When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence

by Patricia Pearson

While national crime rates have recently fallen, crimes committed by women have risen 200 percent, yet we continue to transform female violence into victimhood by citing PMS, battered wife syndrome, and postpartum depression as sources of women?s actions. When She Was Bad convincingly overturns these perceptions by telling the stories of such women as Karla Faye Tucker, who was recently executed for having killed two people with a pickax; Dorothea Puente, who murdered several elderly tenants in her boarding house; and Aileen Wuornos, a Florida woman who shot seven men. Patricia Pearson marshals a vast amount of research and statistical support from criminologists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists, and includes many revealing interviews with dozens of men and women in the criminal justice system who have firsthand experience with violent women. When She Was Bad is a fearless and superbly written call to reframe our ideas about female violence and, by extension, female power.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Feminism, Crime, History, Politics, Psychology

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Canadian journalist and daughter of Canadian diplomat Geoffrey Pearson and former Ontario Senator Landon Pearson, and the granddaughter of former Prime Minister Lester Pearson.

She resigned her weekly column at the National Post in 2003 to protest that newspaper's support for the Bush administration.

Reviews

[Ariel [She Wants the Diction] · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book stands in direct opposition to John E. Douglas's assertion in his 1995 book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit that there are no female serial killers:

... Women do not kill in the same way or anywhere remotely near the numbers men do.

Thus I came straight here for more information. The fact is, women do kill, but in ways that aren't necessarily labelled as serial killing. Women are much more likely to commit violence indirectly, and the women who do kill will lean towards infanticide, Munchausen by proxy, and killing in groups or in assistance of a romantic partner. Solo female killers tend to remain in the same place with a smaller "hunting ground" of victims that come to them, rather than actively seeking them out as men do.

That's all good information, but the major problem I had with this book was its disparaging tone towards feminism. The author basically states that many of these violent women were getting off unjustly on the "battered woman" defense, when in reality they made a conscious decision to kill and were only playing the innocent victim in court, when it suited them. She insists that because of deeply-ingrained cultural stereotypes about women being sweet, loving, and nurturing at heart, these psychopaths were often not caught in a timely manner, were released early, or not punished as severely as they should have been - often to the detriment of the public.

Women were not to be held as men's equals in villany, they were to be shown as men's victims.

This is pretty much the thesis of the entire book, and while I don't disagree with it, her constant knocking on feminism in the process - which was a very real response to injustices of the time, and continues to be an important response today - really irked me. While I understand the point she was making about double standards for female criminals, I have to wonder why she needed to trash the entire school of feminist thought in the process. Honestly, girl, who hurt you? Her vendetta felt personal which was very weird for a book that was otherwise very dry. (I can't count the number of times I almost fell asleep while reading.)

The casual racism she dropped was also rather off-putting:

The traditionally higher involvement of African-American women in criminal enterprise would be balanced as white women joined them.

This right after a section where she interviews former inmates at a women's prison who corroborated that the white prisoners were treated better than the black, and more often believed. No mention of racial profiling or the inherent racism of the American justice system, just this blanket statement. I'm left shaking my head.

That said, the chapter on domestic abuse was absolutely amazing. There are male victims of domestic abuse, and it's still so stigmatized and laughed at in our society when it shouldn't be. She also talks about domestic violence within lesbian relationships, another perspective that's so often neglected or ignored altogether. It reminded me that me I need to get to In the Dream House ASAP! I might pick it up next, actually.

[Erin Clemence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.

Expected publication date: January 5, 2021

In “When She Was Bad”, Canadian journalist Patricia Pearson examines the role of female aggression. Using examples of female serial killers such as Karla Homolka , Mary Beth Tinning (who killed eight of her own children) and Dorothea Puente (who killed residents of her boarding house) , Pearson discusses how society’s understanding of the female as a nurturing caregiver is in contrast with the murdering, angry, retaliatory behaviours of a killer, and how, as a result, society often goes easier on females who are charged with heinous crimes.

“When She Was Bad” is provocative and eye-opening, and will definitely leave a mark on readers. Turning feminism on its head, Pearson explains how female serial killers try and equate powerlessness with innocence. Society wants to believe females were “victims” who have been “coerced” by an outside force, and they cannot be innately “evil” or “aggressive”, and female murderers take full advantage, often getting lighter sentences, or successful “insanity” pleas, in comparison to their male counterparts.

This novel is more about aggression as a concept, as opposed to serial killing. Sure, Homolka and some other deeply twisted female serial killers are covered, but so are such things as Munchausen syndrome and “battered woman” syndrome, reasons that are more believable and justified, and are almost exclusive to women when it comes to criminal defense.

“When She Was Bad” is thought-provoking and insightful. The novel flows well, and information was provided in a non-biased, non-judgmental way. Pearson examines how feminism in its current form contributes to the criminal defense of females who commit murders, but she is merely providing logical information, and not preaching from a pedestal.

I thoroughly enjoyed Pearson’s in-depth and well-researched novel. It is obvious that Pearson comes from a writing background (in journalism) as she knows how to tell a story readers will enjoy. For those looking for an interesting take on the concept of aggression and how it is expressed in females and males, “When She Was Bad” is definitely a novel worth reading.

[Peppermintlisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book to read. That said, when I read it I guess I had a stronger stomach. There is one case in it--involving sexual violence against a woman--that still haunts me.

The book's gist: that women are just as capable of violence as men and that the "myth of innocence" sometimes keeps women from being apprehended or even being conceived of as killers, etc.

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made for very uncomfortable reading at times. It taught me a lot of things that I didn't want to accept, which is good as sometimes we all need to be challenged.

[zasou.reads · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was not what I expected at all. My nad for not doing my research before going into it. Where I though I would get an in depth story of a few well-known female serial killers, I got several chapters, each focused on a type violence with a ton of facts and numbers and scientific explanations and definitions and quotes. It felt disjointed at times.

[Caroline David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really good and I appreciated the updated material. I really liked this look at female killers.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disturbing but interesting.

[Halli Villegas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was infuriating, but it had some interesting ideas. I think that the author oversimplified the argument she was trying to make, that women manipulate the system by using battered wife syndrome etc., and that the system belittles women by not holding them accountable in the same way as men. The most interesting part was her section on women in prison and women's prisons. I would be very interested in reading further on this subject, for instance rates of recidivism, response to non-traditional prison systems, etc. I didn't like her catty humour, it seemed misdirected and a little misogynistic. Still, a lot to think about and mull over.

[Katharine]

It was interesting to read a true crime book that was from a largely Canadian perspective - creepy, but interesting. also how is Karla Homolka allowed to have children? HOW?

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I miss the innocence, but I also miss the Easter Bunny

This is a wonderful bit of pop sociology that only a woman could write. If a man dare say what Pearson says here, the feminists would hang him by his word processor. But journalist Pearson, who has a super-fine feel for the politically correct, steers her way through the granite rocks by flatly stating that women are just as violent as men while slyly suggesting that if some people don't think that women have the same capacity for violence, maybe they are buying the "weaker sex" mythology and by extension continuing the subjugation. Let me tell you, this hits home with the Ms. crowd big time. Pearson paints a picture of women and violence that would give Charlie Manson pause, and you get the sense that she has the feminists soberly nodding their heads, "this is true, this is true." Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will, and bona fide feminist icon, even contributes a blurb for Pearson's book, allowing that there was "much to agree...and disagree with," but registers her approval with "...my tilt was definitely in her favor."

Mine too. I was actually surprised at the stats Pearson quotes showing the extent of feminine violence. Men too get beaten up (although let's be clear about this, not nearly as often). What I like best about the book is the hope that it is the beginning of an understanding that violence is a human sickness, not confined to one sex, and that psychological violence can be as brutal as physical. The violent evils that women are statistically more capable of—infanticide, crimes against the elderly, the murder of children, etc.—are starkly documented here. The real horror though, that women actually create the violent psychopaths through sexual choice, is a truth that even Pearson is not capable of addressing—yet. It's coming, though. When it is realized that the women who "can't help themselves" when they choose to mate with violent psychopaths in preference to milquetoasts (to use a word Pearson employs) also share responsibility for the violence in human society, then we will have made real progress toward ending the violence.

The chapters on women as predators, and women as partners in violent crime, and especially the chapter on women in prison make the book. I always wondered why the prison system couldn't keep the drugs out. This book has the answer: the prison authorities want the drugs in as a means of helping them control the prisoners. Pearson points out that pacifying drugs, like heroin and hashish, are easy to get; non-pacifying drugs like cocaine are not so easy to get. Pearson also makes it clear that violence is, as I said above, a human problem, not confined to one sex; indeed this is her point and a reason for exposing all the female violence that we as a society tend to forget and to downplay. Pearson wants to make sure we don't forget.

As I read this book I was reminded of why I seldom read feminist writers or listen to macho AM talk shows: the hard core sexists in their pathological need to hate the opposite sex are so dishonest and so prejudiced that what they say has no informational meaning. Pearson exposes this mentality again and again, sometimes by quoting feminine authors in vacuous support of some female murderess as "courageous" or as someone "justifiably" bent on "righteous" rage.

Some (now) purely political words that feminists might want to lose (it occurred to me as I was reading this book): "courage" as in "the courage to heal"; "empowerment," as in shooting her husband was "a liberating act of empowerment" (we all want to be empowered); and especially "liberating." What we need to get liberated from is the nature of sexuality itself, from identifying ourselves, as most people do, primarily as sexual creatures. Sex is the instrument of the evolutionary process, the tool of creatures who eat and are eaten. It was here long before we evolved and it will be here long after we are gone. While reading Pearson's vivid glimpses of women in prison, I was struck by how demoralizing it is to see people with nothing better to do than parade their sexuality, whatever the nature of that sexuality. But worse yet is people like feminist Jane Caputi (quoted in Pearson's book as saying that serial killers act on behalf of all men as henchmen in the subordination of women) who identify themselves primarily in terms of sex, saying they are feminists. Pathetic. I should be a "masculinist" or whatever the male equivalent is. When I was twenty I identified with myself as a "man." I didn't think how much better it would be to identify with myself as a human being. But I was twenty. What's the feminist excuse?

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very strange to be reading this 20-year-old book in the shitstorm of 2017. I admire the breadth of this book and the author makes some pretty ballsy (pardon the phrase) allegations about female victimization, namely that it permits women to commit violent crimes and get away with them. That's quite a thesis, but Pearson believes it fully, and it shows. So there's one star off, but I'm knocking off another for some of the outrageous descriptions in here. I admit, I read this for its salacious lady violence rather than its sociology, and I get the feeling Pearson enjoyed writing those bits best of all--she could put on her Mystery Horror Hack hat and describe a "sea-scented dawn."

[Michael Palkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most important books I have ever read and thus criminally neglected in the criminological literature. The reason this doesn't deserve all the allocated stars is because the citing methodology is atrocious. It would make sense to use end notes with numerical points for easy navigation. Instead the book quotes passages in each chapter with a brief summation of the source. This is infuriating.

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I loved about this informative, well-researched book was that the author, a journalist, didn't play pop-psychologist and delve into the "why," as in why these seemingly ordinary women wound up killing. She didn't offer motives or try to move the reader in the direction of assessing 'why.' She's simply a good writer who chose a subject that is taboo.

[Beardo Gomez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found its exploration of female aggressive violence, particularly the arguments about its eventual indirect manifestation as opposed to similarly aged direct male aggression, enlightening and the real-world examples used as fascinating as they were tragic. Obviously a bit of an older book but it seems we are no closer to solving the problem as posed herein.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

How female criminals are sometimes different treatment in the court system. Lots of real-life cases.

[Rachel Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her take on women and violence is provocative, and I agreed and disagreed with her. Worth reading.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the past five decades has emerged a very peculiar trend of feminism, a feminism which has reduced the whole of society to patriarchal dynamic, and whereas interactions between genders have been redefined as a reflection of power and control held by men over (supposedly) disempowered women. In other words, this peculiar trend of feminism has peddled the view that women, in whatever circumstances, can only be perceived as victims.

You see such view all around. For example, nothing illustrates it better that in the field of domestic violence, a field where every statistics and empirical data has been demonstrating that the issue is not gender based (about half of abusive relationships involve bidirectional abuse, the other half is split equally roughly between ‘battered wives’ and ‘battered husbands’) and, yet, the idea that women only are the majority of victims -and so men the majority of perpetrators- still holds firm in the popular psyche. Why so?

Patricia Pearson, feminist, crime writer, delivers here a powerful and compelling argument, going beyond the bonkers gender stereotypes still fed to us by a prejudicial culture, to completely destroy with a merciless logic backed up by science (criminology, psychiatry, anthropology, biology) such poisonous ‘victimhood’ narrative, which she sees as nothing but actually disempowering women by negating them a whole part of their humanity. The point made here is indeed that, by portraying women not only as victims and unable of violence, but also excusing and justifying such violence with all sorts of nonsensical reasons when it happens, we do more than serving the interest of gender exclusive feminists shying away from addressing extreme behaviours in women: we’re entertaining a deep-seated misogyny. For, at the heart of it all, this is what it boils down to: the view that women cannot be powerful enough to have control, that they are too weak, too meek, too submissive, too compliant to be anything but nurturing and so unable of toxic, manipulative, violent, dangerous behaviours (against themselves and others) is to negate women a will of their own, denying them an agency to turn them into passive little robots.

The examples provided abound, and the discussions surrounding them are enlightening. Women commit most of child abuse and child murders. They are as much perpetrators as victims when it comes to domestic violence as men. They kill. They bully. They harass. They rape (a quarter of child sexual abuse were perpetrated by women when she wrote this book). Yet, how do we handle them? We brush it under the carpet and completely negate their crimes (e.g. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome was ‘en vogue’ once, most of the cases being reopened, though, turn out to be infanticides…). We excuse it away by finding all sorts of exonerating reasons (e.g. domestic abuse perpetrated by female being framed as ‘self-defence’, in a twisted redefinition of what ‘self-defence’ really is about…). We patronise over women’s biology by reducing them to emotional yet pitiful hormonal creatures (e.g. PMS and their hormones being blamed in some cases -imagine men in courts blaming their deeds on ‘sorry your Honour, it was my testosterone!’…!). We disempower them by stripping them of an ability to make choices for themselves (e.g. female accomplice of male criminals being turned into victims themselves, as if a woman was incapable of deciding between right and wrong, good and bad, without the input of a man…). You get it, here’s not only a deep, hard, and cold look at female aggression -it’s also a compelling expose of how women get away with it all!

But does such ‘victimhood narrative’ truly serves women’s cause?

In the end, and as the author clearly demonstrates too, not addressing such toxic behaviours from women leads nowhere than to not helping their victims -women included. It leads nowhere than to not helping such women either -how many programs to help women abusers? Women in and out of jail? Women sexual offenders? In the end, by getting away with it all in the name of a ‘victimhood’ ideology, it also leads nowhere but to encourage such violence to go unchecked. Gender dogma based on gender stereotypes have consequences indeed, and such consequences are dire.

This is a controversial yet powerful argument, and a compelling book that anyone interested in gender studies must read (it became a classic on the topic of female violence…). Entertaining the view of female innocence and that violence and aggression are only the product of men (blaming testosterone, toxic masculinity, patriarchy and what not) is, indeed, certainly not being a feminist -it’s, in fact, being a misogynist, playing a gender stereotype game which, if it serves the vested interest of certain lobbies catering to some women only, ultimately, and catastrophically, backfire on us all. If we ought to pride ourselves in gender equality and an inclusive society, then it’s about high time that we bin the rubbish view that women are being made only of ‘honey and spice and all things nice’! Violence won’t be addressed if it remains gendered.

[Caitie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What a society perceives about violence has less to do with a fixed reality than the lenses we are given through which to see." (27)

"Men for their part persist in dismissing female aggression as trivial or hapless, amounting to nothing but tongue wagging and cat fights." (43)

3.5 stars rounded up for this one, I feel like it touched on some important topics--how women can escalate to violence all while society sees them as mostly docile creatures. The author writes that this simply isn't true, and provides ample examples (mostly in the true crime world) about women resort to violence and sometimes get away with it by either not being suspected at all or providing an abuse defense. The author (or me) is not saying that domestic violence doesn't exist, but it really does, but women committing violence is seen through the mythical (to a point) lens of they must've been driven to it in some way. Pearson, the author, makes some good point that that this is a typical way that women do either get away with murder or get a lighter sentence. Everyone should be punished for committing a crime, and there some strange defenses out there.

For anyone who likes true crime and/or psychology, this is the book for them. It's a good example of how women are fully capable of violence and should be seen as more than docile people.

[Abbie Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for the arc. Pub date Jan 5th 2021*

When She Was Bad was a deep dive into female based aggression and how our society views these crimes and women. It also explores multiple mental health disorders that can trigger this aggression and probably the most interesting part in my opinion as to why can’t some one just be evil? Why must there always be a reason? Pearson also references quite a few real life cases that match with the type of aggression that is being discussed in the chapter. Where this book fell short for me was not enough information on the cases that were discussed. I wish the book had gone into more detail in the specificity cases. All and all an enjoyable read that I will be recommending to all of my true crime friends.

[Michelle | musingsbymichelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

**Thank you NetGalley and Vintage Books Canada for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

As a True Crime consumer, this book certainly appealed to me as it took a deeper look into women in crime. In particular, the author explores the cultural impacts of misogyny on how we view female killers. Many great points are made including, but not limited to: how the FBI defined serial killers and studied only white men to develop these traits and characteristics, society’s desire to rationalize and shift the blame of female serial killers to their male partners, failing to classify people who kill with poison as serial killers, giving tender and/or funny names to female serial killers, and the list goes on and on. This book certainly gave me a lot to reflect on and allowed me to compare how many things have changed in 2021, but many things have still remained the same. However, this book was riddled with contradictions and the author’s personal views come in strongly in a way that I think deflects from a nuanced look at her points being made.

The full review can be found on my blog here

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been a really good book. I was excited to read something that explored the psychology behind violent women. Instead, it came across more as an attempt to paint women as awful, manipulative, liars who just cry "victim" about everything and never take any personal responsibility - basically what I would have expected to come from a conservative men's right activist. Especially since the author had a weird obsession with blaming everything on feminism. She also basically dismisses the idea that victimized women turn into the victimizers, or that women who do bad things might not be evil incarnate who use their feminine wiles to brainwash everyone into thinking they are innocent and defenseless and would never hurt a fly. The truth is that most women AND men who do bad things are not just inherently evil, and are instead complicated, broken people who are the result of shitty circumstances combined with shitty decisions, sometimes with addictions or mental illness thrown in there as well.

There were some parts of the book that were better than others. While I appreciated that she discussed the fact that women are also quite capable of being the perpetrators of domestic abuse and also sexual abuse, as I believe it has been harmful for society that this is often not acknowledged or that people are more dismissive of the experiences of male victims, I think she still fell flat in exploring those topics.

I feel like often her own personal opinions were woven in between sections with statistics and facts in a way that made them seem more like they were conclusions reached from documented research rather than her own opinion on a topic. For example at one point she starts blaming the sexual revolution for contributing to an increase in domestic violence, explaining that previous generations had a "greater commitment to monogamy" so they were protected from people taking out their grievances from previous relationships on their new partners. Like, what? That seems like such a weird leap to make, and it seems to have been the author's own leap, as no sort of studies, statistics, or sources that referred to that actually being a contributing factor were included. Rather, those opinions were presented as facts and float in between sentences or paragraphs that do have references to research that was conducted or factual conclusions.

At one point the author's telling the story of a man who was being abused by his wife - who does by all accounts sound like an awful person and an abuser - but she gets to a part of the story where the couple have not been having sex and are in separate bedrooms, and her husband has just described her as being extremely depressed. Then the author starts the scene by saying "the next instance of physical violence was connected to sex." She then goes on to describe the husband as going into his wife's room and insisting that they have sex because they are married, and describes him as hovering over her in the bed, before his wife reaches up, grabs his head and pulls it down, and he gets a "vicious kneed to the head". Right, so this is a scene of a woman abusing her husband? Because I'm reading it and thinking this a depressed woman who is fighting off her husband as he demands sex and gets on top of her when she is clearly not consenting. So, guess how I'm now feeling about this abused man after this scene? Probably the exact opposite way that was intended by the author. If all other information is accurate, she was definitely a abusive wife, but the author is also describing a husband attempting to commit marital rape and apparently he feels like he was the victim in this scenario (and it seems like the author also does), so I now have to question the veracity of all the other stories about how she was abusive to him.

The thing that I found really aggravating is that in her attempt to argue that women aren't all just innocent creatures that are biologically programmed to be only nurturing and life giving and are capable of violence (which is true) she ends up obscuring or denying the fact that violence and murder are still predominately committed by men. She says near the end "it is increasingly urgent that our culture acknowledge violence as a human, rather than gendered, phenomenon." The problem is, while certainly is a human phenomenon is it also, quite importantly, a gendered one. Women are capable of horrible things, including extreme violence, and they do commit crimes that are just as awful as men do, and it's important to acknowledge that, but it's also very important to acknowledge that they don't do so nearly as often. It's important to acknowledge that men rape and murder are far higher rates than women do, and that both women and other men are more likely to be raped or murdered by a man than a woman. That while you can compare a singular crime committed by a woman with one by a man and acknowledge that they are comparably disturbing and extreme in their violence, men are far more likely to commit such a crime. It is possible to explore the fact that women are capable of the same things as men and explore the social conditions and psychology behind that, and also call out the fact that we should not be dismissing or ignoring that when we research violence, or investigate and prosecute crimes, without overlooking the fact that men are still overwhelmingly responsible for the violent acts committed in our society.

[Beth Menendez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this book more stars as o really liked it and found the premise fascinating but as it’s 22 years old, with no update or epilogue to show what has changed with the science of anything , I felt like it was good but wanted to know if anything new has emerged with women and violence in the passing years.

[jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

pearson has a lot of really interesting things to say, and i agree with her overall thesis. however, she often contradicts herself and waffles around the point, slipping in weird little jabs at feminists and painting minorities in one broad stroke. the book is at it’s strongest when we’re given straight facts and a view into the lives of the women who have committed the crimes being discussed.

[Brooke Gilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

While keeping in mind this book was written in 1995 with the statistics and information that was currently available, it presented me with some eye-opening statistics. I am a big proponent of taking responsibility for our actions, and equal time for equal crime. I think turning these women into victims has done nothing more than skew the statistics on female violence.

[Hannah McKinnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredibly eye-opening and disturbing. It took many of my preconceptions about female violence, squished them into a ball, and threw them out of the window. Think women killers only go after the young and the weak? Only "passively" kill with poison? Can't possibly be violent unless coerced in some way by a man? Think again. Powerful and truly scary stuff.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is actually my second time reading this. Some points get repeated to the point of being kind of obnoxious, but otherwise it's a great examination both of violence perpetrated by women and the way societal expectations and cultural norms shape the way we view suchas violence.

[asha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raises some interesting points. I felt that the author was implicitly pushing a specific point of view in some sections, but couldn't pinpoint what it was. Perhaps it was her criticism of feminism? I liked the overall thesis.

[Leanne Ellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good book if you’re new to the female serial killer world. She did add in some new insights but for the most part it was a lot of information I’ve read/heard from other resources.

[Siren125 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal book! Highly recommend it for EVERYBODY!