Why Women Find Watching True Crime Comforting

Since the election, I have been spending a lot of time horizontal in my soft pants watching true crime — nonfiction television about a variety of illegal activity, mostly murder. My husband thinks it is pretty demented that I find comfort by turning away from breaking news and watching a show called “Accident, Suicide, or Murder,” but I often watch or listen to true crime as a way to calm down.

That I am a woman who enjoys this lurid pastime does not make me remotely unique. Women are twice as likely as men to listen to true crime podcasts, and younger women with less formal education are particularly likely to listen. Some have estimated that the audience for true crime shows is 80 percent female. In fact, women loving true crime is such a cliché that “Saturday Night Live” made a song about it in 2021. I half sing it to myself every time I turn on “Dateline”: “I’m gonna watch a murder show, murder show/ I’m gonna watch a murder show…late night true crime, this is my relaxing time.”

I have seen many theories — in academic papers and Reddit forums and talking to other crime junkies — about why women are more drawn to the genre. The explanation I see most frequently is that women watch true crime to protect themselves: We are usually less physically powerful than men are, and we think that by understanding the psychology of criminals we can better avoid them.

That interpretation may be true for some women, but it never quite resonated with me. It wasn’t until I was processing my anger about America electing a man who was found liable for sexual abuse and nominating people who were accused of sex trafficking to run the Justice Department that I could finally explain to myself why I find the genre so irresistible.

Most of the true crime I watch reflects a black and white moral universe where victims ultimately get justice, even if it is delayed. In this closed world, modern law enforcement is competent and empathetic, and evidence from medical examiners and forensic scientists is taken seriously. I don’t like “Unsolved Mysteries” because there’s no real resolution for the victim’s family, I find it devastating. But my favorite true crime does not just show good people doing their jobs. It also celebrates the emotional and intuitive; victims, including their families, often have hunches about perpetrators that elude law enforcement and defy norms.

An excellent recent example of the moral universe I enjoy returning to, one that felt particularly poignant, is the two-part Netflix documentary “Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter.” It centers on Cathy Terkanian, who in 1974, at 16, had a daughter she named Alexis. Her mother pressured her to give Alexis up for adoption so that the little girl could have a better life.