Killer Women
Dr. Helen has a great post on how women killers are treated in the press. Lately we've heard about the women who cut a baby out of someone's stomach, slit a mother's throat, and now, cut the baby out, killing the premature baby, killing the mother and killing her children.
Do you despise these women as much as you despise Scott Peterson?
Do you excuse the Andrea Yates' of the world while holding a man responsible and then some if he were to drown his five kids? How can women have equality if they can't have equal treatment under the law for equal crimes?
As I noted over at Dr. Helen's:
To get back to the point, I do think there is a defense mechanism protecting women and it's not just feminists doing it.
No person no matter their gender can easily wrap their psyche around a hateful, abusive mother. Husbands and fathers don't want to believe that while they are away the children (or mor likely, one child) are being subjected to harsh, inhumane treatment--or worse. No woman who leaves her child in the care of another woman wants to imagine an abusive environment.
The helplessnes of children at the hands of a deranged woman, mother is not a picture anyone wants to imagine. It obliterates the madonna-whore female dichotomy. It obliterates the feminist self-view as women being lovingly superior. Women don't do violence.
Well, guess what, women can be just as vicious and callous, as men. It just seems worse when women are endowed biologically with hormonal protective mechanisms to prevent this kind of behavior.
The rationalization is this: mom must love me, there must be something wrong with me. Transfer that to society and psychotic women murderers get off the hook.
Personnally, I hope she fries. There is no rehabilitating this empty shell of a human being. Thank God for her moral military boy friend!
1 comment:
I agree. I'm appalled at how people have given Andrea Yates a "pass" for murdering five helpless children: Andrea Yates Not Guilty This Time; Past (and Future?) Mom Soon Available to Babysit Your Kids
Your discussion of the possible reasons why women tend to be given a "pass" is interesting. There also tends to be a wholesale acceptance of the notion that mental illness can cause anything and can excuse anything. In extreme cases (e.g., brain tumor), yes, mental illness can cause a loving father to toss his son out a window. But in most cases, mental illness is a matter of degree. Note that Yates did not try to drown any of the jurors, the judge, or the lawyers at her trial. She chose the time, place, opportunity and victims for her crime. Her crime was heinous and inexcusable. She should be in prison for the rest of her life.
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