Don’t lose your head - Women who kill!
In this episode, Em and Caz take a closer look at women who kill, and ask why murderous women inspire so much fascination and fear. They draw on some contemporary cases of women killers to see if these can shed any light on the biblical character of Judith, whose bloody murder of Holofernes marked her out as both a lethal woman and a biblical hero. Diving into the gendered stereotypes that shape contemporary understandings of homicidal women, Caz and Em explore why they find women like Judith both intriguing and terrifying.
Resources for this episode
The Book of Judith (NRSV translation)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judith%201&version=NRSV
Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, “Judith in Art.” Bible Odyssey.
https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/people/related-articles/judith-in-art
Toni Craven, “Judith: Apocrypha.” Jewish Women’s Archive.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/judith-apocrypha
Lizzie Seal, Women, Murder and Femininity: Gender Representations of Women who Kill (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
Renée Herbele, “Disciplining Gender; Or, Are Women Getting Away with Murder?” Signs 24.4 (1999), pp. 1103-1112.
Why Women Kill: Truth, Lies, and Labels podcast (CBS)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-women-kill-truth-lies-and-labels/id1479264368
The Thing about Pam podcast (NBC)
https://www.nbcnews.com/thethingaboutpam
Amanda Knox documentary (Netflix)
