Talulah
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https://search.proquest.com/openvie...9e84d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
Researchers such as Ogle et al., (1995) have suggested that homicidal women within the domestic context tend to be socially conforming and passive and, as such, often find themselves
subjected to oppressive situations. As a result these women seem to erupt erratically into violence when stress becomes too overwhelming. Data shows that women who participate in the
social world (e.g., gain full time employment) while maintaining the primary caregiver role at home, are more often subject to the possibility of internal tensions (Weisheit, 1986). This is not
to say that all women who are primary caregivers will kill; rather the suggestion is that patterns of violence have emerged among those women who give primary care. Although such theories
may point out the commonalities among certain homicidal women, they fail to encompass the underlying causes of female homicides. Additional difficulties arise when attempting to
distinguish between homicidal theories based on victim type.
Looking more generally at gendered patterns of homicide, women kill most commonly in the domestic arena and intimate partners are killed more frequently than children by women
(Messing & Heeren , 2004). A review of the Messing and Heeren‘s (2004) study on gendered homicide indicated a lack of theories associated with females who kill multiple family members
at once. Although there is a paucity of research in the area on female mass murders who target their family, parallels may be drawn from what is known about female homicide offenders.
Earlier literature concerning child homicide has suggested children are both sources of frustration and easy targets for the alleviation of frustration (e.g., Totman, 1978) and that their
deaths are often the result of excessive physical punishment (Ward et al., 1969). Due to the relatively small number of cases, the limitation with these theories lies in the narrow focus on
single rather than multiple homicides of children. Messing and Heeren‘s (2004), study on female multiple murderers found conflicting evidence about women who kill their children.