Women are obsessed with crime — this isn’t news to anyone. The internet is rife with articles and studies claiming that women’s innate need to feel safe and keep a watch contributes to their huge audience share of whodunnit stories. In a blog published by Kate Anthony, author, divorce coach, and host of “The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast,” she puts it rather neatly: “Women are not obsessed with death. We’re searching for survival lessons the genre refuses to teach.”

Fair enough. Except, it isn’t the whole story.

The popular explanation is that women consume crime stories because they are constantly calculating risk in real life. And there is some evidence for that. Research has found that women are more drawn to true-crime stories than men, primarily to learn to recognize danger and protect themselves. In many cases, women also spoke about curiosity, excitement, ethics, identification with victims, and the pleasure of following a story to its resolution, something that’s missing in the real world.

Perhaps that is why murder mysteries work so well. Crime fiction takes the vague, shapeless fear of danger and turns it into something with a beginning, middle, and end. There is a body, suspects, and clues. Someone knows something, and someone is lying. Eventually, someone figures it out. There’s a beginning and a definite end. 

But there’s something more. For women, it’s not just vengeance; it’s years of being ignored, abused, gaslit, or simply isolated because a woman’s fears and suspicions are often labeled “hysteria”. Intuition or gut feeling carries no material evidence, so no one believes her. A murder mystery, by contrast, rewards the suspicious woman. The person who notices strange behavior, remembers an insignificant detail, questions an alibi, or says, “Something doesn’t feel right,” usually gets us closer to the truth. Remember when the 1944 classic Gaslight first brought this concept of emotional abuse to the fore?

MGM

Worse still, women can be attacked by unknown assailants as much as they are murdered by men known to them. This double risk calls for double self-preservation because society largely dismisses a woman’s fear as paranoia. How often have killers stalked a woman and made their presence felt before actually murdering her? Take the recent case of Sacramento resident Shalini Sharma, for example. 

This is the case the world over. According to a 2024 article published by the Center for Economic Data and Analysis at Ashoka University, Delhi, one crime against women was registered every 74 seconds in India. Of course, crime statistics capture only cases that reach the police, and underreporting remains a major limitation. Women may therefore learn, from experience, that danger isn’t always obvious until it is too late.

So, fiction compensates for what reality cannot provide.

The ‘Control’ Quotient

Another reason murder mysteries are so addictive is that they give us a sense of control. You know that a crime has happened. You know there is an answer. Your job is to find it. You can pause, rewind, Google the suspect, notice the detail the detective missed, and announce your theory to anyone unfortunate enough to be watching with you.

And mystery and crime thrillers have always had a particularly devoted female readership, from Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie and, more recently, the endless stream of psychological thrillers populating bestseller lists. In India, shows like Savdhaan India and Crime Patrol have occupied television screens for years, often replacing daily soaps for a certain generation of viewers.

Millennials and Gen-Z apparently have wider choices. And some of them are closer to the kind of murder mysteries that reward attention rather than merely shock us. Not every crime show deserves our attention. So their attention goes to shows that give women something more interesting than the usual romantic entanglement between a detective and her partner. Something that resembles real life and offers enough opportunities for justice, poetic or otherwise. 

Flawed Possibilities?

Murder mysteries give us puzzles. They give us flawed people, hidden motives, unreliable witnesses, and stories that refuse to reveal everything at once. We get to play detective without experiencing the consequences of living through a crime.

Perhaps, then, women aren’t watching murder mysteries because they are fascinated by death. Perhaps we’re fascinated by the possibility of making sense of it. And knowing exactly how real it can be, or already is! The question is not merely “Who did it?” It is also: “What did everyone else miss?”

Be sure to check out our list of Crime shows women love to watch. 

Essay Courtesy of Neha Jha

Feature Image from ‘Savdhaan India’