In this article I explore the ways in which legal language, discourses,
and narratives construct new dominant identities for women who kill their children.
These identities are those of the ‘bad’, ‘mad’, or ‘sad’ woman. Drawing upon and
critiquing statutes, case law, and sentencing remarks from England and Wales, I
explore how singular narrative identities emerge for the female defendants concerned.
Using examples from selected cases, I highlight how the judiciary interpret
legislation, use evidence, and draw upon gender stereotypes in carefully constructing
macro-narratives which produce gendered identities for filicidal women,
thus nullifying the challenge these women pose to appropriate femininity and the
motherhood mandate. Each of the narrative identities discussed deny the agency of
the female defendants that they are attached to, albeit in subtly different ways, by
denying their ability to make any degree of choice in relation to their filicidal
actions. Although such identity construction and agency denial may not always be
damaging to these filicidal women per se, its pervasiveness within legal discourse
reinforces and reproduces damaging gender stereotypes surrounding women and
femininity.

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• Bad, Mad or Sad? Legal Language, Narratives, and Identity Constructions of Women Who Kill their Children in England and Wales