Two cases of domestic killing

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DAfeminist's avatar
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These are two cases from the UK of a partner being killed. It's interesting to note the discrepancies in how they were dealt with.

Firstly a man kills his wife following a row over the fact that she had burnt the dinner. The accused claimed it was self defence and that they had had a blissful relationship up to that point. His word on this matter was taken to be true- we will never know what his wife thought of their relationship because she is dead, because HE KILLED HER.

He is found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eighteen months. The judge describes the row as a 'tiff' and comments that he 'believes the couple had a loving and harmonious domestic life'. The judge pointed out that the man was good enough to commit the act of violence in his own home, not out in the street like a 'yob'.
The defence lawyer commented that the killing had been an unfortunate incident in what was 'an otherwise pleasant dinner'.

news.uk.msn.com/uk/articles.as…


Compare and contrast this to the case of a woman who killed her partner. He had a history of being violent and abusive towards her, there are documented incidents of his abuse. She killed him in what she claimed was self defence during a serious assault on her. The judge commented that since she worked with adults with learning disabilites, she should have been able to tolerate domestic violence.
She was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal this was reduced to manslaughter, and she was given a six year sentence.

www.justiceforwomen.org.uk/kir…


There are all sorts of factors at play here. I could point stuff out all day. There are also huge elements of class prejudice at work here, as well as sexism.

However, I think it's interesting that historically women's witness in courts of law, especially when testifying about violence against themselves, has NEVER been considered as credible as men's witness. Even in the Bible and the Qur'an it says that women cannot be the sole witnesses in such cases and their testimony must be backed up by a man.
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loqutor's avatar
These two cases are TOTAL anomalies. The average sentence for a man who kills his wife is 17.5 years. The average sentence for a woman who kills her husband is 6.2 years. [source: U.S. Department of Justice. Domestic Violence: Violence between intimates. Washington, D.C., 1994] In the two decades before Women's Suffrage, there was an epidemic in Chicago of women murdering their husbands and getting away with it, simply by shedding a few tears and flashing a little thigh. [link] Women have lit their husbands on fire while they were sleeping and were pardoned on self-defense. It is NOT self-defense if the person you kill is asleep! In the UK, a woman who did that was not only pardoned, she received a medal from the Prime Minister's wife for her "heroic actions". Look her up: her name is Kiranjit Ahluwalia. Notice she's not white.

In the United States, Texas performs more executions than any other state. Women make up, at bare minimum, 11% of murderers. You know how many women Texas has executed since the Civil War? Three. You know how many people have been executed in Texas since 1976? Over 450. [link] How can you possibly look at that and cry "misogyny"?

As for men being more quickly believed than women in issues of violence? Total bullshit. My mom was verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive to everybody in my family; she was worst to my dad, and he NEVER hit back, even in self-defense. I know this is true, because I saw it myself. He tried staying at a domestic abuse shelter, but they turned him away because he was a man. He went to Catholic Social Services, and they accused him of being the perpetrator. He talked to his pastor about it, and his pastor yelled at him, and told him he wasn't being abused, and didn't know what abuse was. All the time that was going on, he had his white male privilege being used against him to justify it.

And no, I'm not unaware that there are men out there who actually are violent to women. When I was ten years old, I witnessed a woman being stabbed to death by her boyfriend right outside my bedroom window. [link] My father called the police on him, and several other men tried to physically stop him. You know what happened when the police arrived? They shot the man dead, even though he wasn't a threat to them.