Rowland, Anthony. “Reading the Female Perpetrator”

In his essay, Anthony Rowland analyses the representations of real and fictional female perpetrators in both literature and film. He elaborates on notorious figures like Irma Grese, Ilse Koch, the fictional Hanna Schmitz—from the novel The Reader, and less known women like Johanna Langefeld, to comment on how conceptions of femininity and masculinity influence the way they are and were portrayed. To do so, he takes the concept “female masculinity” proposed by Jack Halberstam, which allows an attribution of male gender signs to women in order to avoid gender essentialism. He also responds to the essay “Does Atrocity Have a Gender?” by Susannah Heschel—which he states is not considering the development of queer theory during the nineties (129). Rowland discusses how the opposing traits of some of these women, being masculine in their brazenness after their acts, but feminine in their performance of gender is both “seductive and repelling” (135) to the media. He also mentions how the participation of women who did not enter into this “female masculinity” mould was usually downplayed, especially in Federal Republic trials, which explains why they are not so famous. Rowland closes his argumentation by stating that assumptions on femininity were determinant in the real life and fictive trials of these women. They were either considered atavistic masculine “bitches” who had to be punished or helpless victims of the circumstances who could not tolerate what they had done (138-139). This makes evident how gender politics played a part during the trials and how they are still present in the way female perpetrators are perceived today.

Author of this entry: Claudia Vasquez-Caicedo Rainero

Rowland, Anthony. “Reading the Female Perpetrator.” In Representing Perpetrators in Holocaust Literature and Film, edited by Jenni Adams and Sue Vice, 129-143. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2013.