Shannon Mathews

Well, women generally get a much harder time than men over crimes related to children. It's because society expect higher standards when it comes to caring for children from women so it's all the more shocking and outrageous when they don't meet those standards.

Im not sure class has much to do with it, think the McCanns have been given as much as of a hard time as Karen Matthews.

Shannon Mathews could easily have died whilst being bound and imprisoned. It's only luck that she survived, IMO. KM is filth.

Ian Brady didn't commit murder till he met Myra, it could just as easily be said it was the meeting of 2 equally sadistic people that caused a perfect storm and that is what led to murder, not that one led the other to it.

I don't think that's true. There's plenty of evidence from Brady's background to demonstrate that he was and is a sadist and a psychopath, and he would have realised his desires whether he'd met up with Hindley or not. There just isn't that sort of evidence in Hindley's background.

The only way you are going to prove that KM was 'demonised' is by linking to news articles which , in your view, do exactly that.

The way I see it is that she did all of the following:

• drugged and sedated her children over a period of several years (tiazepam and diazepam was found in Shannon Mathews' hair and skin).
• decided to lock her own child up and conceal her in a drawer beneath a bed so that she could make a few quid
• neglected all her dc

and on and on and on.

I couldn't care less what gender KM is - she revolts me and should not be allowed to give birth to or come in to contact with children ever again.

Have you posted this because you've read she's found God?

www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cmpo/migrated/documents/wp278.pdf

I know this isn't the point of the thread, but didn't want to leave the 'generations who've never worked' crap go unchallenged. It's nonsense.

Karen Mathews is so despised, I think, due to the casual nature in which she committed her crime. The man she left Shannon with has learning difficulties, and Karen arguably exploited a vulnerable adult, as well as her own child.

The people of the Dewsbury Moor estate did not have many material resources to help the search - people were collecting their 2p pieces as it was all they could give - but they gave their time and care to Karen, which she threw back in their faces. They gave a lot, if seen in relative terms to their income.

Karen had been drugging the children for some time, children had already been taken into care. She was in no way a victim, but the instigator of such a heinous crime, which treated her child as an incidental pawn.

I think a man who did what she did, would be despised equally.

MinesAGin I'm sure she wouldn't have been allowed to live with her mother ever again. Her mum went to prison, I'm sure all the children were fostered/adopted.

"I think a large part of the hate for Karen Matthews was because people felt so duped"

I agree with this.
She not only duped the nation, she duped her own friends and family, I read her other children were severely affected by this, god knows how Shannon is.
She is evil imo, any parent doing what they did to their own child, is evil. How else would you describe it?

The press/the public do treat different criminals differently. Lots of factors go into it - in my family, the 'great train robbers' were regarded as great - I was shocked when I grew up to find out they'd killed a man.

Women are treated differently of course - and I think the prison stats show that women are in their for more minor crimes than men.

Women are supposed to be carers, so when they hurt someone, it is regarded as more heinous/against nature than when a man does.

I don't think Shannon Matthews is a good example of this though. .

I think the Shannon Matthews case was so high profile and just uniquely appalling. I didn't know there was much of an outcry against the mum tbh, apart from in the press. She was in the media more than any other family member who had been in on it, so naturally became a focus.

People seem to be much more critical of the McCanns on the whole. I had a sixth sense something horrible was going to happen in the SM case, never trusted the mum from the start and was glad the poor girl was alive.

The man Karen Matthews left her daughter with was a convicted sex offender. She left her child there, unable to leave, for financial gain. When Shannon was rescued she refused to see her mother or to live with her again and I don't blame her.

Karen Matthews deserved every bit of the press bashing she got.

I understand some of what you're saying OP but I don't agree with the feminism angle. People are always more shocked at heinous 'mothers' because of the biological/maternal aspect.

Obviously there would have been different angles reported in the press if KM had been middle class, attractive etc.

Ian Brady didn't commit murder till he met Myra, it could just as easily be said it was the meeting of 2 equally sadistic people that caused a perfect storm and that is what led to murder, not that one led the other to it.

It was Myras voice that was heard threatening terrified Lesley Ann Downey as they tortured her and she begged to go home. That is what people remembered. Her crimes certainly weren't 'a fraction of his'.

I've not heard of MPs campaigning for the release of a man who'd recorded himself murdering a child.

I think a large part of the hate for Karen Matthews was because people felt so duped - half the town were out searching, and most of the media-reading public were behind her, only to find out she'd suckered everyone. Of course there'd be backlash.
On the other hand, there is definitely a sense of "how could a mother/woman do this?" in cases like these, which isn't the case with male criminals.

As an aside, one of the reasons there was a discernible difference between the press coverage between Shannon and other cases was because the police presumably knew it was dodgy as fuck.

It's impossible to compare to cases of other missing children because she was never genuinely missing. There was something off about the whole thing from the start and I expect the reporters had an inkling of that early on.

As far as I understand the DD had no idea she was involved in a scam - she would have thought she was genuinely kidnapped. Putting your own child through that - for the sake of financial gain- probably does meet the evil threshold in my view.

They did a terrible thing, but why was it deemed worse than leaving three small children alone in an unlocked hotel room, really

Hardlight you think drugging and restraining a child for 24 days, including leaving her with a noose around her neck is the same is leaving DC in a hotel room for an evening?! FFS!

Of course she was manipulated by Brady. Clearly she had deep deficiencies in her character, but if she hadn't have met Brady I cannot believe for a moment she would have set about harming children on her own. My mum told it about it, as an early lesson in feminism. Her crimes were a fraction of those committed by Brady but more people could remember her name, and she was considered the more evil of the two.

I understand what your saying OP. I just googled the case and came across a Sun article following her release which goes into huge detail about her weight, haircut, 'makeover' etc. I can't quite put my finger on what I find uncomfortable about it, but it's almost as though the crime she committed is somehow worse because 'she's a woman wearing make up'. I'm not articulating it very well,but I do think women are judged differently to men for similar things.

I don't think she was evil. I think she was neglectful and abusive though.

And Myra Hindley was rightly demonised. But she also had many, many supporters campaigning for her release because she was a woman and women are nurtures so she therefore 'must' have been controlled/manipulated into murdering children by Ian Brady. When it seems that Myra was a highly manipulative individual herself; to the point a prison officer went to prison for trying to help her escape.

Ian Brady didn't have people campaigning for him to be released with a new identity.

Maybe a man wouldn't have the idea in the first place as only a mother would be believed in the way that KM was. A dodgy looking grieving dad wouldn't have made it onto the national news, whereas society assumes no mother would lie about such a thing.

It is true they are not working class
The clue is in the name Working
Sadly we do have an underclass of families who have several generations of family member who have never worked

And every unfair judgement of her turned out to be true. She was exactly what she looked like.