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Yu_Bum_suk

Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Interesting story today about how the accused is an 18-year-old transient daughter of a stripper. In no way does that excuse anything she did, but I have high school students her age and I can see how horrid family situations can screw someone up pretty severely. |
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Manner of Speaking

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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As OTOH and Fubar have pointed out, I have got some of the details wrong. My bad.
My original point, though, is that for some reason people have been brainwashed into thinking that women are inherently morally superior than men, and this mindset is especially prevalent in Canada. And as a result, it can prevent people from seeing that women can be just as capable of committing terrible crimes as men are, on an individual basis. There are lots of people who think that women shouldn't be held as accountable as men for the same crime, and even some who think that women should never be put in prison at all. Regardless of how serious or heinous the crime is that they are convicted of.
This does a serious disservice to gender equality, to the concept of justice, the concept of accountability for your actions - especially criminal ones - and it distorts the work of the police and the justice system. It can even be a public safety issue. |
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SeoulnPepe
Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Location: Seoul
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 7:50 pm Post subject: |
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I wonder. Do the authorities in the Antilles know who's living there? Perhaps someone ought to tip them about who actually resides on one of their islands.
What is it with Canada's court system relying on extreme left thinkers? You've got Homolka's psychologists, then there are the shrinks of the guy who beheaded another fellow on a greyhound bus, and then you have the incident of John Robin Sharpe (Korea should ban him from ever coming here); to his aide came several extreme left thinking professors.
God forbid that things will get worse...
Last edited by SeoulnPepe on Thu May 21, 2009 8:57 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
As OTOH and Fubar have pointed out, I have got some of the details wrong. My bad.
My original point, though, is that for some reason people have been brainwashed into thinking that women are inherently morally superior than men, and this mindset is especially prevalent in Canada. And as a result, it can prevent people from seeing that women can be just as capable of committing terrible crimes as men are, on an individual basis. There are lots of people who think that women shouldn't be held as accountable as men for the same crime, and even some who think that women should never be put in prison at all. Regardless of how serious or heinous the crime is that they are convicted of.
This does a serious disservice to gender equality, to the concept of justice, the concept of accountability for your actions - especially criminal ones - and it distorts the work of the police and the justice system. It can even be a public safety issue. |
Is it about women being morally superior? There are some vicious f***ed up women out there but violent sexual crimes are committed overwhelmingly by men. This is not because they lack women's moral superiority, but because they have impulses that women tend to lack.
Women who kill don't tend to do it in savage vicious ways (though some do). And when they do, it's usually to particular individuals, not just random victims they fancied or masturbated about. And these (foul) women who go along with these types of sexual murders (Myra Hindly, Rose West and the like) are going along with their partners fantasies, not stuff they themselves have been masturbating wildly about for years and years.
It's not about moral superiority or lack of it. It's about perverse lusts and appetites for violence and the power that comes with it. Women tend to lack those drives.
That's why when you have children, you'll prefer that they sought out strange women and not strange men, in the horrible worse case scenario that they were lost or in trouble. Statistically, they're still much more likely to run into a Ted Bundy than an (activated)* Myra Hindley.
*I say activated, because I imagine there are probably thousands upon thousands of women in the world who could do what she did, if they'd met that certain 'Mr Right.' |
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Manner of Speaking

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
As OTOH and Fubar have pointed out, I have got some of the details wrong. My bad.
My original point, though, is that for some reason people have been brainwashed into thinking that women are inherently morally superior than men, and this mindset is especially prevalent in Canada. And as a result, it can prevent people from seeing that women can be just as capable of committing terrible crimes as men are, on an individual basis. There are lots of people who think that women shouldn't be held as accountable as men for the same crime, and even some who think that women should never be put in prison at all. Regardless of how serious or heinous the crime is that they are convicted of.
This does a serious disservice to gender equality, to the concept of justice, the concept of accountability for your actions - especially criminal ones - and it distorts the work of the police and the justice system. It can even be a public safety issue. |
Is it about women being morally superior? There are some vicious f***ed up women out there but violent sexual crimes are committed overwhelmingly by men. This is not because they lack women's moral superiority, but because they have impulses that women tend to lack. |
Big Bird,
The reason why I am commenting on this is that for those of us from Canada, it seems to be a particularly prevalent problem there...there is a lot of distortion in the media and the justice system in the ways that men and women are judged and sentenced when they commit the identical crime. In Canada, men are twice as likely to be sentenced to jail as women are for the same offense...and women are twice as likely to get probation or a suspended sentence for the same offense.
| Quote: |
Women who kill don't tend to do it in savage vicious ways (though some do). And when they do, it's usually to particular individuals, not just random victims they fancied or masturbated about. And these (foul) women who go along with these types of sexual murders (Myra Hindly, Rose West and the like) are going along with their partners fantasies, not stuff they themselves have been masturbating wildly about for years and years.
It's not about moral superiority or lack of it. It's about perverse lusts and appetites for violence and the power that comes with it. Women tend to lack those drives. |
I think you'd agree, though, that regardless of what men or women as a whole "tend" to think or tend to do...on an individual basis, people who commit essentially the same crime or a crime of equal seriousness should be treated the same, regardless of their gender. Maybe their backgrounds are taken into account, which could account for some of the differences in the way men and women are sentenced in Canada.
And also, we don't prosecute or sentence people for their impulses or their fantasies. We sentence people for their actions. I've seen lots of teenagers and websites by teenagers that are dark, brooding, and just plain sick, but we don't put teenagers in jail unless they commit a crime.
When women are given a lesser sentence than a man would receive for the same crime, it is arguably a form of backhanded chauvinism....judges who do this are saying that women are not as capable of being responsible for any crimes they commit, or that society should (subconsciously) not hold all members to the same standard when it comes to violating the criminal code.
And the problem as I see it - at least in Canada - is that there is a blanket presumption of women as morally superior such that the average individual and as a result the police have trouble handling or dealing with females who do commit violent or gruesome crimes. In the Karla Homolka case in Canada, it later turned out according to the videotape evidence that she was just as willing and active participant in the sexual assault and murder of three teenage girls as her husband. |
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Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 2:22 am Post subject: |
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Do you have stats for these crimes where women get off lightly? Maybe this is true, but I'd like to see some evidence for it. I do recall reading an article sometime ago that the opposite is true of parents who negligently allow their children to die in closed cars. Women are supposedly given harsher sentences because society has higher expectations of them. i.e. "How could a mother leave her child in the car and forget?" Men are apparently expected to do these things. [My own opinion is that this could very easily happen to the best intentioned person, if they weren't vigilant] Also, I know that Myra Hindley was hated far more than her partner Ian Bradley for assisting him in his horrific pasttime of raping and murdering children. I think this idea that 'women should know better' oft as not works against them. Unless it is Canada perhaps.
Until recently, I had never heard the 'women are morally superior' complaint, except references to it by you and Gopher on this forum. It must be some North American thing? And so I just googled it up and found this:
Exploring a Misconception about Feminism: Women�s Superiority
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The language of women as morally superior actually didn�t come from the feminists�it came from those who were trying to uphold a patriarchal, middle-class structure. During the 19th century, the predominant idea of what a woman should be was that of �the angel in the house.� While this model of womanhood was that women should be meek and submissive to to their husbands, it also included a belief that women should be the caregivers of the children and remain at home because they were more pure, more innocent, etc. When the suffragettes started agitating for the vote, there were arguments that women should not have the vote because they were not capable of making rational decisions, but some of the reasons were the exact opposite (as Lynnette pointed out in her recent post on women�s suffrage): women should not have the vote because the intricacies and difficulties of the political sphere would sully their perfection. If feminists adopted the same kinds of assumptions, it usually was because, like the women who write the �Declaration of Sentiments,� they were trying to address the common assumptions about 19th century womanhood because that is how they would gain support for their cause.
In current day discourse (including in the church), I see similar kinds of patterns. Those who I hear most vociferously arguing for the perfection and superiority of women are people like President Hinckley: �Woman is God�s supreme creation. Only after the earth had been formed, after the day had been separated from the night, after the waters had been divided from the land, after vegetation and animal life had been created, and after man had been placed on the earth, was woman created; and only then was the work pronounced complete and good.� And as much as I love President Hinckley and believe that he loves the women of the church and has their best interests at heart, �feminist� is not a term I would use to describe him (or, I believe, a word that he would use to describe himself).
And while there may be the occasional feminist that will affirm a speech like the one given by President Hinckley (women who adopt the title of feminist are a diverse bunch), most feminists I know and associate with when confronted with speeches about their purity and superiority and goodness, want to run from the room. Most of the speeches I hear about women and their superiority usually come from those most invested in upholding a patriarchal structure with traditional gender roles. |
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Manner of Speaking

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Do you have stats for these crimes where women get off lightly? Maybe this is true, but I'd like to see some evidence for it. |
Yup. Lots of studies in the United States and Canada have shown that female offenders are much more likely than men to receive suspended sentences for the same crime. The figure I mentioned above is from a Statistics Canada report I read a few years ago that I can't lay my hands on right now, but I did find the following. Now again, bear in mind I (and probably Gopher) are speaking from the North American experience:
| one study wrote: |
Despite these criticisms, an impressive number of methodologically sound, multivariate studies report that women offenders (in the United States - my italics - MOS) receive preferential treatment.
For example, in a study of sentences meted out to 6562 offenders convicted in ten federal district courts, Hagan, Nagel, and Albonetti found that gender affects sentence severity in white collar cases, even after controlling for variables such as the offender's prior record, the number and severity of the charged offenses, the type of offense, and the defendant's age, ethnicity, education, and physical health. In a subsequent study, Hagan, Nagel, and Albonetti analyzed the sentences of 1239 defendants convicted in the state of New York. They controlled for prior record, offense characteristics, and offender characteristics such as race, age, and employment, and found that females were treated preferentially at sentencing.
These quantitative analyses are consistent with the findings derived from qualitative data collected through interviews with judges, in which many acknowledged treating female offenders preferentially. Simon and Landis cite a 1973 study of twenty-three judges in large midwestern cities, in which more than half said that "they do treat women more leniently and more gently than they do men; that they are more inclined to recommend probation rather than imprisonment; and if they sentence a woman, it is usually for a shorter time than if the crime had been committed by a man.'"
Simon and Landis also cite a 1988 study, in which twelve judges in the Washington D.C. area discussed the sentencing of women. Eleven of them reported that "they `tended to treat women more gently than they do men.'"
In 1983, Professors Ilene Nagel and John Hagan reviewed the existing empirical literature and found that the bulk of research on gender and crime -- drawn from a variety of both state and federal courts, and using a variety of methodological techniques -- supported the preferential treatment hypothesis. More recent analyses of the literature reach the same conclusion.
The role of gender in a structured sentencing system: equal treatment, policy choices, and the sentencing of female offenders under the United States sentencing guidelines. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Summer, 1994 by Ilene H. Nagel, Barry L. Johnson |
| Quote: |
| I do recall reading an article sometime ago that the opposite is true of parents who negligently allow their children to die in closed cars. Women are supposedly given harsher sentences because society has higher expectations of them. i.e. "How could a mother leave her child in the car and forget?" Men are apparently expected to do these things. [My own opinion is that this could very easily happen to the best intentioned person, if they weren't vigilant]. |
I don't know much about that aspect but I have no reason to doubt your assertion. And as you point out, it's just as equally a sexist assertion; what is it about being a mother that should make her more responsible or culpable than a father committing the same error? It's also gender-based sentencing and its also unfair.
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| Until recently, I had never heard the 'women are morally superior' complaint, except references to it by you and Gopher on this forum. It must be some North American thing? |
Perhaps the women-as-morally-superior assumption has been more prevalent in North American feminism than elsewhere, I don't know. Barbara Ehrenrich is one of the more interesting writers/reporters on the left in the US, and a few years ago she wrote the following about the Abu Ghraib photos in the LA Times:
| she wrote: |
A certain kind of feminism, or perhaps I should say a certain kind of feminist naivete, died in Abu Ghraib. It was a feminism that saw men as the perpetual perpetrators, women as the perpetual victims and male sexual violence against women as the root of all injustice. Rape has repeatedly been an instrument of war and, to some feminists, it was beginning to look as if war was an extension of rape. There seemed to be at least some evidence that male sexual sadism was connected to our species' tragic propensity for violence. That was before we had seen female sexual sadism in action.
But it's not just the theory of this naive feminism that was wrong. So was its strategy and vision for change. That strategy and vision rested on the assumption, implicit or stated outright, that women were morally superior to men. We had a lot of debates over whether it was biology or conditioning that gave women the moral edge -- or simply the experience of being a woman in a sexist culture. But the assumption of superiority, or at least a lesser inclination toward cruelty and violence, was more or less beyond debate. After all, women do most of the caring work in our culture, and in polls are consistently less inclined toward war than men.
I'm not the only one wrestling with that assumption today. Mary Jo Melone, a columnist for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, wrote on May 7: "I can't get that picture of England [pointing at a hooded Iraqi man's genitals] out of my head because this is not how women are expected to behave. Feminism taught me 30 years ago that not only had women gotten a raw deal from men, we were morally superior to them."
If that assumption had been accurate, then all we would have had to do to make the world a better place -- kinder, less violent, more just -- would have been to assimilate into what had been, for so many centuries, the world of men. We would fight so that women could become the generals, CEOs, senators, professors and opinion-makers -- and that was really the only fight we had to undertake. Because once they gained power and authority, once they had achieved a critical mass within the institutions of society, women would naturally work for change. That's what we thought, even if we thought it unconsciously -- and it's just not true. Women can do the unthinkable.
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/may/16/opinion/op-ehrenreich16?pg=1 |
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3MB
Joined: 26 Mar 2009
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Wow, leave it to big bird to defend Homolka. |
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riverboy
Joined: 03 Jun 2003 Location: Incheon
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Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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| 3MB wrote: |
| Wow, leave it to big bird to defend Homolka. |
Only someone as dimwitted as yourself could read my skepticism and exploration of the apparent widespread acceptance of "women's moral superiority" - and the allegation that this (if it exists) is yielding up great benefits to female criminals - as some sort of a defence of Homolka.
I guess this is why you routinely prefer the company of blowup dolls. They're a lot less taxing on your delicate intellect. |
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Big_Bird

Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Do you have stats for these crimes where women get off lightly? Maybe this is true, but I'd like to see some evidence for it. |
Yup. Lots of studies in the United States and Canada have shown that female offenders are much more likely than men to receive suspended sentences for the same crime. The figure I mentioned above is from a Statistics Canada report I read a few years ago that I can't lay my hands on right now, but I did find the following. Now again, bear in mind I (and probably Gopher) are speaking from the North American experience:
| one study wrote: |
Despite these criticisms, an impressive number of methodologically sound, multivariate studies report that women offenders (in the United States - my italics - MOS) receive preferential treatment.
For example, in a study of sentences meted out to 6562 offenders convicted in ten federal district courts, Hagan, Nagel, and Albonetti found that gender affects sentence severity in white collar cases, even after controlling for variables such as the offender's prior record, the number and severity of the charged offenses, the type of offense, and the defendant's age, ethnicity, education, and physical health. In a subsequent study, Hagan, Nagel, and Albonetti analyzed the sentences of 1239 defendants convicted in the state of New York. They controlled for prior record, offense characteristics, and offender characteristics such as race, age, and employment, and found that females were treated preferentially at sentencing.
These quantitative analyses are consistent with the findings derived from qualitative data collected through interviews with judges, in which many acknowledged treating female offenders preferentially. Simon and Landis cite a 1973 study of twenty-three judges in large midwestern cities, in which more than half said that "they do treat women more leniently and more gently than they do men; that they are more inclined to recommend probation rather than imprisonment; and if they sentence a woman, it is usually for a shorter time than if the crime had been committed by a man.'"
Simon and Landis also cite a 1988 study, in which twelve judges in the Washington D.C. area discussed the sentencing of women. Eleven of them reported that "they `tended to treat women more gently than they do men.'"
In 1983, Professors Ilene Nagel and John Hagan reviewed the existing empirical literature and found that the bulk of research on gender and crime -- drawn from a variety of both state and federal courts, and using a variety of methodological techniques -- supported the preferential treatment hypothesis. More recent analyses of the literature reach the same conclusion.
The role of gender in a structured sentencing system: equal treatment, policy choices, and the sentencing of female offenders under the United States sentencing guidelines. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Summer, 1994 by Ilene H. Nagel, Barry L. Johnson |
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This is interesting MOS. I tried to do some more reading on it as there are articles that seem to contradict this, or give more nuanced discussions of it. I found a few discussions pointing out that although at face value the crime is the same, reasons why women committed the crime, or the circumstances of their involvement often differ markedly. Also, there was a mention that when all the characteristics of the crime (such as whether it involved a weapon, or the amount of drugs involved) are looked at, the disparity between the gap closes.
I should have noted the links and posted them here for later reference. I was just looking at this piece by Raeder too: http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=info:bjcJ9sNhB9YJ:scholar.google.com/&output=viewport&pg=1
but I couldn't get access to anything other than that page of it. It looks an interesting read. But I have an assignment due! So maybe I will look at this another time.
I must say though, that were I a judge I would be reluctant to impose harsh sentences on a mother of young kids, because I'd have to weigh the need for punishment against the default punishment the children would incur by the loss of their mother. There are many cases in Britain of women being thrown in gaol for ridiculous things, like not paying their TV licence. Their children suffer disproportionately as a result.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
| Until recently, I had never heard the 'women are morally superior' complaint, except references to it by you and Gopher on this forum. It must be some North American thing? |
Perhaps the women-as-morally-superior assumption has been more prevalent in North American feminism than elsewhere, I don't know. Barbara Ehrenrich is one of the more interesting writers/reporters on the left in the US, and a few years ago she wrote the following about the Abu Ghraib photos in the LA Times:
| she wrote: |
A certain kind of feminism, or perhaps I should say a certain kind of feminist naivete, died in Abu Ghraib. It was a feminism that saw men as the perpetual perpetrators, women as the perpetual victims and male sexual violence against women as the root of all injustice. Rape has repeatedly been an instrument of war and, to some feminists, it was beginning to look as if war was an extension of rape. There seemed to be at least some evidence that male sexual sadism was connected to our species' tragic propensity for violence. That was before we had seen female sexual sadism in action.
But it's not just the theory of this naive feminism that was wrong. So was its strategy and vision for change. That strategy and vision rested on the assumption, implicit or stated outright, that women were morally superior to men. We had a lot of debates over whether it was biology or conditioning that gave women the moral edge -- or simply the experience of being a woman in a sexist culture. But the assumption of superiority, or at least a lesser inclination toward cruelty and violence, was more or less beyond debate. After all, women do most of the caring work in our culture, and in polls are consistently less inclined toward war than men.
I'm not the only one wrestling with that assumption today. Mary Jo Melone, a columnist for the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, wrote on May 7: "I can't get that picture of England [pointing at a hooded Iraqi man's genitals] out of my head because this is not how women are expected to behave. Feminism taught me 30 years ago that not only had women gotten a raw deal from men, we were morally superior to them."
If that assumption had been accurate, then all we would have had to do to make the world a better place -- kinder, less violent, more just -- would have been to assimilate into what had been, for so many centuries, the world of men. We would fight so that women could become the generals, CEOs, senators, professors and opinion-makers -- and that was really the only fight we had to undertake. Because once they gained power and authority, once they had achieved a critical mass within the institutions of society, women would naturally work for change. That's what we thought, even if we thought it unconsciously -- and it's just not true. Women can do the unthinkable.
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/may/16/opinion/op-ehrenreich16?pg=1 |
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Interesting. I have never heard talk of women's moral superiority in Britain. But then again, I've never taken women/gender studies. But America does seem to bang on about morality an awful lot more than we do.
Last edited by Big_Bird on Fri May 22, 2009 6:54 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Manner of Speaking

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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| 3MB wrote: |
| Wow, leave it to big bird to defend Homolka. |
I have no idea where you are getting that from.  |
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Manner of Speaking

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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BB,
Former Korean President Roh Mu-Hyun died this morning at around 9:00am...he was under investigation for receiving bribes while in office. First reports were that it was a hiking accident, but now the news reporting he left behind a suicide note.
Right now everybody here is glued to their TV sets. More later. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Location: retired
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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| 3MB wrote: |
| Wow, leave it to big bird to defend Homolka. |
Weak. She did nothing of the sort. |
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Yu_Bum_suk

Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
Is it about women being morally superior? There are some vicious f***ed up women out there but violent sexual crimes are committed overwhelmingly by men. This is not because they lack women's moral superiority, but because they have impulses that women tend to lack.
Women who kill don't tend to do it in savage vicious ways (though some do). And when they do, it's usually to particular individuals, not just random victims they fancied or masturbated about. And these (foul) women who go along with these types of sexual murders (Myra Hindly, Rose West and the like) are going along with their partners fantasies, not stuff they themselves have been masturbating wildly about for years and years.
It's not about moral superiority or lack of it. It's about perverse lusts and appetites for violence and the power that comes with it. Women tend to lack those drives.
That's why when you have children, you'll prefer that they sought out strange women and not strange men, in the horrible worse case scenario that they were lost or in trouble. Statistically, they're still much more likely to run into a Ted Bundy than an (activated)* Myra Hindley.
*I say activated, because I imagine there are probably thousands upon thousands of women in the world who could do what she did, if they'd met that certain 'Mr Right.' |
But you're letting the boogymen win by cowering to such fears. The % of men who might jump at the chance to abduct a lost a child might be .001% instead of .0001% of women (and who knows, given some childless women's maternity complexes the % might be the same or higher). But it's still a very remote fear, and your child's much more likely be to abducted or abused by someone familiar to the family, statistically.
Some things might also vary more by culture than by sex, too. If you don't want your kids to be physically abused or innapropriately touched by teachers you'd be a lot better off taking your chances with western men than Korean women, for instance. |
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