Understanding Violent Women

Violent women pose a specific challenge for feminist scholars. Nevertheless, it is important for both the offender and her victims that feminists engage with this form of offending. This chapter considers some of the data concerning women’s violence, the public and professional responses to violent women and how researchers have attempted to understand their behaviour. Focusing around ‘extreme’ deeds, we use two forms of offending—women who kill, and women who sexually abuse children—to explore what we know about female violence and the significance of gender in both social and legal contexts