Shannon Mathews

"the idea that no matter how badly a woman behaves there must always be an excuse or they would not have done it if they were not influenced by a man.

It is infantilising."

But nobody's arguing that for every woman, only for those where we know there was a man instigating. Nobody's arguing that in Karen Matthews's case, for example.

It is just as silly to argue that the women is always most or equally in the lead because one is a feminist. Why not look at each case?

"How can you excuse this sick shit?"

When have I excused it? I'm not saying it's better or worse to be a paedophile. A paedophile, as I understand it, is someone only attracted to children. Not all child abusers fit that description. That doesn't make them better or worse.

I strongly suspect that Brady would have done what he did had he never met Hindley, given his history of torturing animals and the sort of literature he was reading. But it is true to say that he would have needed someone to help him, because part of the thrill to him was having someone else taking part, and partly because he liked to control people. After his arrest he continued to try to support Hindley, until it became clear that he could no longer influence her, whereupon he went into the attack against her.

here is a thread on AIBU about the fact apparently only 9% of women say they are feminists. I would not be surprised if it were lower if the survey takers were to see some of the comments here.

After 30 years of being a feminist I no longer call myself one, because current day feminism (in its various forms) appears to have moved on from my understanding of it. So it no longer fits me as a descriptor.

However I'm not reeling further from femisinim specifically due to Gwen's comments about some child abusers not being true pedophiles. We had a case over here, some time ago now, where a nursery nurse was sexually abusing teeny tinies in her charge in order to record the acts to gratify a pedophile she wanted to please/impress. I'd only disagree with Gwen if she stated that the motivation made the crime, and the criminal, "less bad" than somebody doing purely for sexual gratification.

It's not unheard of, for people to do unthinkable things to curry favour with a dominant personality they are desperate to impress, or hold onto. Doesn't make them less culpable, dangerous, or horrendous than somebody abusing a child for their own sexual pleasure. They are still abusing children for their own ends and desires. Still deserve to be locked up for the same amount of time as people doing it for different reasons. Still need to be kept away from children forever and absolutely deserve all the disgust and revulsion that becomes entwined with their name.

And that's where I would disagree with assertions that Hindley was "less bad". I don't care if she actively enjoyed her role in harming children, or instead did it to please/impress Brady and drew gratification from it via that route. She chose her own desires over the need of children not to be kidnapped, raped, abused and murdered. Which makes her a horror. A dangerous, warped, horror. Her motivations neither aggravate, nor mitigate what she did.

Extreme people pleasers who will participate in abuse, torture, kidnap and murder in order to achieve their their aims of gratifying the desires of a love interest are no less dangerous and culpable than those who have other motivations and triggers into harmful, or deadly action.

If the extreme people pleasers tend to be female (for reasons of nature, nurture, or societal shaping) then it is worth looking into why. But I don't see it as a priority cause that feminism needs to address. Which is where I largely agree with the thrust of your post. There are strands of feminist thought and focus which receive enough (perhaps disproportionate) attention and exposure to convince large numbers of females that their priorities are distinctly out of step with feminism, so they neither see themselves as a feminist, nor want to. Either ever, or anymore.

Saying that "she wouldn't have done it if she hadn't met him" isn't an excuse - if anything it makes her conduct worse

You may take that interpretation of what was said. I did not. There were several posts mentioning that he already had convictions, she hadn't, he was the prime instigator, if it has not been for him etc .

I really don't understand what people think is anti-feminist about suggesting that she wouldn't have acted as she did without Brady's influence

I did not say it was anti- feminist to say that. Some of the comments on this thread are for me perfect examples of what I dislike most in a certain type of feminist thinkinv - the idea that no matter how badly a woman behaves there must always be an excuse or they would not have done it if they were not influenced by a man.

It is infantilising.

"she would not have acted as she did without Brady's influence" - who knows?

Equally you could say he would not have acted as he did without her facilitating it- who knows what was actually discussed between them or who egged on whom.

No-one is seeking to minimise what Hindley did. IF it is the case that in fact she wouldn't have done what she did if she hadn't met Brady, that cannot possibly take away from the evil of what she in fact did. Saying that "she wouldn't have done it if she hadn't met him" isn't an excuse - if anything it makes her conduct worse. At all times she had the choice to walk away and indeed to go to the police, but instead she participated actively.

I really don't understand what people think is anti-feminist about suggesting that she wouldn't have acted as she did without Brady's influence; it's a statement about what her character might have been, which is nothing whatsoever to do with her being a woman - obviously, in a relationship such as this, it is simply a matter of which one is the leader and which the follower, irrespective of which is male or female, or if they are both female or both male.

There may well be a worthwhile debate to be had on issues such as the often cited case that non- violent female offenders are more likely to get a custodial sentence than men.

I don't know if that is true but if it is an analysis of why would be worthwhile.

This thread however, where certain posters seem determined to minimise appalling behaviour by excuses such as " she wouldn't have done it if she hadn't met him" or Gwen's post about female child abusers who aren't really paedophiles, is an entirely different matter.

There is a thread on AIBU about the fact apparently only 9% of women say they are feminists. I would not be surprised if it were lower if the survey takers were to see some of the comments here.

Yes I agree OP. However I feel that society is so steeped in misogyny that this thread is on a hiding to nowhere.

You may enjoy this column

www.thenational.scot/comment/14974083.Vonny_Moyes__How_can_I_explain_the_women_of_2016_to_my_daughter_/

Gwen that's total arse. People who abuse and take pornographic photos of children are pedophiles - even if they're doing it for someone else. How can you excuse this sick shit?

Gwen your last post is appalling.

"The only reason anyone can be actively involved in the sexual torture and murder of children is because they are gratified by it. Any other motive is inconceivable. "

You mean you don't want to consider any other motive? And anyway, nobody's saying she's not bad or didn't deserve her punishment, only that she would not have done what she did had she not met him and that he was the leader.
We do know of cases of child abuse by women who were not paedophiles as far as we knew. I'm thinking of the relatively recent case of the three or so women working in nurseries who took photos of children to please their paedophile boyfriend.

I agree, poor Shannon.

Poor Shannon. I hope she's somewhere safe.

I think Shannon went to live with her Dad as far as I recall.

Possibly. He was given her for a while but not sure it was permanent.
I see him around from time to time and he's never with any women of around the right age.

It doesn't matter who the 'authority figure' is - most human beings would not be directly, personally involved in the torture and murder of human beings - particularly children - whatever the circumstances.

I'm saying it is irrelevant whether she would have done it without him. The fact is she did. And there are millions of people who wouldn't have been involved regardless of how much they loved someone or were influenced by them. So she is equally as guilty in the crimes. She had free choice, she chose to be involved and she seemed to have enjoyed that in some way or another.

I think anyone is capable of murder given a 'perfect storm' of circumstances. Not everyone is capable of abusing and murdering children involving a great degree of planning. That is something that is inherent in a person and can't be forced by another. It's either there or it isn't. If two people meet and their dynamic results in that; they are both as guilty.

Brady was convicted of relatively petty crimes before he met Hindley. He might have gone on to murder alone or he might have met Hindley, someone that fed his own dark impulses, embraced that side of him and encouraged it with fantasies of her own that led to serial murders when if he'd met someone else that didn't - no-one would have died.

David Smith (who knew them both) thought she was the worse of the two. I don't think that's true but I do think it was the dynamic between them that was unique and if they hadn't met, we probably wouldn't know who either of them are.

When I say obedience to authority could apply to both the holocaust and Hindley (and reference milgram), I am merely suggesting they are on the same spectrum, not that they are the same.

IMO it doesn't matter in what way the one person views the other as their superior, only that they do.

Rates dropped hugely, but people still did it.

Of course I'm not suggesting that literally anyone would do it, just that the fact that Hindley did participate under those circumstances is not proof that she would have offended without Brady. Because he was that authority figure to her.

Milgrams studies aren't really relevant - they were based on a figure of authority that had given societal 'authority' and it was the 'legitimacy' of this figure that the responders were abdicating responsibility to - so someone acting as a superior officer, a Dr etc. The 'teachers' wore white coats which was to suggest education, experience, professional, valid.

An experiment saying using a 'teacher' with no apparent professional legitimacy would have had very different results. Brady was a convicted criminal that Hindley was obsessed with, he had no 'professional legitimacy' that Hindley could be responding to.

If Milgram had an experiment saying 'this random person says to do this or even your partner/Mum/friend says this' then it might be relevant.

And in Milgrams experiments when the responder was required to take physical action as in - not just taking orders and pressing a button to give an electric shock but actually having to hold down the hand of an adult to create that shock, the rates of co- operation dropped hugely.

I'm sure if the instruction was to hold down and strip a terrified child who would soon be murdered, the number of people who did that would be nil. Because it is so rare, it would not be seen in a laboratory experiment.

Or en masse

In theory the same obedience to authority could apply to both. Along the lines of milgrams old experiments etc - they weren't captives or threatened in any way either

Concentration camps aren't similar situations - in that case you're talking about a holocaust or a genocide where so many people are involved it is a national/cultural attitude so it becomes 'the norm' and a completely accepted regime. The people involved were in most cases convinced they were doing 'the right thing', that these people were 'lesser', not the same as us and would damage society if not eradicated. And still some people refused to be involved.

In Hindleys case we're talking about a society where the abuse and murder of children is considered the worst crimes that could be imagined. And she went into them willingly. She wasn't a captive, she didn't have a gun held to her head, she could have walked away.

It doesn't really matter whether she would have not committed similar crimes if she hadn't have met Brady. Because she did - and there was clearly a part of her that was capable of sadism and enjoyed being involved in the abuse and murder of children.

The same can be said of Rose West. The same of Ian Watkins co-defendants.

I think Shannon went to live with her Dad as far as I recall. When the serious case review was published he went to court to stop the full version being published in order to protect her identity. He won and you can only read a summery of her case.

"she was on some level a sadistic peadophile before she met Brady. You would have to have been wouldn't you? "

Would you? Were all the people working in concentration camps cruel would-be murderers before they got their jobs?
She never displayed sadism or paedophilia before she met Brady so we just don't know.

That's the story for most looked after kids.

We just don't hear about them.

That's really sad :( to think of the odds of her being an uncared for former-LAC after all the shite she had from her mum