NCJ Number
130043
Journal
Violence and Victims Volume: 5 Issue: 4 Dated: (Winter 1990) Pages: 227-242
Date Published
1990
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Court records of 158 homicides committed by men and women in Phoenix over a 6-year period were examined to assess the image of women's violence as a defensive reaction. The homicides were analyzed along five dimensions including offender background, location of the homicide, victim's relationship with offender, situational dynamics, and method or style of homicide.
Abstract
The study evaluates three schools of thought on the role of gender in homicide. Classical theory holds that men and women kill in ways that reflect socially approved gender role behavior, self-protection models hold that women kill most often in response to male violence, while liberation theory suggests that patterns of female-committed homicides will increasingly resemble patterns of male violence. This study supports the gender role and self-protection models as women more frequently kill intimates and kill in situations in which they are physically threatened by their victim. 7 tables and 50 references (Author abstract modified)