Why Women Kill is a dark comedy-drama anthology series from the United States, made by Marc Cherry. Each season features different storylines, characters, and periods, all connected by the central theme of women pushed to the edge. The first season spans three different periods—1963, 1984, and 2019—and focuses on three women living in the same house across these decades. Beth Ann Stanton (1963) is a devoted housewife who discovers her husband is having an affair. Initially, she tries to win him back, but her efforts eventually lead to deadly consequences. Simone Grove (1984) is a glamorous socialite who finds out that her current (and third) husband is gay. As she navigates this revelation, she begins an affair with a younger man, which sets off a chain of events that spiral into tragedy. Taylor Harding (2019) is a modern, bisexual lawyer in an open marriage. When her husband’s affair with a woman, whom they both invited to their marriage, turns dangerous, their relationship faces unexpected turns.

Beth Ann represents the traditional, post-war American housewife, fully immersed in the strict gender roles of the time (see Meyerowitz, 1993 for a critical discussion on post-war domesticity and femininity). Her identity is largely defined by her role as a committed wife and homemaker. Even after discovering her husband’s infidelity, she continues to perform her duties and believes that it is her responsibility to maintain the family. This dynamic reflects the historical context of the 1960s in the West, where women were expected to find fulfilment in domesticity and subservience to their husbands. Beth Ann’s story highlights the oppressive nature of traditional gender roles, where women’s identities and worth are tied to their ability to conform to societal expectations of marriage and family life. The contrast between Beth Ann and her husband’s ‘mistress’, a woman seeking independence and career success, emphasizes the limited choices available to women who are trapped within the confines of traditional gender roles.

Simone’s story unfolds in the 1980s, a period marked by both the rise of new feminist movements and the intensifying AIDS crisis in the United States, which brought LGBTQ+ issues to the forefront of public consciousness (see Brier, 2018). Simone, a glamorous socialite, discovers that her husband is gay, a revelation that challenges her understanding of her marriage and her place within it. Despite the personal betrayal, Simone embraces her husband’s identity through a more complex and progressive understanding of sexuality. The show implicitly critiques the era’s stereotypes, such as the association of gay men with the AIDS epidemic and challenges the heteronormative assumptions that underpin traditional marriage. Unlike Beth Ann, Simone exercises greater agency in her life which symbolizes a shift towards more empowered female roles and the questioning of rigid gender binaries. Her sexual relationship with a man who is much younger than her further complicates conventional ideas of acceptable female sexuality and suggests that women’s desires can and do extend beyond socially sanctioned norms.

Taylor represents a radical departure from the gender and sexual norms depicted in the earlier timelines. As a bisexual woman in an open marriage, Taylor embodies a more fluid and non-normative approach to relationships and sexuality, symbolizing the influence of later waves of feminism (see Baumgardner, 2011 for a brief discussion of feminist waves). She is the breadwinner in her marriage which further subverts the traditional gender roles. However, her open marriage brings its contestations, particularly when her husband’s affair threatens the stability of their relationship. Taylor’s story demonstrates the increasing visibility and acceptance of non-heteronormative identities and relationship structures in contemporary Western society. The show portrays her bisexuality and open marriage not as deviations from the norm, but as valid expressions of human sexuality. This challenges the sex-gender-sexuality matrix by rejecting the idea that gender and sexual identities are fixed and binary. Taylor’s character also highlights the complexities and potential pitfalls of negotiating non-traditional relationships and suggests that while there is greater freedom, there are also new forms of conflict and tension that must be navigated.

How the agency of women protagonists unfolds in the story is complex. Beth Ann’s journey represents a subtle but significant exercise of agency within the highly restrictive gender roles of the 1960s. Initially, Beth Ann appears to be the ideal submissive housewife, dedicated to her husband and home. Her agency is deeply constrained by societal expectations that dictate her identity and purpose as a woman. However, as the story progresses, Beth Ann begins to assert her agency and dignity. Simone’s character demonstrates a more overt and complex exercise of agency and reflects the evolving gender dynamics of the 1980s. As a wealthy and confident socialite, Simone has a greater degree of autonomy compared to Beth Ann. When she discovers her husband’s homosexuality, Simone’s reaction is not one of passive acceptance but rather a deliberate and strategic engagement with her situation. Simone’s agency is evident in her decision to embrace her husband’s identity rather than reject it and challenge the stigma around homosexuality and AIDS. Despite the cracks in the marriage, Simone’s relationship with her husband turns out to symbolize deeper forms of care and love.

Taylor’s agency is expressed through her decision to construct a marriage that defies conventional expectations, where both partners have the freedom to pursue other relationships. Unlike Taylor, Beth sacrificed her dream of becoming a pianist to fulfil her husband’s expectation that she manage the household and cook and Simone, despite discovering her husband’s homosexuality, could not end the marriage due to societal pressure. However, Taylor’s exercise of agency is not without challenges. The open nature of her marriage introduces new contradictions that Taylor is compelled to face, particularly when her husband’s affair with a woman begins to threaten their relationship.

The series also teaches us about how different forms of privilege—related to race and class- intersect with sex-gender-sexuality and shape the characters’ experiences and agency.  As a white, middle-class woman in the 1960s, Beth Ann’s experiences are shaped by her race and class, which afford her certain privileges even as she navigates the limitations imposed by her gender. Her ability to stay at home and focus on her domestic life reflects the economic stability that many women of colour or lower socioeconomic status could not access at the time. Simone’s wealth and social status as an upper-class woman in the 1980s provide her with a degree of autonomy that allows her to engage in a relationship with a younger man and navigate her husband’s homosexuality in ways that would not be available to women with less privilege. However, the stigma surrounding her husband’s sexuality demonstrates how certain forms of privilege are still limited by societal prejudices. Taylor’s race (as a woman of colour) adds another layer to her narrative as she navigates her bisexuality and career in the modern era although she is not portrayed as a victim to be saved but as a resilient modern woman capable of taking care of herself. Yet, overall, the first season of the series focuses on white, privileged women living in affluent environments with access to wealth, resources, and social status, which limits its exploration of intersectionality.

While the focus is primarily on women, the series also offers a critique of traditional masculinity and how it constrains men and affects their relationships with women (see Carrigan et al., 2015 for a discussion on theorizing masculinity). Beth Ann’s husband, Rob, is trapped in his performance of traditional masculinity, where infidelity is almost expected as a sign of virility. However, his reliance on Beth Ann to maintain the façade of a perfect home life reveals his vulnerability and dependence on the very gender roles that constrict both of them. Simone’s husband, Karl, struggles with his homosexuality in an era when it is heavily stigmatized. His initial attempt to conform to heterosexual norms by marrying Simone reflects the pressures of dominant masculinity to suppress non-normative sexual desires. His eventual acceptance of his identity, and Simone’s support, challenge the rigid definitions of masculinity that require men to adhere to heterosexual norms at the expense of their true selves. Taylor’s husband, Eli, grapples with feelings of inadequacy due to his wife’s success and their non-traditional marriage arrangement. His infidelity and the complications that arise from it reflect the challenges men face in reconfiguring their identities in a world where traditional gender roles are increasingly questioned.

The first season of ‘Why Women Kill’ thus clearly illustrates the historical evolution of women’s roles and agency across different decades. Through the stories of Beth Ann, Simone, and Taylor, the series explores how societal expectations around marriage, identity, and autonomy have shifted over time. Each character’s journey reflects the changing landscape of gender norms and the ongoing struggle for love, dignity and freedom. This makes the series a valuable pedagogical resource for lessons on sex-gender-sexuality and feminism. However, this does not imply that feminist struggles and the resulting social realities are as linear as they may appear in the show. Additionally, the series has limited insights into how constructs of sex-gender-sexuality and feminisms evolve across different cultures and why Western feminist lessons cannot be straightforwardly applied to all contexts. It would also be unrealistic to expect a single show to become a comprehensive pedagogical resource. The debates in the field are far more complex than any show can capture. Nevertheless, this series serves as a useful starting point for initiating conversations on some of these topics.

References

Baumgardner, J. (2011). Is There a Fourth Wave? Does it Matter?https://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/baumgardner2011.html

Brier, J. (2018). Aids and Action (1980–1990s). In The Routledge History of Queer America. Routledge.

Carrigan, T., Connell, B., & Lee, J. (2015). Toward a New Sociology of Masculinity. In The Making of Masculinities (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.

Meyerowitz, J. (1993). Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946- 1958. The Journal of American History. 79(4), 1455–1482.

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Vijitha Rajan is a faculty member at the School of Education, Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India. Before joining the university in 2020, Vijitha was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Delhi (2015−2020). In 2018 -19, she was a Commonwealth Scholar at the School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Her doctoral research is on understanding the educational exclusion of migrant children and foregrounds the discord between mobile childhoods and immobile schools in the Indian context.