When She Was Bad

by Patricia Pearson

  I remember sitting in Newark airport, waiting for a flight to Toronto after an unsettling and hectic day of media appearances in New York related to Tucker’s last day on earth. I was in the boarding lounge watching TV—with ten minutes left until the execution—when up popped a satellite transmission of Camille Paglia snapping grumpily at CNN’s Bernard Shaw that Tucker’s case was just “a big soap opera.” Get on with the penalty and put away the hankies.

  I disagree. The execution of Karla Faye Tucker was genuinely disturbing for thousands of people. Tucker’s death altered irrevocably the rules of chivalry: within a month, another American woman—Judi Buenoano of Florida—would be put to death. Tucker’s execution was also important for reasons that have nothing to do with gender, and it was difficult to be interviewed about the case without touching on the challenge she posed to Americans to confront their beliefs about spirituality, redemption, and the purely vengeful act that is execution. Perhaps, with her passing, we can indeed begin to talk about men, women, crime, and punishment in broader human terms.

  —Patricia Pearson, Toronto, June 1998

  NOTES

  GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS

  1 Letters from Anthony Riggs to Tina Killie: Paul Srubas, “ ‘Angel Tina’ loved letters from Riggs,” Gannett News Service, March 23, 1991.

  2 “the great American tragedy”: Brenda Ingersoll, “Relatives stunned that soldier slain after returning from war,” Detroit News, March 19, 1991.

  3 “during every 100 hours on our streets”: James Gannon, “U.S. faces another war—in the streets of America,” Gannett News Service, March 23, 1991.

  4 “a new war needs to be fought on the home front”: Yolanda Woodlee, Heidi Mae Bratt, “City mourns Gulf soldier slain 2 days after return,” Detroit News, March 23, 1991.

  5 “I can’t believe I’ve waited”: Cato Riggs interviewed by Brenda Ingersoll, “Relatives stunned that soldier slain after returning from war,” Detroit News, March 19, 1991.

  6 “what I did, I did for a soldier”: Holley quoted by Bill Nichols, “A not-so-random slaying?” USA Today, March 27, 1991, p. 1. The same article reported the rumors about Toni Cato Riggs.

  7 Primate origins of human aggression: Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996).

  8 “their greater endowment of aggression”: Anthony Storr, Human Aggression (New York: Penguin, 1968), p. 85.

  9 “authority, control”: James Messerschmidt, Masculinities and Crime: Critique and Reconceptualization of Theory (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993), p. 85.

  10 testosterone, the oldest chestnut: J. Archer, “The Influence of Testosterone on Human Aggression,” British Journal of Psychology 82 (1991). For additional refutation of causative effects, see M. Haug et al., eds., The Aggressive Female (Den Haag, The Netherlands: CIP-Gegevens Koninklyke Bibliotheek, 1992); David Adams, “Biology Does Not Make Men More Aggressive Than Women,” in Kaj Björkqvist and Pirkko Niemela, eds., Of Mice and Women: Aspects of Female Aggression (New York: Academic Press, 1992), pp. 17–25.

  11 psychologist David Benton: “Hormones and Human Aggression,” in Of Mice and Women, p. 42.

  12 head injury: “Woman Blinded by Spring from Truck,” Lindsay Scotton, Toronto Star, April 10, 1995.

  13 “bullying, vandalism …”: Herbert Needleman, Julie Riess, Michael Tobin, Gretchen Biesecker, Joel Greenhouse, “Bone Lead Levels and Delinquent Behavior,” Journal of the American Medical Association 275 (February 7, 1996), 363–369.

  14 rodent version of soccer hooligans: Natalie Angier, “Gene Defect Tied to Violence in Male Mice,” The New York Times, November 23, 1995.

  15 “chronically low levels of arousal”: Adrian Raine, Mark Williams, and Peter H. Venables, “Better Autonomic Conditioning and Faster Electrodermal Half-recovery Time at Age 15 Years as Possible Protective Factors Against Crime at Age 29 Years,” Developmental Psychology 32:4 (July 1996), 624.

  16 primate loyalty: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, The Woman Who Never Evolved (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 173.

  17 primate killing and exclusionary tactics: Reijo Holmström, in Björkqvist and Niemela, eds., Of Mice and Women, pp. 297–305.

  18 “there is very little support in the psychological literature”: Anne Colby and William Danon, “Listening to a Different Voice: A Review of Gilligan’s A Different Voice,” in M. R. Walsh, ed., The Psychology of Women: Ongoing Debates (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987).

  19 Seventy percent of respondents to a 1968 survey: R. Stark and J. McEvoy III, “Middle-Class Violence,” Psychology Today 4 (November 1970): 52–65.

  20 Every year since 1976: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Justice). In 1991, more than twice as many men as women responded “yes” to this question: 52 vs. 22 percent. Nearly twice as many American men as women were the victims of violent crime of any kind. Moreover, in 1994, 13 percent of men, vs. 10 percent of women, answered “yes” to the question “When you were growing up, do you remember any time when you were punched or kicked or choked by a parent or guardian?”

  21 “culture of honor”: Richard E. Nisbett and Dov Cohen, Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996).

  22 British men follow a different cultural model: Elliott Leyton, Men of Blood: Murder in Everyday Life (Toronto: McClelland & Stuart, 1996).

  23 women engage publicly in physical aggression: Victoria K. Burbank, “Female Aggression in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” Behavior Science Research 21 (1987), 70–100. Burbank found that adultery was one of the most frequent reasons for women’s physical aggression against mates. She also found that other women were by far the more frequent targets of female aggression, noted in 91 percent of the 137 societies, whereas men were targets in only 54 percent. See also V. K. Burbank, “Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Aggression in Women and Girls: An Introduction,” Sex Roles 30:3/4 (February 1994).

  24 Margarita Island, off the coast of Venezuela: H. B. Kimberley Cook, “Matrifocality and Female Aggression in Margariteno Society,” in Björkqvist and Niemela, eds., Of Mice and Women, pp. 149–61.

  25 Aboriginal women in Australia: V. K. Burbank, Fighting Women: Anger and Aggression in Aboriginal Australia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 98–104.

  26 aggressive strategies on the island of Vanatinai: Maria Lepowsky, “Women, Men and Aggression in an Egalitarian Society,” Sex Roles 30:3/4 (February 1994), 199–213.

  27 female rulers have mysteriously disappeared: Antonia Fraser, The Warrior Queens (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988).

  28 At the height of international terrorism: Richard W. Kobetz and H. H. A. Cooper, “Target Terrorism: Providing Protective Services” (Risk International, 1979). See also Eileen MacDonald, Shoot the Women First (London: Arrow Books, 1991).

  29 slaughter at Kubaye Hill: “Prison Nuns Exemplify Dimensions to Carnage,” Vincent Browne, Irish Times, October 2, 1996; Rwanda: “Women Turned Killers,” The Guardian, August 26, 1995.

  30 “I have no illusions”: Carol Tavris, Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women Are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex or the Opposite Sex (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 91.

  31 Of 314 studies on human aggression: A. Frodi, J. Macaulay, and P. R. Thome, “Are Women Always Less Aggressive Than Men?” Psychological Bulletin 84 (1977), 634–660.

  32 “In our view”: Claudia Frey and Siegfried Hoppe-Graff, “Serious and Playful Aggression in Brazilian Girls and Boys,” Sex Roles 30:3/4 (February 1994), 249–269. See also J. Condy and D. Ross, “Sex and Aggression: The Influence of Gender Label on the Perception of Aggression in Children,” Child Development 56 (1985).

  33 indirect aggression defined: Björkqvist and Niemela, eds., Of Mice and Women, p. 8.

  34 what girls did to compete with rivals: Kaj Björkqvist, Karin Osterman, and Ari Kaukiainen, “The Development of Direct and Indi
rect Aggressive Strategies in Males and Females,” Björkqvist and Niemela, eds., Of Mice and Women, p. 51–63.

  35 high school girls most afraid of “other girls”: Frederick Mathews, The Badge & the Book: Building Effective Police/School Partnerships to Combat Youth Violence (Ottawa: Solicitor General Canada, 1995), p. 11.

  36 modes of female aggression: Ilsa M. Glazer and Wahipa Abu Ras, “On Aggression, Human Rights, and Hegemonic Discourse: The Case of a Murder for Family Honor in Israel,” Sex Roles 30:3/4 (February 1994), 269–302.

  37 “When I was a leader of a gang”: Frederick Mathews, Youth Gangs on Youth Gangs (Ottawa: Solicitor General Canada, 1993), p. 26.

  38 Polynesian aggression: Rolf Kuschel, “Women are Women and Men Are Men: How Bellonese Women Get Even,” in Björkqvist and Niemela, eds., Of Mice and Women, pp. 173–185.

  39 “It seems unlikely”: Colin Wilson, The Mammoth Book of True Crime (London: Robinson Publishing, 1988), p. 175.

  40 “criminality of women is largely masked criminality”: Otto Pollack, The Criminality of Women (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1961), p. 3.

  41 trauma reenactment syndrome: Dusty Miller, Women Who Hurt Themselves: A Book of Hope and Understanding (New York: Basic Books, 1994).

  42 tattooing: Mary Valentis and Anne Devane, Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power (New York: Carol Southern Books, 1994), p. 85.

  43 “schizophrenic …”: Miller, Women Who Hurt Themselves, p. 154.

  44 female suicide attempts: Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Health Statistics, 1992).

  45 African-American women have a different experience of violence: Laura T. Fishman, “Slave Women, Resistance and Criminality: A Prelude to Future Accommodation,” Women & Criminal Justice 7:1 (1995), 35–63. “The slave women who struck back did not suffer a paralysis of fear,” Fishman notes; “it was not unthinkable to stand up and fight.” See also Lamb and McDermott (Criminology 23:4 (1985), 81–97), who conducted a study with the National Crime Survey on juvenile offenders from 1973 to 1981. The data support the proposition that differences by sex in violent criminal behavior are greater among whites than among blacks, and that differences by race are greater among females than among males.

  46 Cato’s school experience: Correspondence with author.

  47 homicides in Chicago: Carolyn Rebecca Block and Antigone Christakos, “Partner Homicide in Chicago Over 29 Years,” Crime & Delinquency 41:4 (1995).

  48 female homicide in six U.S. cities: Coramae Richey Mann, “Black Female Homicide in the United States,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, June 1990, pp. 176–197.

  49 “resource for self-protection”: Nancy C. Jurik and Russ Winn, “Gender and Homicide: A Comparison of Men and Women Who Kill,” Violence and Victims 5:4 (1990), 227–242.

  50 AP wire stories: “Woman Charged with Killing Infant Nephew with Stun Gun”; “Woman Sentenced to Prison for Killing Infant Son”; “HIV-infected Woman Sentenced After Biting Elderly Man”; “Daughter Accused of Setting Fatal Housefire Because of Dispute with Mom”; “A Daring Escape, a Trip, a Capture”; “Mother Charged with Lighting House Fire That Killed Her Two Children.” November 23, 1994.

  51 robbery arrest rate for women: Darrell Steffensmeier and Cathy Streifel, “Trends in Female Crime, 1960–1990,” in Concetta C. Culliver, ed., Female Criminality: The State of the Art (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 368–74. By 1990, the arrest rate was 31 per 100,000 women. By 1992, the arrest rate had increased to 50 per 100,000 women: U.S. Department of Justice, “Crime in the United States,” FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 1992, Washington, D.C.

  52 aggravated assault and robbery rates for girls, 1960 and 1990: FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 1992.

  53 felony arrest rates for girls, 1991 and 1992: FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 1992.

  54 proportion of arrests: FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 1992.

  55 suicide drop: Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia.

  MAYBE YOU MISTOOK ME FOR AN ANGEL

  56 Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969)

  57 “You’re innocent. You’re the victim:” Quoted in Scott Burnside and Alan Cairns, Deadly Innocence (Toronto: Warner Books, 1995), p. 354.

  58 “Women will try to use their femininity”: Interview with the author.

  59 police identifying female offenders with their mothers, sisters, or daughters”: H. Allen and C. Simonsen, Corrections in America (New York: Macmillan, 1986).

  60 women least likely to be processed beyond arrest stage: M. D. Krohn, J. P. Curry and S. Nelson-Kilger, “Is Chivalry Dead? An Analysis of Changes in Police Disposition of Males and Females,” Criminology 21 (1983), 417–438. Police are particularly unlikely to arrest if there are children at home and no alternative caretaker. See Meda Chesney-Lind, “Judicial Paternalism and the Female Offender: Training Women to Know Their Place,” Crime and Delinquency 35 (1977).

  61 vocabulary of motive: Allison Morris, Women, Crime and Criminal Justice (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 50. The vocabulary of motive was first proposed in 1940 by C. W. Mills: “Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive,” American Sociological Review 5 (1940), 904.

  62 menstruation studies: Morris, Women, Crime and Criminal Justice, p. 50.

  63 Rikers Island inmates: Robert J. Kelley, “Vindictive Vindications: Crime Causation from the Inmates’ Standpoint,” The Keeper’s Voice 17:2 (1996), 9–13.

  64 “They appear to have a distinct problem in self-consciously acknowledging … rage”: Jack Katz, Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil (New York: Basic Books, 1988), p. 50.

  65 premenstrual syndrome as homicide defense: Morris, Women, Crime and Criminal Justice, p. 51.

  66 “Many women who kill their abusers start out intending to commit suicide”: Lenore Walker, cited by Alene Kristal, “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: The Battered Woman Syndrome Revisited,” New York Law School Journal of Human Rights 9 (1991), 111–160.

  67 suicide rates in Chicago: Block and Christakos, “Partner Homicide in Chicago.”

  68 “Some severely depressed parents”: John McCormack, Newsweek cover story, November 14, 1994.

  69 “It is a crucial moment”: John Glenn Gray, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1970), p. 184.

  70 psychiatrists’ reports: All cited by Kirk Makin, “Bernardo Might Have Killed Homolka, Doctors Say,” Toronto Globe & Mail, September 5, 1995, p. 10.

  71 Carol Bundy to Doug Clark: Quoted by Louise Farr, The Sunset Murders (New York: Pocket Books, 1993), p. 216.

  72 a book she was reading in prison: Christine McGuire and Carla Norton, Perfect Victim: The True Story of “The Girl in the Box” by the D. A. Who Prosecuted Her Captor (New York: Dell, 1988).

  73 case of Francine Hughes: Faith McNulty, The Burning Bed: The True Story of Francine Hughes—A Beaten Wife Who Rebelled (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980).

  74 Sturm: David France, “Life After Death: Battered Women Who Killed Their Husbands,” Good Housekeeping, July 1995.

  75 learned helplessness: Lenore E. Walker, The Battered Woman (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 49.

  76 “only men kill in anger”: Walker, cited by Gerald Caplan, “Battered Wives, Battered Justice,” National Review, February 25, 1991.

  77 domestic violence not an appropriate example of learned helplessness: Christopher Peterson, Steven F. Maier, and Martin E. P. Seligman, Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control (London: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 239.

  78 “reasoning doesn’t explain how women who are that helpless”: Gerald Caplan, “Battered Wives, Battered Justice.”

  79 men in war: Paul Fussell, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 281.

  80 survey of California’s female prisoners: Barbara Owen and Barbara Bloom, “Profiling Women Prisoners: Findings from National Surveys and a C
alifornia Sample,” Prison Journal 75:2 (1995), 179.

  81 sample of 1,880 female offenders: J. Crawford, “Tabulation of a Nationwide Survey of State Correctional Facilities for Adult and Juvenile Female Offenders” (College Park, Md.: American Correctional Association).

  82 women incarcerated in Florida: William Blount, J. Kuhns, and Ira Silverman, “Intimate Abuse Within an Incarcerated Female Population: Rates, Levels, Criminality, A Continuum and Some Lessons About Self-Identification,” in Culliver, ed., Female Criminality, p. 413.

  83 standpoint epistemology: women have “a more complete view of social reality”: Joyce McCarl-Nielson, ed., Feminist Research Methods: Exemplary Readings in the Social Sciences (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), p. 10.

  84 “centrality of consciousness raising”: See Mary Margaret Fonow and Judith A. Cook, eds., Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship in Lived Research (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).

  85 Veronica Compton, guest editorial, Prison Life, September/October 1995, p. 12.

  86 Coramae Richey Mann on abuse and self-defense as rationale: “The Battered Woman Syndrome Is Not a Legitimate Defense,” in Violence Against Women: Current Controversies (San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1994), pp. 292–300.

  87 1848 manifesto: Seneca Falls Convention, “Declaration of Sentiment,” cited by Naomi Wolf, Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change the 21st Century (New York: Random House, 1994), p. 201.