The Enigma of a Violent Woman

In contrast to much of the contemporary discussion of the case of Karla Homolka, this book offers a comprehensive and detailed academic examination of the legal, public and media understandings and explanations of Homolka’s criminality. The authors use Homolka as an object lesson to interrogate some of the narratives and conceptualizations of ’violent women’, the problematic normative constructions of womanhood and ’acceptable femininity’, leniency in sentencing, taboo and disgust, and questions of remorse. They also consider how women convicted of violence are typically constructed across four sites: the courts; the academy; the mainstream media; and public discourse.