Im looking into two big Murder cases which involved women, which made headlines for a long time the first being Myra Hindley known for the famous 'moors murders' which she commited with her husband Ian Brady

The second Female killer being Rosemary West who is another female murderer.
I chose thse two, not only because they were such big cases withing the tabloid press but i believe these two women could be considered the female icons of evil

Focus newspapers

As my question is about how violent females are represented by the tabloid press i decided to focus on three different newspapers, these being... 'the sun', 'mirror' and 'express'
ive been collecting any articles that ive found in these papers that are relevent to my question.

Why Female Serial Killers Kill

http://psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/female_serial_killers
i found this website really interesting, it talks about how female killers kill for diffent reasons than males and what kind of thing drives them to kill. It talks about the differences and simularities between male killers and female killers including their motives and the way in which they do kill, also what kind of characteristics female killers have.

After reading the comments that are left on the blog aswell i found some interesting opions on the subject including...

"You mention that men are more aggressive and violent than women. This is a simplification. Women don't commit as many violent crimes mostly because they are physically weaker than males, so they are less likely to use violence while committing crimes (guys can overpower people much easier and will have a much higher success rate while using violence). There are hundreds of studies that show that women are as violent, if not more violent, then men. This link: http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm is to a site with many studies showing that women are as aggressive as men (though the studies are only about relationships)."

Dramatic Portrayals of Violent Women: Female Offenders on Prime Time Crime Dramas By Dawn K. Cecil, Ph.D. University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

I found this site which is about how women who commit violent crimes are represented in Crime Dramas on tele vision. This study examines four popular crime dramas to
understand how women are portrayed and the images associated with these characters. The
prevalence of these characters varies by program, but their characteristics are fairly consistent.
Female offenders are primarily shown as white, violent and driven by greed, revenge, and most
commonly, love. When telling stories of female offenders, crime dramas connect these women
to male accomplices and also explore violence driven by maternal instinct. Overall, these
programs create a relatively non-threatening image of female offenders while simultaneously
reinforcing their guilt, thereby making them appear deserving of punishment.

I found this really interesting, and worth including into my blog

Blog i found about how male/female killers are treated differently

http://jsoltys.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/violence-in-the-home-vs-gender-diagnosed-or-demonized/

I found this blog, which the writer talks about how men who have killed their children and wives are treated differently to females who kill their husbands and children. I found it really interesting because he uses two cases as an example to prove his point that Males are demonized more for this crime than women. im not sure i agree although he makes a strong point, this is only two cases, i believe yes in this case he is right the woman got more sympathy and had excuses made for her, but i think when women kill it is alot more shocking, especially when children are involved... is this because women are suposed to have the maternal instinct?

Demonisation

The deffinition of the word demonisation

Demonisation: To represent as diabolically evil; The demonisation of our enimies

changing my question

After researching more into my project question i decided to change my question for two reasons, the first being i was finding it really difficult to find things that covered my whole question area, instead i was finding small bits of information which wasnt really answering the questions i needed answers to, secondly i was finding that i was being quiet biast in the way that i was only looking for information to prove that women are more demonised than men in the media, for commiting virtually the same crimes.

i decided to change my question to.... "Are women who commit murder, or other violent crimes, demonised by the tabloid press?"

I dropped the part were i compare this to how men who commit the same crimes represtented in the media because my main focus is on how women are treated, i will include small parts of research in my project about this though.