This article presents findings of research on women who kill. All cases in which
a woman was investigated by police as a perpetrator in a homicide in
Victoria,Australia,between 1985 and 1995 were examined.The aim was to
investigate the range of circumstances in which women kill. Seventy-seven cases
were identified.The primary source of data was the Victorian Coroner 's
office.Initially it was expected that most women would have killed a partner as
a result of the experience of long-term violence. However,the findings of the
study show that the situation with respect to women and those they kill is more
complex.Three primary relationship categories were identified:women who kill
their partners,women who kill their children and women who kill
non-intimates.The third category primar- ily involved women who killed friends
and acquaintances.This paper will argue that the homicide literature fails to
provide a conceptual framework for understanding women who kill and hence
contributes to the cultural stigmatising of violent women as
“mad” or “bad”.
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