Women Are the Primary Consumers of True Crime—but Why?

Most people start their Thursday morning with coffee and the news. I start mine with a Missoula mauler or a maybe a father who murdered his family in Los Feliz (followed by coffee, of course). After the work day, it’s back to a podcast about a surgeon turned murderer until I click on Law and Order: SVU to decompress while I cook dinner. Falling asleep calls for earbuds and an audiobook about the Golden State Killer. In the morning I’m back at it again.

For all intents and purposes, I’m a normal 28-year-old woman—yet a substantial chunk of the content I consume is horrifically gruesome. What’s stranger is that I find it soothing.

The phenomenon of true crime is not new (looking at you, Jack the Ripper), but content is now more readily accessible than ever thanks to podcasts, TV shows, books and online sleuthing forums.

In the wake of prestige shows like The Jinx and Making a Murderer, seven of the top ten podcasts on iTunes tell tales of brutal serial killers or women who vanished into thin air. There’s an entire channel (Investigation Discovery, for those unfamiliar) solely devoted to true crime and even the Weather Channel is paying homage with a new show called Storm of Suspicion.

There’s no doubt that the 21st century is the golden age of true crime. And—guess what? Women are its driving force.

As I anticipated, Dr. Saltz explained that the voyeuristic quality of true crime makes the content consumer feel safe. “When it’s true but not happening actually in front of them, there’s a safety, since it’s not the same as standing on the street and witnessing a crime. It’s about being able to say why this will not happen to you—‘Oh, look. I don’t walk on that street corner at night.’ And that can be reassuring.”

Kenyon Laing, a gender-based violence researcher turned podcaster, echoed Dr. Saltz’s findings. Laing hosts the popular Wine & Crime podcast with friends Amanda Jacobson and Lucy Fitzgerald, which boasts an 86 percent female audience and is the 75th highest ranked comedy podcast on Apple Podcasts. (Yep, true comedy is a thing and it’s very popular.)

Speaking on behalf of the trio, Laing explained, “We think women are inherently more predisposed to examining a threat in order to understand and avoid it…It’s rewarding to not only bring a perpetrator to justice at the end of the story, but also to look him in the eyes (metaphorically) and examine the hows and whys of the case.”

When asked if she agrees with criminologist Scott A. Bonn, PhD’s assertion that the serial killer genre of true crime delivers a “jolt of adrenaline,” DiDomenico concurred but specified that she finds true crime to be more soothing than adrenaline producing: “I feel like knowing some of the situations that, unfortunately, people find themselves in, makes me more aware. For instance, don’t get in a car with a stranger. I can be overly trusting, so knowing the possibilities of what could happen makes me feel more secure.”

DiDomenico isn’t alone. Many women find solace in the coping mechanism of coming up with a plan if something terrible were to happen. I’ve purchased several pepper spray keychains and familiarized myself with the release button inside my trunk for this very reason.

Still, it’s about planning for a worst-case scenario that will probably never come to be. Says Fizgerald: “I think that many women who have been victimized in their own lives and/or are struggling with mental health issues find a release in being able to look at these often violent stories.” The reason? It’s a horrifying situation in which they can’t imagine themselves. “Being able to remove the element of projection when hearing about these stories is a relief.”

I’ve written candidly about my own anxiety and can attest that there is something calming about hearing about an atrocity and knowing it couldn’t happen to me. That said, as I gathered data, it also occurred to me that true crime allows women to see their concerns (the ever-present threat of sexual assault and reduced agency over our own bodies) validated.

In a society that’s often so quick to blame the victim and label facts as falsities, true crime is a rare avenue in which justice is, in many cases, served. The killer is sent to jail. The woman is believed. And right and wrong are decided by a jury of peers.

When murder is more calming than everyday life, what does that say about our culture other than times are unfathomably bleak?

No wonder we’re obsessed.