To be sick of the sympathy being directed at women who commit the most despicable acts imagineable?

[wannaBe]

So the Philpotts will be sentenced today for killing their six children.

Both convicted of the same crime, no mitigating factors involved. both led a pretty depraved lifestyle. Both beyond contempt as far as I'm concerned.

Yet read mn and various other sources and while the man is rightly being slated as being the scum of the earth there is actual sympathy being directed towards the woman. Oh she was abused, oh she was a victim, oh poor woman under his control yada yada yada.

She is a murderer as is he. She knowingly went along with setting their house on fire with her six children in it and did nothing. She did not sit with her dying child. She played the victim at the press conference.

She had choices and she made them. She chose to start a fire which killed her children and she chose to do nothing about it.

Do any of these sympathisers ever consider that one of the reason why people are so hard on women who commit these horrific crimes is because people like you are ready to stand by and excuse them on the basis abuse must have been involved.

There are real victims of abuse out there and they don't go round killing their children.

Someone being a woman or being a victim of previous abuse (assuming she was, she lied about so many other things it's IMO unlikely) does not excuse or justify the choices they make which end up hurting others.

People need to stop justifying behaviors purely because someone is a woman. She is a murderer. no amount of previous abuse justifies or excuses that.

There are a long list of reasons why people do these things and having been abused as a child is just one of them. Mental health issues or being controlled by a dominant partner could well come into play too.

We hope that if this happened to us as adults we would take control, get out of the situation and seek help before it's too late. That is what most people do but those who don't are the ones who make the headlines.

At the very least, she should have told the police immediately that her husband had set fire to the house.
I'd probably want to kill him myself if my H had purposely caused a fire that resulted in the death of my 6 children.
No sympathy at all for her.

Re: facts on Myra Hindley - from a very violent home, was also rewarded for hurting other children by her father. Suffered domestic abuse at hands of Brady, this is documented, and also openly admitted by him. He also brainwashed her about Nazism and superior humans, shit like that. She did not participate in any murders, but did sexually abuse Lesley Anne Downey. The police were not actually going to charge her until they discovered that abuse. Psychologists agree that had she not met Brady, she wouldn't have been a particularly pleasant person, but would never have commited a crime, whereas he was clearly going to be a dangerous psycho from a v young age.

Now, I am not apologising for her or minimising what she did. She deserved her punishment and was a vile person. But these are the facts about her; that she was abused throughout her life. Again,
I reiterate that this is a reason for her sick acts, not an excuse. We all have free will, but how free is that will, exactly, if it is constantly being battered, twisted and denied by exterior forces?

The only hope we have of trying to prevent or lessen these sorts of appalling things is to not have a kneejerk dismissal of them as evil, or refuse to look at the factors that led them to be and act that way, but to take as dispassionate a study as possible of what causal factors are at play within the backgrounds, relationships and homelives of such people and try to work on ameliorating and ending, where possible, such factors in society in general. Just going 'no sympathy, lock em up and throw away the key!' makes people feel better in the moment but does zero to try to prevent future tragedies such as this case.

yanbu, bollocks to this idea of her as a helpless abused woman, she had no concern that her six children were dead, no remorse that she was partly responsible, no anger toward her partner, only love for her 'man' and lies to the police. Nobody can claim that she's still under his thumb, they've been physically separated long enough for her to reclaim a conscience if she had one. She doesn't care and she never did.

It is insulting to abused women to assume that they would happily help kill their children and then try to cover it up while never giving half a shit. That doesn't happen. There are as many evil, nasty women in this world as there are men and they are just as culpable when they choose to harm innocents. It is sickening when anytime a woman does anything wrong you always have apologists come running looking for an excuse. Hell even Rose West and Myra Hindley are being claimed victims on this thread ffs.

ian Brady was mentally ill. Myra Hindley was not. So where should the sympathy lie then?

If you can't understand that people who are also victims can commit appalling crimes without it lessening the crime or it meaning that all victims are potential criminals then that says a lot about you, not about anyone looking calmly at the reasons behind certain crimes.

I've watched the bbc documentary and what stuck with me is if she was so mentally beaten down she couldn't say no to someone risking her 6 children by dousing their home in petrol, yet when talking about him telling her he wanted to divorce her and marry Lisa so they could share a name she faced the camera and very firmly said she had refused to agree to a divorce.

So when it's something against what she wants she had the bollocks to stand up to him but when it's death for her kids she's too abused?

No abuse or not she wanted her man and put him first so no sympathy at all.

Myra Hindley was brought up mainly by her mother and grandmother,with her father an absent figure most of the time. Years later when she was trying to convince people she was a reformed character she started talking about her father as a violent person,possibly to gain some sympathy. DH's uncle was a police inspector involved in the case and was one of several people who had to listen to the dreadful Lesley Downey tape. He would not discuss the details of the child's ordeal,ever, but he did say he would never forget Hindley's laughter on the tape.

Zero sympathy for the murdering bitch.

Hope they all get life to be honest.

Oxfordbags - my issue with what you're saying is that you seem only to be focusing on ways in which these women were abused leading to their actions, but not the men.

Personally, I don't really care what a person has suffered - male or female - once they've chosen to inflict their own trauma on someone else then their status as victim comes a very distant second to that of abuser/ murderer etc. I want our judicial and rehabilitation systems to take a more holistic stance but I don't work in those areas thankfully.

I think what bothers me about your (sorry to single you out specifically, your posts particularly stand out) insistence that these women only did what they did basically because the Menz made them do it, is it is so utterly infantilising.

I have no problem in saying that I think there is far far more violence and abuse enacted by men than women. Or even that had these women mentioned not met the men involved they would never have committed such crimes - it seems highly unlikely. Or that there was abuse and imbalance of power.

BUT none of that changes the fact they CHOSE to do what they did. They chose it just as much as the males chose it.

Am I supposed to believe that there could ever be some circumstance which would lead me to set fire to my home with my dc still inside? Or allow them to be abused or to witness abuse or to feel afraid in their own home?

Never going to happen. And I resent this idea that we are all just an abusive partner away from becoming a useless parent. Or an abusive parent. Or a murderer.

I don't know them nor was I privy to any information from the trial but it seems that she is getting sympathy due the evidence that he was a nasty character the judge confirming that violence was in every relationship that he has had. I hope that both man and wife get the same life sentence with a minimum term so high that they are likely to live out their days in prison.

I don't understand... so don't you feel sorry for her being abused? Or would you feel sorry for her being abused IF she had somehow stopped him setting fire to the house? This is something I am genuinely wondering and can't understand...

McBalls - I am not saying they did what they did cos of Teh Evul Menz. I keep repeating that the abuse they suffered is part of the reasons behind what they did. Not an excuse and not the whole picture. But a big part of the picture. And seeing abuse as a reason is not me infantilising women and reducing them to helpless victims who just need some bastard to tell them to kill kids and off they trot. At no stage have I so much as suggested that any woman is just one abuser away from killing children, etc. If you chose to extrapolate that from my words because you cannot grasp the nuance of my argument, then that's your lookout, but don't put words into my mouth, thank you.

You simply cannot remove the fact of their abuse from the equation when looking at their crimes, because the crimes would not have happened without it, you yourself say as much. Yes, they chose to do those terrible things and they are guilty and deserve punishment, I have reiterated that in all my posts. But the point remains that the space to make that choice, or, rather, the absence of space to make genuine choices, on actual fact, was wholly created by the abuse they suffered. Their choice to commit the crime was not as free as the men's, in these cases. No-on can say what effect abuse could or would have on them unless they have suffered it in the same way. How many women are on Mn right now writing posts about how they can't believe they used to be so confident and high-flying, etc., etc., and now they are cowering shells of women scared to say boo to a goose, thanks to abuse?

It's not about saying women are weak. I am a proactive Feminist, I would hardly state such a thing. I see ours as a deeply misogynist country that allows abuse to flourish and for abusive tropes to be presented as norms or even desirable ( Fifty Shades of Grey, for example). It is precisely because I am a Feminist that I cannot separate the abuse aspect - which is misogyny put into its most pervasive and life-altering action - from the motives of the female criminals we are discussing.

I feel sorry she was abused, I didn't watch Panorama but reading others mention his comments to her after she performed a sex act on his friend and he sounds utterly repulsive. I just don't think it has any bearing on her participation in the death of the children.

I'm of the view that no human being becomes a sadistic abuser or a murderer a rapist without having been fucked up by someone else somewhere along the way.or the presence of major mental illness.

If we are going to look to explain why people do awful things then I just don't see that there should be a distinction between men and women. Because there can't possibly be one.

And this isn't some poor Menzies stance, I think it does a huge disservice to women.

Menz, even!

These discussion never are objective about impact of abuse,eg upon adult
It usually always ends up a man has imposed control/abuse on woman
The actions of men upon women becomes topic,not objective discussion of dysfunction

I am just very thankful that I have not had her life experiences.

Read about him today, he put a pillow near his babies face and threatened to smother him unless his ex did what he said, all money from her job went into her bank and of course, being beaten up all the time, kept as a sex slave, he got their 3 year old to punch and kick her (by the way they were together since she was 13 and he was 37 so I feel bad calling her his 'ex' because she was a victim not a girlfriend..) vile vile man. I've been in a bad mood since reading it to be honest

I actually think it belittles women to always cast them as the victim.

We are either thinking, equal beings in all respects or we are like children who are always under someone else's control.

Also to say Myra Hindley would have commited no crime had she not met Ian Brady is a moot point.Nobody can say that.They mightnt have been the same magnitude for what she went down for but its possible.

Lisa Willis got teh nerve to leave him,Mairead could have done teh same but to me from what i gather she thought more of him than her kids.

Lisa Willi's did have the strength to leave she certainly would have had help and this angered him so much he planned to get his revenge by setting alight to his own home to frame her

I think leaving a man who would even think of doing such a thing, while also controlling everything that went on in the home, controlling all the money and constantly degrading you plus having six (five of your own) children to take with you would seem utterly impossible I suspect this is why she tried to commit suicide

And no one is saying I here women are always victims but every woman he has been involved with have been because he chose to abuse them and one he tried to murder

Interesting to hear Anne Widdecombe on the radio yesterday arguing against claims that it is about benefit culture and also how controlling and manipulative he was and that his wife and girlfriend were controlled and manipulate by him

I'm not one for thinking better of criminals just because they're women or mothers but in this case as others have said- his previous crimes against women that crossed him and the fact there were two men there doing the deed with her makes me question whether she could have actually stopped it? Once the petrol was poured you wouldn't leave,animal instinct.Prior to the pouring could she have left with her own life to tell the police?

Abusive people can erode self esteem,humanity etc.She'd seen what happened to others who left.Was she educated enough to know she could survive in her own,that he wouldn't make her pay etc.

I don't know.We don't know her or all the details.The judge will know more so we'll see what is reflected in her sentence.

This whole case has sickened me and I don't know what to think a lot of the time.