female killer” who is predicted to kill passively through poisoning and other such non-confrontational ways. Wuornos killed strangers violently and gruesomely in public spaces just as a male killer would. She was unusual because she ignored assumed gender behaviour (Downing, 2013). Her sexual orientation and aggressive disposition while in court emphasised her portrayal in the press as ‘unfeminine’ due to negative discourses surrounding lesbianism. Jewkes (2015, pg 130) states: “Millbank further elaborates on the tendency of the media to view lesbian sexuality as a cause of aggressive behaviour" and thus proof of immorality. She was tried for the murder of her first victim and was found guilty after pleading self-defence, she pleaded no contest and admitted her crimes at the next six trials and pleaded for a death sentence, and by doing this she kept her agency as a female which was strongly attacked with narratives of the mad or bad dualism. (Morrissey, 2003)

Conclusion -

Gender and the notion of femininity are socially constructed and set apart from masculinity as a contrast to establish a gender hierarchy, by othering the female – physically and psychologically, a male-centric culture/society can more easily control the female body and its reproductive power. The notion of the perfect woman was created and reinforced through the imagery of socially unacceptable ‘evil’ and ‘bad’ women who deviated from female roles, this led to a duality of femininity being created, as perfection is impossible to reach, and thus all women are to some extent abject when compared it. Fear of the female vampire is the manifested anxieties of male castration and insecurities of replacement. The independence of Countess Bathory may have caused outrage in the 16th Century and rumours were spread about her depravity to reassert male dominance over her, although this can never be rightly proven, she will remain one of the most infamous of Vampires. Vampires and witches were depicted as sexual aggressors who took on the active role in the seduction of their lovers, this poses a threat to masculinity and patriarchal power and is thus reported as monstrous. Myra Hindley was depicted as the Stoney-Faced gorgon and witch who lurks in gingerbread houses and denies her agency in the crimes. Aileen Wuornos asserted her agency by having no remorse for her crimes and accepting her sentence of death, she was ultimately represented in the press as the insane, man-hating, lesbian – The outcast of all outcasts.