There’s this tendency to put media that women enjoy under a microscope that seems weird to me. For all the women who love “true crime” there are plenty of men who get into war or mafia documentaries.
most infamous killers had some weird psycho sexual tendencies that involved women
women are often not taken seriously by police, colleagues, doctors, etc.
possible mix of revenge fantasies + coping by knowing that “it could be worse” + learning from other people’s failures and mistakes to minimize potential victimhood
I sometimes go on a police body cam binge just to keep in my mind what the person did before being murdered by cops and hope I can Remember to avoid it, or imagine ways their attacks towards cops could’ve been successful
It’s in the name, true crime. Similar crimes have happened to themselves or people they know. It’s natural to want to understand it.
Then we have patriarchal obsession about virginity and chastity, which those crimes can be seen as overcoming in a twisted way, providing an “““escapist””” fantasy. You can’t be a sl*t if someone r*pes you. 🧠
Men love that garbage too. I don't get the appeal personally but I've had enough violence and terror in my life that I don't seek it out. Maybe people with better backgrounds find more fascination with it because they haven't experienced it for themselves? I know one person who had a very peaceful upbringing and relatively easy life who got really into true crime / serial killer stuff and came out of it extremely paranoid and agoraphobic. In general I also find true crime entertainment to be disrespectful and exploitative of the victims. Alright alright I'll step down off my soapbox now.
WOAH. I just did a cursory search and according to this dude "Scott Bonn, Ph.D. is a criminology professor, TV news commentator, public speaker and author. He is an expert on the behavior and the motivations of criminals" the audience for true crime skews eighty percent female.
I'm not quite ready to automatically give the patriarchy credit for everything women do though.
I manifested your post cause I was thinkin about this but y'know, in a way that doesn't implicate it as a Victims of Patriarchy thing. Less weird.
Some good answers in here already, but I think to an extent there are also a lotta bored-ass well-off women who have lived entirely safe lives and so it becomes fascinating instead of horrifying, I dunno.