Shannon Mathews

[user1477282676]

This was a shocking case. The child was without a doubt a victim in terrible circumstances. Her own Mother stashing her away under the bed of her partner...drugging her, lying to the public and to her friends about such an awful thing.

But.

Does anyone here think that the press and the public demonised her in a far worse fashion than criminals who do worse have been?

She was pilloried, called terrible names...really made into a sort of figurehead for everything "unwomanly" when there are plenty of men who commit arguably worse crimes and who get away without the public disgrace.

Yes she did a truly awful thing but the fact that she was

A: A woman
B: Working Class
C: Ignorant
D: Unattractive

All added up to ensure that she was the perfect example of a demon woman. Can anyone expand or tell me more about this sort of thing? Do you agree with me? Are there other cases which are similar?

Birdy I meant that considering that women do violent acts daily also the news coverage should be somewhat more equal but and I think this is why women are perhaps maybe more likely to have more negative attention as on balance it's rare and so it probably garners more attention and emotion

I have never heard anyone speak about Karen Matthews in a way that put her in the same universe, so to speak, of someone like Hindley. Matthews is rightly vilified for what she did; I am not aware that anyone has tried to compare her with those who have committed worse crimes so find the question a bit odd.

Surprised to see anyone feels sorry for Maxine Carr, but there you are.

Hindley's crime was to be a woman.

I actually gasped at this. Hindley's crime was to actively participate in the abduction, rape, torture and murder of children.

This post is about the vilification of women who commit crimes, that if men committed would not lead to such vilification. It seems to me that women are held to more stringent standards than men. It was ever thus. I once helped write a history play of Elizabeth I and her 6 husbands. Oh how we laughed!

There is no doubt that if capital punishment was still in this country (which UKIP hope to bring back, amongst other extreme right wing and some extreme left wing groups), then both Hindley and Brady would have been executed.

This is a history of Capital Punishment.

www.localhistories.org/capital.html

Take the quote out of context why don't you?

" Surprised to see anyone feels sorry for Maxine Carr, but there you are. "

yes I feel sorry for Maxine Carr all she was accused of doing was making a false statement for someone she believed to be innocent. Yet she was brought to court where a lynch mob who had been tipped off were waiting, and sent to Holloway (why?).
Quite honestly it is not too far fetched that the two of them were framed.

This thread is now taking a very peculiar turn indeed.

I don't really get you Louisville, where are you getting the women commit violent acts daily from? And you think they are ignored? And yet it's rare?

Nauticant, there are those out there who think Matthews should be hanged, because why should such a vile woman be kept at taxpayers expense.

Oft lauded, and rightly so, on FWR, is A Handmaid's Tale. Were public executions are commonplace. In fact, public executions are still commonplace on this Planet Earth.

Where, not were obvs.

Birdy for one men supposedly suffer 800,000 cases of domestic abuse compared to 1.2m of women so as there's many other violent crimes it's fair to say that daily there are plenty of violent crimes committed by women. But I'm not trying to make a point about that per se, I mean that in my experience women when committing such crimes are very rarely featured in the news in comparison to men and for them to do so it generally seems a very bad crime. So unlike men who feature almost so very frequently on the news it's unfortunately not as big shock and probably just kinda meld into one being, but women stand out more because (again only in my experience ) you don't hear so much about women so they stick in your mind more.

It's like if you see a pigeon flying ( men on the news doing a violent crime) it's oh ok it's a pigeon flying may have caught your attention at first but you become somewhat passive about it, but if you saw a Llama flying ( women on the news doing a violent crime) you'd think wow that's amazing!

*" Surprised to see anyone feels sorry for Maxine Carr, but there you are. "

yes I feel sorry for Maxine Carr all she was accused of doing was making a false statement for someone she believed to be innocent. Yet she was brought to court where a lynch mob who had been tipped off were waiting, and sent to Holloway (why?).
Quite honestly it is not too far fetched that the two of them were framed.*

Interesting, I admit I do not know much about the case but I did not realise there was doubt about Ian Huntley's guilt or that framing was suspected.
I have a very hard time believing that she thought he was innocent, but even if she did....a false alibi is false....it was not up to her to decide he wouldn't have done it and she should have given the police the facts. That said, the police should not have trusted her at all.

louis

I think those domestic violence figures have been debunked

I could be wrong though and i am sure someone else can link to them

There are people out there who would call for capital punishment to be brought back for the most heinous murders regardless of the sex of the perpetrator.

The last public execution in the UK was in 1868. Public revulsion at the execution of Ruth Ellis was a driving force for abolition. None of this is remotely relevant to what is being discussed so not sure why Elendon is dragging it in. Capitalpunishment is not going to be restored in the UK.

The Handmaid's Tale gets trotted out so often on FWR I sometimes wonder if some posters would not be delighted if became reality so they could all say "told you so"

I do feel sorry for Maxine Carr. What she did bears no comparison to what the other women being discussed did.

I have just looked up a bit about the Soham case. I had forgotten that Huntley had already been accused of many assaults against women and that Maxine Carr had provided him with a previous alibi. So she knew that he had a history of being suspected of multiple sexual and violent offences over years, and he has since confessed to at least one of those earlier crimes I think.

Louisville between 1900 and 1949, 621 men were executed as opposed to 11 women.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_Kingdom

Now, given that women during that time were seen as sub humans, not capable of voting, breeders, property, no divorce, no contraception, no abortion; can you imagine that with such sexism and misogyny, that there were marauding hordes of violent women? Or have women finally caught up with men, re violent acts, due to empowerment no doubt, in the 21st century?

Going back to the original point made by the OP. Double deviance theory Argues that women are punished twice, 1st for their crime then behavior against female gender norms.

Someone mentioned Amanda Knox upthread, this is a good explanation of DD theory using AK georgamankarious.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/double-deviance-and-the-bad-woman-representations-of-amanda-knox-in-the-tabloid-media/

Lass, are you saying that there are no public executions on this planet? I do believe that a cabinet member who likes to roam foreign lands, recently spoke out against one of those countries that use public executions as a day out for the family.

There are people out there who would love capital punishment brought back for a lot less than the 'most heinous of murders' - and who decides what is 'heinous'?

Double deviance conversely suggests that men are naturally violent, and that this behaviour is totally expected from them. I don't believe that men are naturally violent at all.

So I do have to leave this discussion now. Thank you OP for bringing it up. It's a valid argument you bring to the table.

No Elendon I did not say there were no public executions anywhere in the world. I was referring to the UK.

Your level of what aboutery on this thread has been impressive.

Historic executions in the UK, public execution elsewhere, throw in The Handmaid's Tale for good measure, lob in irrelevant reference to bringing back hanging.

Your minimising of Hindley's crimes was breathtaking.

The figures here give a broader picture as regards domestic violence:

www.refuge.org.uk/files/Statistics-domestic-violence-and-gender.pdf

Does it matter if awful criminals are demonised?

Serious question.

"Double deviance conversely suggests that men are naturally violent, and that this behaviour is totally expected from them."
Expected, yes, that's toxic male socialization, but reading the first few paragraphs of the linked article, it says nothing about men being 'naturally' violent. They may be perceived or expected to be naturally violent though, that is quite common, and hence part of the problem. And conversely women are expected to not be violent (unless they are protecting their children, for example, where violence is expected?). Hence women that are violent are somehow non-women as well as being bad.........