I've just been reading with interest an article on Mary Ann Cotton in the Daily Mail. Mary Ann Cotton was a serial killer. She killed 21 people altogether. My reading of women's history, I confess, tends to be the people on the right side of the law, so this article caught my eye.
A man called David Wilson has just written a book on her (due to be published later in the year) and the article claims she is the first serial killer but no one has heard of her. Putting aside the fact that I am sure the Victorians were not the first to have serial killers (I suspect they just didn't get caught as often, with death rates and medical knowledge?), it did make me think about fame, how we remember some criminals and not others.
In the article, I got the impression that it is partly because she is female that she has been forgotten in history whilst Jack the Ripper gripped a nation. We find it uncomfortable that some one who is a wife, mother and even a nurse for a time should have an evil streak. A woman that brings life, should also take life would not sit well with the Victorians or with ourselves today. We find it easier I suspect to think of men as murderers.
