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

Pearson, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0965050319 ISBN 13: 9780965050319

Publisher: Viking Press, 1997

Synopsis

Our culture, argues award-winning journalist Patricia Pearson, is in denial of women's innate capacity for aggression. When She Was Bad offers a fearless and timely look at female violence, as fascinating and thought-provoking as it is controversial.

About this title

Review

"Women commit the majority of child homicides in the United States; more than 80 percent of neonaticides; an equal or greater share of severe physical child abuse; an equal rate of spousal assault; about a quarter of child sexual molestations; and a large proportion of elder abuse... The rate at which infants are murdered by women in the U.S. is higher than the rate at which women are murdered by men." With carefully researched facts, fascinating case histories, and incisive argument, Patricia Pearson succeeds in demolishing the myth that women are not naturally violent. When She Was Bad considers two different issues: (1) how we see violent women--that we either excuse their behavior with a "syndrome defense" such as battered woman syndrome, or else see them as the passive partners of violent men; (2) how we see aggression itself--that we perceive it as physical and blatant, thus missing the ways in which women more commonly use verbal assaults and indirect strategies. Ultimately, Pearson argues, the failure of women to take responsibility for their violent behavior undermines the good that can come from aggressiveness, and sabotages the credibility of female police officers and soldiers.

From the Inside Flap

In this provocative book, award-winning journalist Patricia Pearson argues that our culture is in denial of women's innate capacity for aggression. We don't believe that women batter their husbands or abuse the majority of children in North America. We ignore the 200 percent increase in crime by women in a period when most crime statistics are dropping. Pearson weaves the stories of women such as Karla Homolka and Mary Beth Tinning (who smothered eight of her children) with the results of criminologists and psychiatrists to expose the myth of female innocence.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0965050319
• ISBN 13: 9780965050319
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288