In death, men and women are not treated the same – at least in the portrayal of the dead female in dark tourism. Thus, engaging feminist perspectives to theoretically cultivate a scholarly blueprint, our essay critiques the female dead in dark tourism. We expose unrecognised and covert influences that dark tourism has on sensibilities and in legitimising cultural female exploitation. In so doing, we argue dark tourism should foster more empathetic, even empowering curation of the female dead at sites of public exhibition and consumption. Ultimately, we offer an ‘impact pathway’ that disrupts societal norms of subjugation and objectification in female lived experiences, extending to the treatment of the female body in death.