Would you take part in a Particicution?

[ThePM]

In the handmaids tale, Particicution is a form of execution where the handmaids get to basically batter a violent sexual offender to death.

when I first read the book I remember feeling absolute revulsion. But when I now read of sexual offenders and men who murder women and children they claim to love, I know that I would join in a Particiution against them. Not as a volunteer but similar to jury service.

Anyone else.

No.

I would prosecute now. I didn't when I was raped at uni because it was "a vanilla rape" (my words), the rapist was BAME, and there were ethnic tensions that I didn't want to exacerbate. I now cringe at the extent of my female socialisation, putting everyone else's needs before my own.

I am so sorry to every other woman, especially those who were harmed by this man. He was in a law enforcement program and the uni expelled him, which I wanted. I was young and naive enough to think that would make it impossible to get a law enforcement or security job.

I know he probably wouldn't have been convicted but if women never prosecute, the extent of rape and sexual assault gets buried further.

If it were up to me, every rapist and especially every nonce (whether they go so far as to rape or not) would be exiled to a deserted island that only had sexual predators. Separate islands for men and women because I'd never want a child to be anywhere near them.

Margaret Atwood does not portray it as a positive practice.

No.

Hatred shall not cease by hatred, but by love alone. This is an old rule.

That man's behaviour was not and is not your responsibilty.

I've namechanged for this as some friends know the stories.

Many years ago, in my 20s, I was in India with my then boyfriend. A man groped me in the street, and long story short, a crowd gathered and marched him off to the police station. (I wasn't sure this was necessary, but my boyfriend said, "This is what they want to do, you need to come along.")

So, after filling in some forms, I thought the police would give him a small fine or a warning and send him on his way. But instead they sat him on the floor and beat the soles of his bare feet with a stick; by now he was sobbing. Then, they tried to hand me the stick, saying, "Now it is your turn, madam." Then I was crying too and started to walk out, but my boyfriend persuaded me to stay. I didn't take the stick though, and absolutely did not want to hit him.

On another occasion, also many years ago, I was groped in Japan on a train; this time I punched the guy (very ineffectively, as I had never punched anyone before). It was just instinct.

To answer the original question - would I batter a violent sexual offender to death? Well, my examples were more trivial but I'd like to think that in cold blood, absolutely not. In the heat of the moment, possibly; natural reactions kick in. In cold blood in a crowd situation, I would hope not, but our behaviour in crowds is different and we don't always know what we would do. I'd also add that if the violent sex offender had attacked a stranger, perhaps I'd be somewhat dispassionate. If he'd attacked one of my daughters, all bets are off.

There's a reason why 'rules of engagement' exist in war like not executing prisoners & its not purely for strategic reasons but psychological maintenance. Evidence from many returned soldiers has found their participation in brutality has long term mental health consequences. It appears brutalising others however justified doesn't sit well with the human psyche. We just aren't built for it.

Would I partake in it? No
Would I support it being legalised? No
Not even for my rapist.

No. I don't believe in capital punishment.

But they didn't have a choice in Gilead. "What's that, Ofjohn? You don't think he did it and in any case, you think this is a barbaric form of execution? OK, you're free to sit this one out."

I haven't read The Handmaid's Tale, and I think the form of execution as used there, is, as other's have said, probably a way to kill men who are falsely convicted and to control the handmaidens. So no, I wouldn't be interested in that.

I'm also reluctant to give the state the ability to kill people.

But I do think it's ridiculous when people try to say that killing a sex offender, paedophile, or serial killer makes us 'just as bad'. No, no, it really doesn't. Ridding the world of a sadist who has caused untold pain and suffering, and would continue to do so if possible, is not the same thing at all as what they've done.

Is a woman who kills her rapist in vengeance just as bad as the rapist? Or is a woman who kills her domestically abusive husband just as bad as him? Is that what we're saying now? That to end the man who, for his own sadistic pleasure, tried to emotionally and mentally destroy you, makes you just as bad as him?

That's a disgusting take, imo, to say a victim lashing out at her violator at any point, is 'just as bad' as the violator who abused her in the first place. How can you say that and consider yourself a feminist?

Ultimately, if issues with the state wrongly convicting people out of corrupt reasons, or human error, were somehow magically solved, then I would happily personally execute every sex offender who was convicted. I'd rather not beat their heads in (gross) but I'd feel no qualms about shooting them in the head at close range, for instance. The job satisfaction would be immense.

I have.

When I was a child, being sexually abused, I froze every time. At other points in my early life, during other rapes, I have frozen or fawned - probably because they sent me back into the mind-state of being that abused child again.

But in my misspent youth, I have also been attacked physically several times, and in those cases, whether the attacker was a man or a woman, I fought back - and I didn't have an issue in hitting them hard.

I think most people don't know how they'd react in a violent situation, and while many who might think they'd react with violence could be wrong, equally, many who think/assume they wouldn't react with violence are also wrong.

When you hate someone, when someone is hurting you, when you feel like it needs to be done, when you are part of a crowd, it can also be shockingly easy for people who saw themselves as civilised to lash out violently.

There's a difference between lashing out when attacked and lining up to do it as part of a planned punishment.

Is this in response to my post? If so, I didn't say they were the same thing - they're obviously different situations.

The point of that punishment in the book is it also harms those doing the punishment too. It's a control thing and corrupts as much as it corrects. So no.

No, no, no. The idea of particicution deeply horrifies me. I feel that it’s a hallmark of civilisation that punishment for wrongdoing doesn’t dehumanise the ones doing the punishing. To be honest, I find it difficult to experience depictions of executions in books or films at all, and particicution is another level of horror. I agree with @Namechangee11 that it is designed to corrupt the participants.

Do I think the law fails women and girls in this country? Yes. Absolutely. And things need to change.

Do I believe in mob violence and vigilante justice? No. Because I want to live in a civilised society.

So in the case that I linked to, would you have expected those women to put up with the situation indefinitely rather than taking matters into their own hands? Would you condemn them for what they did?

I'd be interested to know too!

And frankly, I think the women's murder of the man was far more civilised than he was, and also more civilised than the society that allowed him to run rampant and terrorise women and children for so long.

I'd love to know what exactly is uncivilised about victims willingly bringing a violent, monstrous, serial rapist to the kind of violent end that he deserved?

I can relate to the impulse to hunt down and kill an unrepentant rapist if he had harmed me directly, or if he had harmed someone I cared about who was saying "yes, THAT'S him, he did [whatever he did], I can't sleep knowing he's out there". But to kill a random stranger who is already a prisoner, already found guilty and sentenced to death, at the behest and on the word of a state that's at the same time sentencing women to be raped and impregnated routinely? Probably not.

The particutions in handmaids tale weren’t really about delivering justice though, it was an opportunity for a group of people to expel all of their anger, a group who have had everything taken from them, who are persecuted and tortured physically and psychologically day in and day out, who are raped and have had their names and all free will removed from them. it was also another way of retaining control of them, they were given a pressure release and also made to feel so horrifically guilty about what they did that they would feel at least in some small way that their life was a just punishment for the murder they had committed.

While I can in some way relate to the belief that in the right circumstances I could kill a person and feel it was the right thing to do, I don’t think this particular model would work, except possibly in a place like Afghanistan where it honestly wouldn’t surprise me to wake up and see a news story about the women rising up and killing all the men.