The killing of older women

[ArabellaScott]

One in eight femicides are of women over 70, according to a new report.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/06/one-in-eight-women-killed-by-men-are-over-70-report-reveals

'Research by Prof Hannah Bows at Durham University showed that between 2010 and 2015, one in four domestic homicides involved a victim over the age of 60, with women more likely to be victims and men perpetrators. “This is particularly significant when you consider that people aged 60+ accounted for around 18% of our population at the time, but made up 25% of all domestic homicides,” she said. “So the idea that older people are less at risk of being murdered isn’t borne out by the data.”'

Link to the report here: https://www.femicidecensus.org/reports/

Ah, I just realised this is the same report with the shocking matricide figure in it:

'Of the 213 women killed by a close family member, 80% were mothers killed by sons.'

I wonder whether euthanasia is included in the stats? That’s another shocking area.

There is no euthanasia in the UK?

14 killings had 'care home' listed as location.

Care home makes me cold.

So in the uk, any assisted dying would be recognised as a crime and included, then.
I can’t remember where I saw the statistic but it totally undermined my cautious acceptance of assisted dying as being discussed in the uk at the moment. Some research suggested the majority of people who die are women, and the majority of people assisting/supporting are men. But I haven’t studied it.

39 killings are listed as 'mercy killing'.

In the cases to which I can find reference on line, the perpetrators included an intruder, a family member, and a number of fellow residents.

Caroline Criado Perez has done some work on this - five men per year killing sick, disabled, or elderly female relatives, and getting away with it. I'm struggling to find a free source, but the attached image is from her Instagram:

@myplace details about the coercion aspects here

Assisted dying and coercion www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/5262744-assisted-dying-and-coercion

From that thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5262744-assisted-dying-and-coercion?reply=141734386&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

The Other Half analysed data from 100 of these killings in the UK and found that “despite claims…‘mercy killings’ are not the wanted, ‘hastened’ deaths that need assisted dying” but instead “are overwhelmingly violent domestic homicides of women, by men: and show that our society is still poor at detecting and responding to domestic abuse”.
Of the 100 UK “mercy killings” over 25 years, the report found that 88 per cent of perpetrators were male, and 78 per cent of female victims were neither terminally ill nor willing to die but were often elderly, disabled or infirm.'

In a shocking twist...😡

So we can expect the actual numbers to rise with AD legislation, but recorded numbers to fall.

A cynic might say that AD will be one way to get the murder rate stats down.

Dear Lord it’s tragic.

This cynic is pretty sure it is to reduce the amount spent on palliative care.

Two birds with one stone.

I don't think that's just the view of the cynic. It's also the view of some supporters I'd say. Their argument would be 'why spend money on keeping someone in a miserable state, which only gets worse with the passage of the time, when there is much need for the money elsewhere'.

I'm undecided how I feel about assisted dying, but I don't think that is an illogical argument.

Older women are often very frail, and older men can be surprisingly strong. It wouldn't surprise me at all if residents with senility, dementia, other mental illness, kill in a care home.