Women Who Kill Men

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Women Who Kill Men

California Courts, Gender, and the Press

Gordon Morris Bakken and Brenda Farrington

Law in the American West Series

296 pages
11 b-w illus

Hardcover

October 2009

978-0-8032-1361-6

$45.00 Add to Cart
Paperback

May 2013

978-0-8032-4544-0

$35.00 Add to Cart
eBook (PDF)
Ebook purchases delivered via Leaf e-Reader

October 2009

978-0-8032-2657-9

$35.00 Add to Cart

About the Book

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a revolutionary period in the lives of women, and the shifting perceptions of women and their role in society were equally apparent in the courtroom. Women Who Kill Men examines eighteen sensational cases of women on trial for murder from 1870 to 1958.
 
The fascinating details of these murder trials, documented in court records and embellished newspaper coverage, mirrored the changing public image of women. Although murder was clearly outside the norm for standard female behavior, most women and their attorneys relied on gendered stereotypes and language to create their defense and sometimes to leverage their status in a patriarchal system. Those who could successfully dress and act the part of the victim were most often able to win the sympathies of the jury. Gender mattered. And though the norms shifted over time, the press, attorneys, and juries were all informed by contemporary gender stereotypes.

Author Bio

Gordon Morris Bakken is a professor of history at California State University, Fullerton. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Practicing Law in Frontier California (Nebraska 2006) and Mining Law of 1872: Past, Politics, and Prospects.
 
Brenda Farrington is a lecturer in the history department at Chapman University. She has coauthored or coedited several books with Gordon Morris Bakken, including Law in the West and Encyclopedia of Women in the American West.

Praise

"Women Who Kill Men: California Courts, Gender, and the Press provides a unique, historical glimpse into the trials of female defendants charged with murder in California from 1870 to 1958."—Brooke Butler, Psychology of Women Quarterly

"Women Who Kill Men will appeal to social historians, behaviorists, students of women's issues, and the buff trade."—Clark Secrest, Western Historical Quarterly

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Feminine Side of Women on Trial

1. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who Is the Sanest of Them All?: The Insanity Defense in Court and in the Press

2. Good Riddance: Justifiable Homicides of Enemy Deviants

3. Toward the New Woman: Feminine Wiles on Trial

4. The Haves and the Have Nots: Women on Trial during the Great Depression

5. War Women of the 1940s: Evolutionary Women in Revolutionary Times

6. Celebrity on Trial: Tinseltown Tarnished

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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