It's a common practice to divide interests and hobbies along gender lines. Men like sports and cars, women like fashion and baking. Men: hunting. Women: decorating.
We've all done it. While there are numerous exceptions, it's an easy, often involuntary exercise, thanks to the way boys and girls are socialized in America.
But there's an interest, one particular quirk that women seem to relish that no one really talks about. It isn't even blatantly considered "feminine," but women read about it, write about it, watch shows and movies about it, and have probably thought in excruciating detail exactly how they would accomplish it, if need be.
That interest is, of course, murder.
Women who read know exactly what I mean. And men: Have you looked at your wife's or mother's bookshelf lately? Or asked any woman you know to break down the facts regarding Scott Peterson, O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony (hilariously called "Tot Mom" by noted television vulture Nancy Grace) or any other high-profile murder case of the past, oh, 150 years? They probably have a list of likely suspects for Jack the Ripper, or who could have possibly killed that poor Lindbergh baby in 1932. Murder is consumed as entertainment in our culture, and women are a voracious audience.
Part of this is a quirk of numbers. For example, the mystery genre has been extraordinarily popular for well over a century, but women are more likely to read any sort of fiction than men. Because women are buying most of the books — 62 percent of unit purchases, according to a 2012 study by Bowker Market Research/Publishers Weekly — women, accordingly, are buying most of the books about murder. "Chick lit" is just as likely to be about a bludgeoning or a serial killer as it is to be about friendship or finding a man. (Note to self: Write best-selling chick-lit murder mystery.)
Women do more than just read about death — they write about it. Historically, some of the most notable mystery authors are women. Agatha Christie has sold more than 4 billion books (that's billion, with a B), and her estate claims her books are the third most widely read in the world, after Shakespeare and The Bible (neither one a slouch in the murder department). Want a more contemporary example? How about mystery author Patricia Cornwell, who was recently awarded more than $50 million in damages due to negligent practices by her financial management firm? She's going to use the money to buy back her personal helicopter. Leave all that harmony and quiet introspection palaver to writers with bus passes.
You may not even realize that women cooked up the most horrifying things you've ever read, thanks to masculine pen names. Two initials and a surname? That's almost certainly a woman — ask A.M. Barnard, also known as Little Women author Louisa May Alcott, who once paid the bills by writing suspenseful, sometimes scandalous short stories known as "potboilers." And then there's J.K. Rowling — actually, wasn't the catalyst of the entire Harry Potter saga (a series for children!) the gruesome murder of his parents?
Not to mention the thousands of women who write about grisly crimes with nowhere near that level of success — anonymous friends and mothers and co-workers and widows just Jessica Fletcher-ing their way out of boredom and into book tours. Published or not, women are capable and happy to formulate ways of ending lives with varying degrees of monstrosity. The fairer sex, indeed.
For the less literary among us, there is the Investigation Discovery channel, called "ID." It's essentially The Murder Channel, featuring original programming like Wives With Knives, Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry, Happily Never After and Fatal Vows. Do you think these four (four!) shows about murder and marriage are meant for men? No. They are clearly tailored to female viewers. Give the ladies what they want, which is: lurid tales of evil spouses and women pushed too far. And we're all familiar with Lifetime movies, the world's campiest example of entertainment for women. What are the three broad categories every film on this network falls into? They're about romance (often involving killing people), family drama (often involving killing people), or, for a cozy change of pace, killing people.
Despite their morbid fascination, women are far less likely to actually go out and commit murder. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, only about one in 10 homicides in the United States is the result of a female perpetrator. The victims of female murderers are usually their children, spouses or other family members. The Department of Justice also tells us that the most common weapons for women murderers are poison and arson. Not guns, not knives; poison and fire — painful, malingering, deliberate.
And who is killing women? Their partners, usually. Most male murder victims are involved in gangs or drugs, their deaths the result of criminal activity. Women's deaths, statistically, are the result of who is living in their house at the time. Murders involving women, whether they are the executioner or the victim, are overwhelmingly domestic.
Solving fictional crimes, being one step ahead, peeking in on the lives of real men, women, and children who didn't make it out is certainly a dark form of escapism, but nothing to be ashamed of. We live in a pretty dark world, and there's a deep catharsis involved when channeling normal, natural, human, "unfeminine" anger into appropriate vicarious outlets. It's OK just to wonder how you would go about getting rid of someone, to indulge fantasies of justice or revenge we'd never act upon.
I'm sure you won't do it, but if you did, I bet you'd know how to cover your tracks. Just check your bookshelf.
Email editor@nashvillescene.com.
