What are true women not made of? Agency and identities of “violent” women in tabloids in Finland

Abstract

This article examines how Finnish tabloids portray women who have used violence. The aim is to look at the ways in which violence committed by women is made sense of in relation to culturally shared conceptions and expectations regarding the relations between gender categories and violence. The analysis of the data draws on socio-semiotics and distinguishes modalities as discursive devices that attach meanings and different levels of agency to violent action. By focusing on descriptions of women’s violent agency, the analysis attempts to dissect the ways in which the identities of “feminine women” and “violent women” are dialectically constructed. A recurring theme in the positioning of women in the analyzed news articles is the attachment of deceptiveness to them and their actions. Especially in the reporting of the most sensationalized cases, women as perpetrators of violence are often portrayed in the data as strong agents with an antisocial will to hurt others, and with the capacity to potentially escape being held responsible for their violence. These findings are discussed in relation to the Finnish cultural context and the prevalent discourses on gender, violence, and equality in it.