Emotion and Allegiance in Researching Four Mid Twentieth-Century Cases of
Women Accused of Murder
1
Abstract
This article examines methodological issues of emotion and allegiance in relation to
researching, from archival sources, gender representation in mid twentieth-century
cases of women accused of murder. Through a discussion of four women’s cases, I
explore this as a deeply ambivalent experience because the research induced both
empathic and negative feelings towards the women. This seemed to conflict with my
aims as a feminist researcher to highlight derogatory constructions of gender in the
criminal justice system. I argue that a reflexive approach is necessary in order to carry
out sensitive archival research and conclude that negotiating the attendant
ambivalence and complexity deepens ethical engagement.
Keywords: Allegiance, Ambivalence, Archive, Emotion, Gender, Murder,
Reflexivity, Women
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Introduction
This article explores some of the methodological issues surrounding the conduct of
archival research that arose during a project on gender representations of mid
twentieth-century women accused of murder. It argues that it is important to
acknowledge and examine the emotional aspects of such research, and related
questions of researcher allegiance. I examine four women’s cases in order to discuss
the feelings of empathy and unease that they provoked in me, and consider associated
dilemmas, such as whether a feminist researcher should admit to negative emotions
towards her subjects in her work. I contend that although encountering ambivalence
problematises the notion of allegiance, negotiating these conflicts and complications
ultimately deepens reflexive, ethical engagement with the research. First, I briefly
outline the research project in order to contextualise the methodological discussion.
Following this, I discuss the strengths and advantages that archival research has for
investigating the criminal justice system, and then explore the emotional nature of the
research and my ambivalence concerning allegiance to the women whose cases I
researched.
Gender representations of women accused of murder
The four cases explored in this article are from an in-depth study of thirteen women
accused of murder in England and Wales, 1957-62, which aimed to identify the
discourses of gender produced by the mid twentieth-century criminal justice system in
relation to women’s crimes of violence. In all of the cases analysed, women were
indicted for killing someone other than a male partner or their own child. Most
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feminist research in this area concentrates on women who kill abusive male partners
(Nicolson, 1995; Carline, 2005), or commit filicide (Barnett, 2006; Oberman and
Meyer, 2008). My sample of ‘unusual’ cases was chosen to broaden the feminist
analysis of women and murder beyond issues related to heterosexual relationships and
motherhood, in order to show whether this reveals parallel or different representations
of femininity in the criminal justice system. I shall not discuss the findings at length,
as these have been published elsewhere. To summarise briefly, most of the discourses
of womanhood to emerge from the archival material were stereotypical and
derogatory, and constructed ‘disreputable’ femininity. However, where women could
be portrayed as meeting some of the norms of mid twentieth-century feminine
respectability, the wider contextual circumstances surrounding their crimes were more
likely to receive attention. Crucially, the discourses of femininity were indicative of
wider social and cultural assumptions about the behaviour and position of women at
the time, but these were not fixed and could be contradictory (Seal, 2009a; 2009b;
2010).
The project examined the period immediately following the introduction of the
Homicide Act 1957, which changed the law surrounding murder in England and
Wales by limiting the death penalty to specific types of killing, widening the
provocation defence and adding the defence of diminished responsibility (Morris and
Blom-Cooper, 1964). I used Morris and Blom-Cooper’s (1964) A Calendar of
Murder from which to identify cases that fitted my criteria. This book contains a
thumbnail sketch of all murder indictments between the passing of the Act in March
1957 and the end of 1962. As such, it was an invaluable resource as I was able to
pinpoint cases of women accused of murdering someone other than a male partner or
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their own child. This would have otherwise been difficult. Ninety-eight women were
indicted for murder during the period and eighteen met my criteria. Thirteen had open
case files held in the National Archives (TNA) in London. As Morris and BlomCooper (1964) point out, the advantage of examining indictments (official charge) for
murder, rather than convictions, is that cases which subsequently ended in acquittal, a
lesser conviction such as manslaughter, or an outcome such as unfit to plead are not
excluded. This was especially important for my research, as only six women were
found guilty of murder in the period of study.
The advantages of archival/documentary research
The women’s case files were accessed through visits to the National Archives in
southwest London. I read different types of files, depending on what was open to the
public in each case. These were either the court or prosecution files, and appeal files if
relevant. Case files contain a diverse range of documents, and can be several hundred
pages long (although many are much less). They contain witness statements and
depositions, the statement(s) of the accused, the police report and medical reports.
Appeal files contain the application for leave for appeal, extracts from the trial
transcript (or, occasionally, the entire thing) and the Judgment of the Court of
Criminal Appeal.
The considerable advantage of these sources is that they enable the entire process of
being investigated, charged with and tried for murder to be researched. Few other
methods allow this type of overview, which provides access to a variety of
perspectives and actors (Edney, 2006). The case file documents held in the archives
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are indispensible precisely because they are the remaining traces of a set of
institutional and bureaucratic processes, which formed part of state practices of
surveillance and social control (Scott, 1990). More than this, documents such as
medical reports and court judgments played an active role in constructing the identity
of women accused murder, and decreed what would actually happen to them.
Administrative records are the fossilised remains of past bureaucracy, but they are not
neutral (ibid.). They constructed ‘what’ the women were as female defendants
indicted for murder (Jansdotter, 2008). The reports from the prison medical officer
and psychiatrist in a particular case were a large part of what determined whether the
woman would be found unfit to plead, or whether it would be possible to make a
diminished responsibility defence. In developed state bureaucracies, documents are a
type of agent because they shape material lives (Prior, 2003). Research into homicide
carried out from case files is not necessarily historical and can be contemporary (see
Chan, 2001; Lewis et al, 2003). However, for most historical explorations of the
criminal justice system, documents represent the only means of carrying out the
research.1
Emotional Research
Clearly, the emotional experience of archival research is different from that of
interviewing or ethnography. Reflection on the emotional implications of qualitative
research for the researchers is usually made in relation to conducting sensitive
fieldwork (see Dickson-Swift et al., 2007; 2009)2. Criminological research frequently,
if not usually, entails engagement with sensitive topics as it lies at an ‘intersecting
nexus of ethical, moral and socio-legal values’ (Godfrey, 2003: 58). An area of
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particular sensitivity and trauma is research into interpersonal violence (Liebling and
Stanko, 2001). Blackman (2007) conducted ethnographic research in sheltered
accommodation for young women who had experienced domestic violence. As a male
researcher, he found this to be an ‘overwhelming’ experience and, during the
interviews, felt aggressive towards the men who had perpetrated the abuse the young
women related (p. 704). He came to hate the young men he heard described.
Campbell (2002) explores the emotional impact of a project that involved
interviewing rape survivors about their post-assault experiences, along with a team of
postgraduate and undergraduate student researchers. In addition to finding women’s
accounts of rape distressing, the researchers found that taking part in the project made
them feel more vulnerable to sexual violence and more conscious of their fears of
rape. Kelly (1988) also experienced this heightened awareness after researching
survivors of sexual violence. Although she knew that women’s main risk of being
attacked was not from strangers, she felt increasingly wary of being alone in public
space at night.
I did not meet the women whose cases I wrote about, or indeed any of the other
people involved. Archival research does not require interpersonal skills full stop, let
alone the kind of sensitivity that would be needed to undertake the interviews and
ethnographies described above. My research did not produce any anecdotes about the
experience itself, which was a solitary one, and did not involve encountering the
immediate pain of flesh and blood others. However, closely reading and analysing
documents that relate to crime and punishment, and which therefore articulate the
wreckage of human suffering and misery, can be intensely emotional (Bosworth,
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2001). This may be the case if it is in relation to the relatively recent past of the 1950s
and 60s, strange to me but the landscape of my parents’ childhood and adolescence, or
the more distant past, as in the case of Bosworth’s (2001) research into women’s
imprisonment in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France.
Although the conduct of archival research does not require interpersonal sensitivity,
this is not so for the analysis of the material, as Liebling and Stanko (2001) point out
in relation to Ballinger’s (2000) study of the fifteen women executed in twentiethcentury England and Wales. In reconstructing these women’s cases, Ballinger rescues
their humanity through detailing their hardships and sorrows, and their experiences of
an unjust criminal justice system. Confronting the emotional nature of research,
whether it involves face to face methods or not, is ‘part of the researcher’s ethical
stance towards his or her subjects’ (Bosworth, 2001: 432). This entails a responsibility
to question the emotions that the research provokes to enable a measure of reflexivity,
something which is not conventionally present in archival studies.
Ethics of doing archival research
There is a strong ethical justification for acknowledging that research into homicide is
emotive, even if it occurred fifty years ago. The stories that I constructed from the
case file documents are of suffering and catastrophe. In Plummer’s (2001: 221)
words, they are not ‘just stories’, but have emotional, ethical and political
implications. To attempt to remain completely detached is to ignore or deny this, and
would not fulfil the feminist aim to be reflexive. Due to their age at the time, some of
the women I researched will now be dead, as will some of the members of the
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victims’ families. However, others are probably still alive. Cognisance of the
emotional impact of the cases is vital in an era when electronic searches make the
discovery of information easier. Fifteen years ago, it would be unlikely for a nonacademic, from outside the particular field, to become aware of conference papers or
journal articles. The titles of these can now be unearthed in seconds via a Google
search. I have been emailed by four descendants of different women I have written
about and this serves as a reminder that the material I present or publish might find its
way beyond an academic audience, to individuals with personal connections to the
cases I have analysed.
To remain indifferent to the pain which is an integral part of homicide prosecutions
seems amoral and ethically troubling, especially as the research was largely conducted
for my benefit as part of my academic career. This, we must acknowledge, is the case
for most of us (Holland, 2007). Although many criminologists aim to influence and
improve policy, or to offer a critical perspective on power relations and inequalities,
the self-interested aspects of our work should not be denied, especially as any status
or prestige gained from the research is likely to accrue to us, rather than our subjects
(Plummer, 2001). We may hope to make our work policy relevant, but we cannot
guarantee a positive social impact, and ultimately we know that an active research
agenda is essential to a successful academic career. I did not settle upon the topic of
gender representations of mid twentieth-century women accused of murder
instrumentally. To have done so would have been a bizarre choice as it hardly fits
comfortably into the criminological mainstream. I was motivated by a longstanding
interest in the topic area and belief in the need to extend the feminist analysis of
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women’s violence and the historicisation of representations of femininity. Even so,
the fact remains that I have benefited from doing the research.
There are hazards to exploring research as an emotional experience and to reflexivity
more broadly. An often discussed hazard is the danger of appearing ‘unscientific’ by
concentrating on something which is so subjective. Traditionally, social science and
history devalued emotions as a source of knowledge, and the conventions of academic
writing disallowed the expression of feeling (Wincup, 2001; Campbell, 2002). In
recent years this has changed, with a turn towards researching the sociology and
history of emotion (Bourke, 2003; Clarke, 2006) and a concomitant interest the
impact of the researcher’s emotions on the data collection process, and the knowledge
that this can produce (Hollway and Jefferson, 2000; Holland, 2007; Dickson-Swift et
al, 2007; 2009).
A more serious hazard, from an epistemological and methodological point of view, is
the danger of being self-indulgent and narcissistic. This is problematic in and of itself,
but is especially troubling if the researcher stresses her own importance and needs at
the expense of her subjects and her wider findings (Widdowfield, 2000; Plummer,
2001). When the researcher writes herself into the project, there is the risk that she
privileges herself above all else (Probyn, 1993). This self-absorption and egocentricity
undermines reflexivity as the analysis is not enhanced, either in terms of ethics or
rigour, by an insensitive over-concentration on the researcher.
Therefore, the business of writing about research as an emotional experience is
fraught with dilemmas. On the one hand, it can seem unethical not do so when the
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project in question concerns human suffering and trauma. On the other, it may in fact
be insensitive and crass, appearing to draw equivalence between the insignificant
tribulations of the researcher and the serious impact of homicide on all those involved.
In the next section, I explore the emotional nature of archival research into women
accused of murder and discuss particular examples. This is not meant to suggest in
any way equivalence with, or even understanding of, the emotions that all the various
people touched by each case would have experienced. It is intended in the spirit of
respect for their humanity.
Emotions and the Archive
Carolyn Steedman has considered the historian’s experience of archival research
(1998; 2001). She contends that the archive is a place where nothing ever happens
(Steedman, 1998). Of the records and documentation that the historian reads, she
states:
And nothing happens to this stuff, in the Archive. It is indexed and catalogued
– though some of it is unindexed and uncatalogued, and parts of it are lost. But
as stuff, it just sits there until it is read, and used, and narrativized. In the
Archive, you cannot be shocked at its exclusions, its emptiness, at what is not
catalogued […] (p. 67, emphasis author’s own)
Steedman (1998) does not mean to say that the archive does not exclude, that it does
not privilege the voices of the powerful, or that does not contain the traces of state
power. Rather, she emphasises the prosaic nature of archival research, and of archives
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themselves, which exemplify the neat, bureaucratic functioning of the state.
Historians are alone in the act of writing, but also in carrying out their research.
This aloneness is characteristic of archival research and accounts for why, compared
with face to face methods, it does not easily write itself on the page. I conducted my
research through weekly or twice weekly day trips to the National Archives (TNA),
travelling by train from Bristol, where I lived at the time, to Kew in west London,
where TNA are located. Initial visits were spent reading the case files and taking
notes in pencil (use of pens in the reading rooms is disallowed). Subsequent trips
involved photographing the various documents with a digital camera so that the
analysis could be undertaken back in Bristol. In itself, this experience is neither
compelling, nor particularly related to my emotional reactions to the cases. These
were long days consisting of travel and quiet study. Talking is forbidden in the
reading rooms and, in any case, I did not know anyone else there. They were largely
solitary days.
My emotions were stirred by engaging with the files themselves. One of the more
visceral aspects of homicide case files is the chance of coming across photographs of
the victims. Images can have a more physically manifest emotional impact than
reading a description, especially when they are particularly shocking or gruesome
(Douglas et al, 1997). Robertson (2005: 165) conducted research on sexual violence
in New York City from nineteenth- and twentieth-century case files. He describes
how letters, photographs and items of physical evidence:
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disrupted the sense of distance from the event that I often felt in the face of the
layers of text and procedure produced by the legal process. It was profoundly
unsettling to turn a page and find myself staring into the face of an accused
rapist
In most files, the photographs had been sealed in brown envelopes which it was
forbidden to open. However, occasionally administrative oversight meant that they
had not been safely concealed. These images were shocking to encounter, especially
one I saw of a small child that had been strangled. They were a world away from the
choreographed portrayals of films and television shows, or the more sanitised
presentation of violent scenes in the news media.
The most enduring emotional reactions were provoked by the reading and re-reading
of the case file documents. One of the women I researched was the first person to use
the diminished responsibility defence (Walker, 1965), which was brought in by the
Homicide Act 1957.3 Shirley Campbell was a 21 year old black British woman and a
mill worker in Yorkshire. On 16 March 1957, she killed Susan Pickles, a two year
old, whom she was babysitting. Susan was the daughter of Shirley’s friend, Wendy.
Susan cried when Shirley’s favourite song was played on the radio. To keep her quiet,
Shirley held Susan’s head in bowl of water she had filled in order to clean the kitchen
table. She returned Susan to her pram, and tied the belt from a raincoat around her
neck. Her defence at trial was diminished responsibility due to psychopathic
personality, and the medical evidence was unopposed by the prosecution. Shirley was
found guilty of manslaughter and given a life sentence.4
13
All cases of murder and manslaughter are emotive as someone lost their life, and a
number of other people, such as the victim’s relatives and the perpetrator, had their
lives changed forever by the impact of this catastrophe. Shirley’s case involved the
death of child, which people often find especially disturbing. The case file documents
are about the defendant, rather than the victim. Due to this, they convey little of the
pain and suffering experienced by the victims’ family. They are not a good means of
understanding the effects Susan’s death at the hands of Shirley had on her parents.
Reading the prosecution file of Shirley’s case was particularly emotional because of
the details it included about her own life. A large number of statements were gathered
from witnesses, many of which related to her early years and childhood. Shirley grew
up in two different children’s homes as her mother was imprisoned when she was
nearly three and her father died shortly before she was born. Shirley’s mother,
Marjorie, sought to place her in the Children’s Shelter in Liverpool in 1938. She was
unsuccessful, and instead left Shirley in the Liverpool branch of Lewis’s department
store. A police officer found Shirley crying in the street and took her to the shelter
that had refused her admission the day before. Marjorie read in the newspapers that
Shirley had been found and placed in the shelter so returned there to collect her. A
statement from the Assistant Chief Constable of Liverpool discusses this episode
(about which he had presumably checked the records) and explains that when
Marjorie was questioned about abandoning Shirley she replied ‘I know I left her, but I
really needed her and I came for her’.5 The police determined that Marjorie was
wanted at Rotherham, as her father had reported her for stealing money from him. No
further action was taken regarding the abandonment, but she was escorted to
14
Rotherham and subsequently imprisoned for theft. Shirley was placed in a Yorkshire
children’s home.
It is the Assistant Chief Constable’s record of what Marjorie said to the police that
devastates, which reveals the emotional turmoil that tore at her and indicates the
limited options available to her as a lone mother in mid twentieth-century Britain.
This may not, of course, be an entirely accurate reproduction of her words on that day,
as the statement would have been taken down by a police officer. However, the stark
directness of the quotation makes it sound genuine and unadulterated. It is possible to
piece together details of Shirley’s childhood spent in institutional care and her early
adulthood from other documents in the case file. These do not speak of a past of
unrelieved misery, as there are statements from former teachers and matrons, which
describe her as ‘likeable and pleasant’6 and ‘popular’ with other children.7 However,
witness statements also indicate the difficulties Shirley faced. Her father and maternal
grandfather were Jamaican. The matron at Shirley’s first children’s home states that
Shirley would ask to be washed white whilst being bathed, which hints at the burden
of being quite possibly the only non-white child in the area.8 The enduring effects on
Shirley of growing up without her mother are suggested by another trace in a case file
statement. Her landlady, Hannah, describes how Shirley ‘was quite friendly, she
started calling me “Mam” and often went out shopping with me’.9 From fragments
and snatches such as these, a deeply affecting picture of Shirley’s experiences and
emotional life emerges. They provide a vision of her existence which extends beyond
the fact of her killing Susan Pickles and helps to contextualise it.
15
Another emotive case is that of Helen Sterry. Helen, 25, left an Asylum in
Birmingham on Christmas Eve 1957 and became homeless. She spent the night of 27
December in Worcester bus station and arrived in Hereford, where she had lived in
the past, the next day. She took a pram from outside a shop, which contained
Christopher Vincent, a one month old baby. She abandoned the pram and carried
Christopher for a while, but began to find him heavy. After sitting down by the river,
she threw him into the water because she worried she would be ‘had up’ for having
taken him.10 Helen informed the police of what she had done. Her defence at trial was
manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and the prosecution called no rebutting
evidence. She was found guilty of manslaughter and given a life sentence.
Helen’s crime presents a particularly nightmarish scenario in which a child
unexpectedly goes missing. The deposition of Richard Vincent, Christopher’s father,
describes how he and his wife came out of the shop to find that Christopher and the
pram were missing. Richard searched the local area with a policeman and found the
abandoned pram. He states that ‘I felt under the blanket and it was still warm. The
bootees were in the pram’,11 and explains that he identified Christopher’s body the
next day. As discussed previously, the case file documentation is from the perspective
of the prosecution process and is not focused on the impact of the crime on victims’
relatives. However, statements and depositions can hint at the pain the homicide must
have caused them, and Richard’s account of searching for his son is emotionally raw
and difficult to read, even though it is rendered into the flat, bureaucratic language of
the deposition.
16
As with Shirley’s case, reading Helen’s files was emotional because of some of the
details they contained about her past. Helen grew up in institutional care. She had also
spent time in borstal as a teenager, and as an adult had been in mental hospitals and
asylums, as well as prison. She was variously diagnosed as schizophrenic, a
psychopathic personality and of subnormal intelligence. The Inspector who wrote the
police report on Helen also included a short document entitled ‘Past and Present
Impressions of Helen Sterry’. He had first met her when she appeared at Hereford
City Magistrates’ Court on a charge of wilful damage several years previously. He
describes how she had ‘aged’ in the intervening time and states that ‘even though I
had known that she was in this district, I should not have allied her with the
description supplied by witnesses in this case’. The Inspector articulates a degree of
empathy for Helen:
The facial disconcertion, expressed shortly before she was due in Court
appeared to be accounted for by a sense of abject loneliness, occasioned by the
absence of any friend or relative, particularly the latter.12
His description of ‘abject loneliness’ resonates strongly after reading the numerous
reports in Helen’s case file by probation officers and psychiatrists. Several of these
give her address as ‘no fixed abode’ and it becomes clear that Helen’s life had been
spent largely in institutions or being homeless. Coupled with this, it appears that she
did not understand throwing Christopher into the river meant he would drown. This
compounds the tragedy of the case. Helen did not take Christopher in order to harm
him or his parents but the consequences of this impulsive act were devastating for
everyone concerned.
17
Reading Shirley and Helen’s case files was an emotional experience and the
documents convey emotion despite their bureaucratic function. As women who killed
non-related children, Shirley and Helen violated norms of femininity such as
nurturance and a caring ‘instinct’. Consequently, they were viewed as pathological
and irreparably damaged, and as never having achieved proper womanhood (Seal,
2010). The emotionally affecting aspects of their cases force us to comprehend them
as complicated women with difficult life stories, which challenges these gendered
stereotypes. At the same time, the two cases provoke feelings of unease, as the
homicides of Susan Pickles and Christopher Vincent caused profound grief and
suffering. These feelings are not dissipated by knowledge of the two women’s
circumstances. This is characteristic of the ambivalence induced by the research.
Reading the various women’s case files did not always inspire empathy or greater
understanding. The next section further explores the ambivalence that I felt towards
some of the women I researched. This grapples with some uncomfortable and
complicated questions for feminist research on female offenders, and explores how
these dilemmas relate to the ethics and aims of feminist criminology.
Research, Ambivalence and Allegiance
Feelings and emotions are part of research, and when they are not acknowledged they
are merely hidden (Plummer, 2001; Wincup, 2001; Blackman, 2007). I have laid bare
some particularly emotive examples from my own research, which can accord with
the aims of feminist criminology in terms of challenging gendered stereotypes.
However, the emotional nature of research becomes a vexed issue when negative
18
feelings are induced, as these potentially detract from these aims, involving judgment
of, rather than empathic identification with, the subjects. This is especially the case
for a feminist researcher studying women accused of murder. This section explores
two cases that highlight this difficulty. It also considers the related questions of the
politics of representation and allegiance, and how these are muddied by negative
feelings towards one’s research subjects.
In focusing on women accused of murdering someone other than a male partner or
their own child, I purposefully selected a sample of cases that would entail analysis
beyond the experiences of abuse or the vicissitudes of motherhood. Both of these
areas are of course vital for feminists to research, but the aims of my project were
different. This meant that I concentrated on cases, which from a feminist perspective,
were potentially less easy to sympathise with as the circumstances of the killing did
not exemplify feminist concerns about gendered power differences. One such case is
that of Renee Hargreaves.13 In 1962, Renee, 54, poisoned Ernest Massey, 78, by
putting weed killer in his tea. He was an old family friend who had come to live with
her after his wife died around two years previously. Renee had tried to place him in a
home, although this required his consent, which he had refused to give. She had asked
her doctor whether it was likely there would be an inquest if Ernest died, and she was
due to inherit money from his will and insurance policies. Renee was found guilty of
involuntary manslaughter as her defence argued that she had only intended to make
Ernest ill enough to go to hospital, rather than to kill him. She was sentenced to
eighteen months in prison.
19
Renee’s case provokes unease because she killed someone who was relatively less
powerful than she, and the circumstantial details suggest that she may have intended
to kill him. This suspicion is deepened by the fact that the pathologist believed Ernest
had been poisoned over a period of two or three days. The weed killer, which
contained sodium chlorate, was not labelled as poisonous. On the other hand, Renee
had worked on farms for more than two decades and could perhaps be assumed to
know the effects of chemicals such as this.
Renee’s case poses the dilemma of carrying out feminist research without strong
feelings of empathy for the subject. My analysis of her case examines how she was
constructed as a ‘spinster’, and some of the positive and negative implications this had
for the representation of her gender in the criminal justice system (Seal, 2009b).
Usually, feminist researchers would place their allegiance with the women they study,
but it was difficult for me to do this comfortably. It would be ethically questionable to
place myself ‘on the side’ of the women accused of murder as many of them had done
terrible things, and to people who were less powerful than they. However, to choose
not to side with the women runs the risk of stressing their culpability and, by
implication, placing my allegiance with the criminal justice system instead. In relation
to Shirley and Helen, I suggested that my emotional reactions to their cases could
contribute to the project of challenging derogatory and stereotypical representations of
femininity. This still leaves the question of what to do with emotional reactions when
they do not seem to contribute to this critical process, complicating the politics of
representation (Liebling and Stanko, 2001; Godfrey, 2003).
20
Blackman (2007) discusses the problem of ‘hidden ethnography’, where the
researcher’s emotional reactions to others during their fieldwork are effaced in
completed accounts of the research. This is frequently because it could be
controversial to include this data, posing threats to either the subjects or the
researcher. This notion of ‘hidden’ data can be applied to other methods, such as
archival research, as the researcher has masses of data, which must undergo a process
of selection. In three of the cases I researched, there were indications or hints in the
case file material that the violence which had caused the victims’ death was not an
isolated event.
One such case was that of Marilyn Bain, 25, who on 17 September 1962 killed her
flatmate, Jan, by causing a knife wound to her ribs after an evening spent drinking and
playing Ludo. Jan died three days later due to an infection in the wound. Marilyn
could remember fighting with Jan, but not stabbing her. She called an ambulance
when she awoke the next morning and found that Jan was injured. The pathologist
stated that Jan’s injury could have been caused by ‘falling’ or ‘pitching’ against the
knife.14 The court accepted a plea of guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and Marilyn
was sentenced to three years in prison. Her statement to the police refers to previous
violence between her and Jan:
The police have only been called once in the past because of a quarrel between
me and Jan. That was when I hit her with a glass at Finborough Road. We
often had scratches on our faces from quarrels.15
21
Marilyn’s description of the fight on 17 September explains that, ‘When we were
fighting, I punched Jan in the ribs. I never used to punch her in the face because it
would be marked’.16 Her account describes actions that echo those of male
perpetrators of domestic violence against women (see Dobash and Dobash, 1998).
Marilyn’s use of violence is disturbing in itself, but also poses dilemmas for the
feminist criminologist in terms of how, or whether, this data should be included in a
project which seeks to discuss gendered representations of female violence in the
criminal justice system. There is the danger of re-inscribing portrayals of feminine
deviance and pathology, which are anti-feminist (Renzetti, 1999).
This presented a dilemma relating to the complexity of the politics of representation
(Hall, 1996). The desire to challenge othering and marginalisation in order ‘to
transform the dominant regimes of representation’ has often involved countering
stereotypical portrayals with more positive imagery (ibid.: 443). However, as Hall
(1996) argues in relation to ethnicity, adequately contesting marginality also requires
acknowledgement that representations cannot always be positive. Negotiating the
politics of representation has been a key concern of feminist methodologies (Pillow
and Mayo, 2006) and of critical studies of sexualities (Plummer, 2008).
I discussed incidents where women had previously used violence towards their
victims only as far as it was relevant to the discourses of gender produced by the
criminal justice system. The police and medical reports on Marilyn constructed her as
disreputable and dissolute. They did not specifically comment on her previous use of
violence against Jan, but regarded the two women as having a deviant relationship. In
my published work so far, I have not included quotations concerning the women’s
22
previous use of violence. This is not because I want to ‘hide’ evidence or suggestion
of the women’s violence against other women in personal relationships, but because
these particular quotes did not add to a discussion of their representation of gender in
the criminal justice system. However, they do create ambivalence in terms of how I
feel about these women, and they complicate the issue of allegiance.
The Ambivalent Researcher
Ambivalence is the experience of feeling conflicted – to feel both positive and
negative emotions. This is the best description that I can formulate of how I felt about
the women I researched. I have discussed feelings of empathy and unease in relation
to different cases, but naturally this has entailed a degree of oversimplification. In
relation to most of the women, reading their case files involved both of these feelings.
Following the well-established feminist precept that knowledge is always situated, I
recognise that the researcher always comes from a particular position, which should
be acknowledged (Haraway, 1990; Griffiths, 1995; Hekman, 1999).17 In this final
section, I discuss the importance of living with tensions and contradictions as part of
the research process (Plummer, 2001).
Sensitive and controversial topics frequently entail a degree of ambiguity and feelings
of ambivalence, which the researcher must negotiate, if s/he wishes to achieve
reflexivity (Friedman, 1991; Hollway and Jefferson, 2000). As Campbell (2002: 28)
argues, it is important to ask, ‘What do we feel conflicted about, and why?’. Reeves
(2010) examines the discomfort and shame that she experienced when encountering a
research participant, a repeat sex offender, in the street when she was out with a
23
friend. This created an ethical and emotional conflict as confidentiality meant that she
could not inform her friend about the man’s record as a sex offender, which troubled
her. Reeves’ alarm and embarrassment also shamed her because part of the aim of her
project had been to uncover ‘offenders’ experiences, accounts, understandings and
perceptions’ of the criminal justice system (p. 328). Friedman researched the
experiences of female police officers. She developed a strong rapport with many of
the women and liked them. However, she was also disturbed by the racism that some
of her participants exhibited. Luff (1999) conducted feminist research with ‘antifeminist’ women involved in groups she identified as part of the ‘moral lobby’. She
experienced feelings of warmth and empathy towards some of the women, although
her own political standpoint was very different from theirs. However, her positive
feelings were tempered by some of the women’s homophobic views.
Ambivalence muddies allegiance. A researcher can place her allegiance with research
subjects without necessarily liking them on a personal level, but as the three previous
examples demonstrate, this becomes more difficult when there are political
differences, or if the subjects in question have reinforced the marginalisation of others
(Godfrey, 2003). Presser (2005) interviewed men who had committed violent crimes,
including rape and murder of women. She aimed to establish how violent men
narrativize their control of women. One might expect that a feminist researcher would
feel no allegiance to her subjects in this research. However, Presser emphasises the
need to understand the marginalisation of violent men, and to acknowledge the power
of the state in criminalising certain types of violence more readily than others. She
had allegiance to her subjects, even whilst their past actions were clearly contrary to
feminism and gender equality.
24
There is no neat, straightforward answer to the question of whose side I am on
(Liebling, 2001) in my research into gender representations of women accused of
murder. The research is from a feminist perspective and aims to expose and
deconstruct stereotypical or derogatory discourses of femininity produced by the mid
twentieth-century criminal justice system as its approach to engaging with the politics
of representation. This overall perspective does not prescribe allegiance to particular
individuals and nor does it erase ambivalence. In as far as the construction of a
particular gendered identity should not be the driving force behind how someone is
represented in the criminal justice system, I have a strong allegiance to my research
subjects (despite never having met them). I also endorse Presser’s (2005) stance, and
that of feminist criminology more widely, of the need to place offending within wider
contexts of social inequality and marginalisation. However, where it is clear that
women were responsible for homicides without strong mitigation, it would not be
ethical to give them my whole-hearted allegiance simply because they ended up as
state defined ‘offenders’. As Liebling (2001: 482) argues, unswerving ‘moral courage
and sense of what is right’ can be troubling. It is also counter-productive to achieving
subtlety and nuance. Acknowledging, negotiating, and living with complexity and
ambivalence are strengths of the engaged researcher (Friedman, 1991; Liebling, 2001;
Liebling and Stanko, 2001; Plummer, 2001; Wincup, 2001) and demand a reflexive
approach to research, whatever the chosen methods.
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Cases cited
ASSI26/262
32
CRIM1/4013
DPP2/2658
DPP2/2767
1
For fairly recent history, there is the possibility of using oral history interviews - see Godfrey on
homicide (2003) and Cockcroft (2005) on police culture.
2
Lee and Renzetti (1993) include deeply personal experiences, and deviance and social control in their
definition of sensitive topics.
3
This is a partial defence which reduces murder to manslaughter in cases where the defendant was
suffering from an abnormality of mind at the time of the killing (Morris and Blom-Cooper, 1964).
4
DPP2/2658
5
DPP2/2658, H R Balmer’s statement, 26 March 1957
6
DPP2/2658, May Nelson’s statement, 19 March 1957
7
DPP2/2658, Ann Littlewood’s statement, 20 March 1957
8
May Nelson’s statement
9
DPP2/2658, Hannah Brearley’s statement, 18 March 1957
10
DPP2/2767, Helen Sterry’s statement, 28 December 1957
11
DPP2/2767, Richard Vincent’s deposition, 3 January 1958
12
DPP2/2767, Past and Present Impressions of Helen Sterry, 4 January 1958
13
ASSI26/262
14
CRIM1/4013, Pathologist’s deposition, 16 October 1962
15
CRIM1/4013, Marilyn Bain’s statement, 17 September 1962
16
Ibid.
17
As Griffiths (1995: 56) argues, there is no single feminist epistemology and the critique of ‘the
possibility of certainty and objectivity’ has not only come from feminism (see also Plummer, 2001 for
a discussion of the ‘value debate’ in social science). However, the contention that ‘human knowledge is
saturated with values, whether or not they are acknowledged’ is a thread running through different
feminisms (Griffiths, 1995: 61).
Biographical note
Lizzie Seal is Lecturer in Criminology at Durham University. Her research interests
include gender representations of women who kill, public responses to the death
penalty and cultural representations of transgression.
33