Why are there no female serial killers?

[1dayatatime]

So during the lockdown I've been watching a few series (some of which involve serial killers (The Fall, Luther etc) and it for me thinking about that out of the hundred of serial killers in history why are there no female serial killers?

Generally they're more likely to kill for financial gain, there are few female 'lust' killers.

@1dayatatime

But a lot of these women Myra Hindley, Rose West etc were led this into by male partners. I genuinely don't think either of these two women would have committed these crimes alone on their end initiative.

I think Rose West is an exception. She was naturally violent and sexually abusive.

Karla Homolka was also awful (to say the least) all on her own - she wanted to offer her sister to Bernardo. Sick fucks, the pair of them, and she got off way too lightly.

Maybe it's a classical bent, but Livia - wife of Augustus - was accepted as having bumped off quite a few people that stood in the way of her son Tiberius becoming emperor ...

And that's certainly a more common theme in female murderers - to advance their progeny.

1dayatatime

Your sister sounds great!!!

@1dayatatime

Oh I asked my sister the same question and she just gave an intense stare said "because women are smarter and don't get caught" then laughed manically all the while stroking a kitchen knife. But she's always had a weird sense of humour 😀

Are one of my sisters? Another sister loves a good murder series on tv (as do I) and she joking calls watching them ‘research’.

You could say that Typhoid Mary was a serial killer. She knew that she was a super spreader but kept working as a cook in households.

Also - there was a woman who murdered small children and babies, must’ve been back in Victorian time’s. She was being paid to look after them by mums who couldn’t manage and she’d murder them and keep taking the money. I forget her name.

Haven't there been quite a few cases where women have killed more than one husband? How many do you need to be considered a serial killer?

There are more males committing all types of crime. I wonder if this will change with more equality

@SerenityNowwwww

Also - there was a woman who murdered small children and babies, must’ve been back in Victorian time’s. She was being paid to look after them by mums who couldn’t manage and she’d murder them and keep taking the money. I forget her name.

I forget the names too but there's more than one woman that did this I think, one in Japan I remember.

@SerenityNowwwww Amelia Dyer, I think.

Yes - it was suspected that she killed around 400!

I think something like 93% of violent crime is committed by men. I imagine the stats of serial killers reflect that.

There was the Victorian baby farmer - Amelia something.

Whoops someone got there first - Amelia Dyer.

Thé ways in which women kill are usually different because of different physical strength.

A factor is probably also men’s expectation of dominion over women. When they don’t get what they think they are entitled to, they kill. Look at all the incel school shooters in the US who killed because basically they didn’t have friends and girls wouldn’t go out with them. No frustrated female virgins have shot up schools as far as I know - because they weren’t socialised to expect to be able to lord it over men sexually and physically in the first place?

So an element of the patriarchy causing greater violence by men, including killing?

Mary Bell (not only a female but also a child when she killed)

There is also a whole series on female killers

www.imdb.com/title/tt6172806/

Has OP not heard of Google? Maybe try using it

I definitely think more monstrous acts come from men. More motivated by sex than women are. But I'm no expert.

Amelia Dyer lived in a time when society treated people very cruelly. She may even have thought she was providing a service. Most of those children would have ended up dead on the streets anyway. A lot of the mothers that went to her knew what she would do to those babies. Grim a thought as it is.

Rose West,Myra Hindley, Beverly Allitt , Eileen Wuornis recently. Back in history , Belle Gunass ,lots & lots of lady poisoners. Elizabeth Balory in the 1500's an aristocrat who tortured & killed over 30 village girls who worked as servants. The elderly Black Widow killer in the US who killed her lodgers for their benefit cheques. The two lesbian Nurses who killed 5 women at their nursing home. The mid 4O's critical Nurse who killed 20+ patients with insulin. The US woman care assistant who killed around 8 elderly women. Go on You Tube channel Dark History , he has hundreds of them. And the US girl Stephanie who does real crime ,she's really good too.

*that should read the mid 40's critical care Nurse (she's quite recent).

Oh, Mary Anne Cotton killed 50+ babies she was supposed to be looking after for money in the 1800' s. They were wrapped up like parcels & were thrown in the Thames I think.

Women serial killers are rare and seem to kill differently to men and for different reasons.

Male serial killers most often kill for sexual gratification of some kind.

Women serial killers tend to kill in a way that is relationship-based.

Either they are working with a violent man whom they are in a relationship with (and he is often violent towards them as well).

Or they have some kind of toxic relationship with the people they kill. Examples are killer nurses (who often fawn on their patients before murdering them), women who kill a succession of male partners, or women in some other caring role---like Dorothea Puente, who ran a kind of boarding house for people with mental health/addiction disorders and used to "mother" them but also bumped a whole bunch of them off and took their social security cheques.

Of course Typhoid Mary was not a serial killer. She had asymptomatic typhoid and it had only been quite recently discovered at that time that such a thing existed and that people could pass the disease on to others. Germ theory itself was quite new at the time, so of course a woman of limited education was going to really struggle with the idea that she could make other people sick even though she had no symptoms.

When Mary Mallon was arrested, the stupid thing is that no attempt was made by the medical authorities to teach her any alternative skills (she had always worked as a cook)--not surprisingly, she went back to cooking once she managed to get out. What else could she do? The whole situation was poorly handled, but I feel sorry for Mallon more than anything else.