TV and probability

I wonder what the real-life proportions are for murders with really interesting motivations and means are. Probably less male-skewed than murders in general.

I've noticed this too – about a year ago, almost every book/ TV drama I came across had a female perpetrator.

It's because a lot of crime stories are effectively puzzles and depend upon the twist/ the big reveal at the end to satisfy the readers. So what better twist than the apparently mild-mannered woman carrying out the crime?

But, as others have said, it stops being a twist if everyone's doing it. It's also a trend that irritates me slightly as it feels like yet another way of papering over the differences between the sexes – violent men are a massive societal problem and I don't think anyone, including our leaders, is truly prepared to confront the scale and horror of that challenge.

But I also get that crime novels/ dramas are escapism from the trauma of crime itself. I think it bothers me more when the media gives disproportionate coverage to the occasional real-life female violent criminal/ absuer – who are newsworthy precisely because they're rare – while giving a free pass to the huge numbers of abusive and violent men.

A lot of real murder victims are not victims of the kinds of crimes that are on tv shows.

The nature of tv drama is that it's interesting and often unusual and , dramatic.

It's not meant to be reflective of the average crime.

The 7%, 93% are proportions of Females:Males being convicted of murder not probabilities of committing a murder and being convicted. (I was surprised that it was as high as 7%!)

I suspect the probability of either a man or woman committing a murder and being convicted for it is close to 100%. It won't be exactly 100% because we know there are some unsolved murders (can't have a person convicted) and some other people are falsely convicted.

I watched A Touch of Frost last night on ITV3 and thought one of the women characters (who turned out to be the murderer) looked distinctly odd.

No worries - it was a man in drag

Must admit I was a bit surprised when I realised nearly half the killers in the Cormoran Strike books are female, including one very prolific killer (trying to not give too much away!), as JKR obviously has a very good understanding of male violence. But maybe as said above, the unexpectedness of it is part of the reason...

Apparently, women are particularly keen on murder mysteries. Perhaps this is a way of making them relevant to the audience?

Way more female murderers and way more female murder victims than statistics would suggest.

TV ought to have a lot more men being killed by their (male) friends.

It's not supposed to reflect reality - it's sometimes the surprise and unexpectedness of having a female killer (a lot of sweet old ladies in Agatha Christie turn out to be murderers.)

It's also catharsis - crime thrillers are disproportionately read and watched by women and feels good to enjoy a woman who is powerful and violent and kills those who cross her. Again, many of the Christie murderers turn out to be sympathetic and their crimes understandable.

On the other hand many people including feminists complain about the abundance of TV shows and novels depicting violence against women and gruesome sex-related killings. But this reflects depressing reality.

Also it's not vanishingly rare to have women killers - it's about 1/10. Women killing babies and children is fairly common and so are female accomplices of male murderers.

And I hated that one on Disney about the female serial killer. Just awful despite the reviews!

I noticed this with crime fiction. There's a funny undercurrent in both LJ Ross and Joy Ellis's books where women are wrong uns fairly often and it doesn't seem quite right. I wish I had my examples handy but I'm afraid I don't. Though I enjoy both authors, I have noticed it.

I've always thought the same OP especially programmes like Lewis or Midsummer Murders. Even Agatha Christie had her fair share. I suppose it's artistic licence and makes it less likely that the audience guesses who the killer is but it's totally ludicrous in terms of any relationship to reality.

Could it be that because female murderers are less common that people find stories about them more interesting than stories about male murderers?

Well i always thought that in crime drama or thrillers the murderer was quite often revealed as the murderer because of the very fact that the more natural assumption, based on reality, was that it would be one of the male characters. That a woman being the murderer allows the plot to have more of an element of surprise and keeps the watcher , or reader, guessing.
I've never thought that generally there was a sinister motive behind this.