Cases that involve filicide tend to grasp the attention of the entire nation. The idea that anyone would want to kill their children not only makes people very upset, but it influences how cases like this are handled in the criminal justice system. Men often times tend to be less vilified that women when it comes to committing crimes. Society expects violence and aggression from men, so when women exhibit these behaviors, people tend to be disgusted by their behavior. In the media and in the courtroom, women are treated more harshly that than their male counterparts because their behavior is unexpected of them. However, it is not just gender expected differences that cause women to be more harshly critiqued when they commit crime. There are …show more content…
A biological basis for gender behaviors make it impossible for anyone to really have choice in their behaviors or how they are perceived. The biological argument does not allow any variation within people and can be used as an excuse for people who behave in extremely gendered ways. For example, if men were seen as naturally more violent because they have more testosterone, then it shifts responsibility from men to keep their aggression in check because it is “natural.” These are the same kinds of arguments that have been used to marginalize other groups in America’s history by claiming that there is something biologically inferior about other races of people. The biological argument, especially in a country like the U.S., helps to maintain gender inequality. Men, who have always been the patriarchs, can retain their power by using the biological perspective as a means to discuss women’s inferiority. The biological argument is still made often even now to explain why a particular sex does …show more content…
Many women find themselves wanted to be good mothers or perfect mothers and find that they cannot live up to those idea of motherhood. The pressure on women to embody gender stereotypes that are based on decades-old research has made many of them feel inadequate and helpless. Parenting is seen as something that should come easily for women and it is not. There should be more psychological assistance available to women that have children. There also needs to be different criteria for how a case is brought up into court. In the Andrea Yates trial for instance, it was difficult to figure out exactly what crime to try her for. As West and Lichtenstein says, Yates claimed that she had post-partum psychosis and that is what drove her to do what she did. However, there is only one test that is used to see if this is indeed the case. There is also not much literature written about post-partum psychosis so using it in a U.S. court of law proves to be problematic. In the United States as opposed to other Western nations, the legal system has treated maternal filicide as murder regardless of whether or not the mother is mentally ill
Throughout history, certain problems or societal aspects are often associated with one gender or the other. Manual labor was, and still is, often performed by men, while more skillful tasks, such as cooking and sewing, were done by women. By using the ideas put forth by Judith Lorber in Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology, we can analyze the findings of Matthew Petrocelli, Trish Oberwies, and Joseph Petrocelli’s “Getting Huge, Getting Ripped.” Lorber’s ideas of people having unique experiences, gender being one of society’s inventions, and a power differential between men and women can help us understand why men feel the need to use steroids to become the ideal male.
There is a broad spectrum of crimes that are committed day to day. When one thinks of murder, parental murder against children is not at the forefront of the mind. Filicide, or the murder of one’s child, is a crime that is common but not mentioned often. About 500 filicide cases happen each year, which has been close to the same number for about a decade (Orenstein, Brown University, 2014). Also according to studies, boys were 58.3 percent more likely to be killed than girls. Looking at statistics from the National Institute of Health, as of 2004 in the US, 311 of 578 (53.8%) children under the age of five were murdered by their parents. From 1976 to 2004, maternal filicide accounted for 30 percent of all children under the age of five while
In “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” Deborah Blum states that “gender roles of our culture reflect an underlying biology” (Blum 679). Maasik and Solomon argue that gender codes and behavior “are not the result of some sort of natural or biological destiny, but are instead politically motivated cultural constructions,” (620) raising the question whether gender behavior begins in culture or genetics. Although one may argue that gender roles begin in either nature or nurture, many believe that both culture and biology have an influence on the behavior.
...socially directed hormonal instructions which specify that females will want to have children and will therefore find themselves relatively helpless and dependent on males for support and protection. The schema claims that males are innately aggressive and competitive and therefore will dominate over females. The social hegemony of this ideology ensures that we are all raised to practice gender roles which will confirm this vision of the nature of the sexes. Fortunately, our training to gender roles is neither complete nor uniform. As a result, it is possible to point to multitudinous exceptions to, and variations on, these themes. Biological evidence is equivocal about the source of gender roles; psychological androgyny is a widely accepted concept. It seems most likely that gender roles are the result of systematic power imbalances based on gender discrimination.9
There are many heinous crimes that have saturated our society; news reports of a woman being attacked while walking to her car late at night, a child being abducted and his frantic mother pleading with the assailant to let her child go. There is a common theme threaded into the reports we frequently see plastered on our television screens and that theme is masculinity in crime. It seems almost unfathomable that a woman could commit murder, least of all a sex crime. Due to this distorted thinking of the masses, society has shaped judicial systems worldwide to panelize women less frequently and even less harshly than their male counterparts. When a jury of peers sits in judgment of little Susie Q, wife and mother of 4, on counts of child molestation the initial opinion is that of disbelief. If this was a man sitting in Susie’s place, that man is likely considered a pervert, well before any facts or evidence is even mentioned.
In the correction world there is a lot to deal with and one big aspect of it is that there are many women that go into jails or prisons pregnant or already having children. The amount of women in jails or prisons keeps rising over the years. There are better ways then keeping pregnant women in jails. Alternatives for these women are in there best interests.
What do people see in a police officer? When a police officer walks into a public area he or she is judged immediately due to recent news and stereotypes. The stereotypical officer with his or her gun strapped to their pants and sunglasses on their head stand out to the average eye. Society deems these individuals as too powerful and potentially harmful to the public for many reasons. Young people mainly think that most cops are unjust and abuse their power, sadly this is not the case. The wrongful stereotyping of police being intimidating is enhanced by the media and causes people to change their views on law enforcement.
More than one in three women in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime (The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2012). Thirty to sixty percent of perpetrators tend to also abuse children in the household (Edelson, 1999). Witnessing violence between parents or caretakers is considered the strongest risk factor for transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next (Break the Cycle, 2006). State legislatures are increasingly passing statues that encourage participants in the Criminal Justice System to attack the issue of domestic violence more aggressively. Some states still fail to realize that IPV involving a woman that is pregnant should be considered a felony because it affects the well-being of the unborn child.
The socio-biological theory suggests gender appropriate behaviour has evolved to allow humanity to survive. There is supporting evidence in the composition of the human body; men have a larger lung capacity and greater physical strength than women in order to better equip them for protecting their family. In contrast, women are born with child-bearing capacities and are therefore biologically predetermined to care for their children, thus ensuring the human race survives.
The year is 2016. These United States of America proudly lifts its chin and looks at the tremendous social progress made over the past century. The feeble, weak and homebound women of America gained the right to vote in 1920. The Civil Rights movement humbly and with ease lifted the Jim Crow laws in the 1960’s and created a free, color blind, utopia oasis eagerly filled with fried chicken and uncomfortable Madea References references for all. Our founding fathers would choke on their overtaxed tea if only they knew that men were boning men in the freest country in the world. Alas, they would lift their monocles if they knew women were roaming the streets with their knees exposed for all to see and experience. Oh, how social justice and
From the start women who commit violent crimes are all ready in the spot-light. Society has grown quite accustomed to viewing the womens role in violent crimes as that of the victim. When the women is a violator it incites a gross media fascination as a novelty. Convicted women gain more notoriety then men who are found guilty of committing the same crime. In certain cases like Amy Fisher, Loren Bobbit and most recently Louise Woodward the media celebrate the violence of women. If it had been a man who shot his lovers mate in the head or slashed and dismembered their spouse or shook a baby to death things would be different. The media would not give as in depth of coverage to the trial and sentencing would be of a longer time. The media escalates these women to such extremes due to the fact that there are so few women who are tried for criminally violent acts. Society tends to be more sympathetic to women who commit violent crimes than men. To this day Americans are still reluctant to put women to death. The recent execution of Karla Faye Tucker had the country in an uproar. This is because women are seen as less scary and less dangerous then men.
Changes in society have brought issues regarding gender stereotype. Gender roles are shifting in the US. Influences of women’s movement (Firestone, Firestone, & Catlett, 2006) and gender equality movement (e.g., Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)) have contributed to expanding social roles for both genders. Nevertheless, gender stereotypes, thus gender stereotype roles continue to exist in the society (Skelly & Johnson, 2011; Wood & Eagly, 2010). With changes in gender roles, pervasiveness of gender stereotype results in a sense of guilt, resentment, and anger when people are not living up to traditional social expectations (Firestone, Firestone, & Catlett, 2006). Furthermore, people can hold gender stereotype in pre-reflective level that they may
In society we have unspoken rules and societal norms that teach us how everyone is supposed to behave. These rules are specific to a person’s sex and gender identity and can be heavy policed if broken or followed too much. These societal norms are based on a gender binary. This binary is the male masculinity and female femininity roles. Male masculinity roles include the man being the bread winner in a family, the man has to fit the hegemonic masculinity ideal male image. This image includes many different factors that men should mold themselves. Some include a man that is strong, can fight, white, rich, straight, smart, and muscular (Wade & Ferree, P. 125)
Gender stereotyping has been ongoing throughout history. The media has been distorting views by representing gender unrealistically and inaccurately. It created an image of what "masculinity" or "femininity" should be like and this leads to the image being "naturalized" in a way (Gail and Humez 2014). The media also attempts to shape their viewers into something ‘desirable’ to the norm. This essay will focus on the negative impacts of gender-related media stereotypes by looking at the pressures the media sets on both women and men, and also considering the impacts on children.
In order to tackle the issue of gender based violence, one must first understand the root of the issue. According to Peterson and Runyan, gender refers to the socially learned behavior and expectations that distinguish between masculinity and femininity. However, sex identity is known as the genetic and anatomical characteristics. Meanwhile, socially learned gender is an acquired identity gained through performing predetermined gender roles. Understandably, Society places different values on masculine and feminine behaviors. Gender has now become the basis for relations of inequality and is a powerful lens that we all use to experience and organize reality.