I often observe the different ways our society treats men and women. Little is more reflective of this than our courts.
Today I read in the paper that a drug addict step-mother killed her step-child and was sentenced to life without parol.
I can buy that justice in our society, but I note that there is no sense of redemption allowed her.
I was somewhat shocked at this sentence, however, because I've read a couple of little blurbs in the paper about men killing their wives or girlfriends and getting sentences under 10 years (not the famous cases, of course)!
So I found this explanation:
JStor article
The article basically argues that in general, we punish economic and predatory crimes more than domestic crimes (e.g. the average guy's going to get a worse sentence for killing his average neighbor than his average wife), but women generally commit domestic murder (in fewer numbers), and women's sentences for those crimes are generally full force.
Women pay more whether we're the victims or the perpetrators.
We should know this. It also underscores how much the structure of our criminal sentencing devalues families and the fundamental trust we should have in our relationships. I'd be happy to see our criminal justice system place ANY family crime as the worst crime of all (instead of singling out moms' crimes).
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