Why True Crime is Harmful to Women

By Madelyn Ilarraza

True crime has been on the rise in the past decade, with an endless amount of podcasts, YouTube videos, and Netflix documentaries coming out every few weeks. The majority of the true crime audience are women, around 80% according to Psychology Today. Many female true crime fans may attribute their fascination and their empathy mainly towards female victims, who through their stories, find ways to protect themselves if needed. However, this is hard to believe with all the victim blaming and romanticization of brutal crimes against women and the men who commit them. 

In the past few years, women’s obsession with true crime has become an internet joke, with a few bragging about watching it to help them sleep. What may have started out as an unusual fascination soon turned into something much darker. It seems as though many of these women idolize male serial killers, and act like they are fictional characters. Whenever there is a high profile case where a woman goes missing, there is so much victim blaming circulating in those spaces. True crime spaces often encourage the “perfect victim” trope, and if a female victim or survivor doesn’t fit it, they often refute her story and call her crazy. Many true crime fans see these real life cases as entertainment, and don’t realize that actual people are affected, mainly women. 

Constantly consuming media where you hear about the brutalization of women and girls is not normal. Men watch more horror movies than women, so what is it about turning real life horrors into storytelling that attracts a female audience? 

Morbid curiosity is something normal to human nature. There is nothing wrong with finding these types of things interesting, but it all depends on how you gather your information and perceive it. It is not a good idea to watch a video of a woman putting on makeup and explaining crimes against teenage girls in graphic detail, cracking a few jokes now and then about the crimes. There is a moral line that is frequently crossed with true crime creators. Ask yourself why you like consuming this type of content. Is it genuinely because you want knowledge on how to better protect yourself, or is it because you see femicide as entertainment?

True crime, at least in its most popular forms, perpetuates harmful narratives and desensitizes its audience to violence against women. The exploitation of female victims for the viewer’s pleasure far outweighs any perceived benefits. You aren’t a bad person if you have consumed this content, you should just be wary of the ethics of the people making it, and if they have the victims and their families’ best interest in mind.