Equal Justice

I heard on the radio about a woman who stabbed a man (her husband?) because he rejected her sexual advances. She was arrested, but released on $10,000 bail.

It intrigued me, and I looked on Google to see if there were any similar cases. Here is some of what was listed:

Cops: Woman, 26, Wielded Hatchet After Her Demands For Sex Were Repeatedly Rebuffed – It's dated June 28, 2016, and contains the following “... Free on $5500 bond, she is scheduled for a July 26 court hearing.”

Woman, 56, is arrested after she 'threatened a 25-year-old with a knife and a wooden cane because he rejected her sexual advances' Her bail was $3,500

Woman Threatens Husband with a Knife to Perform Oral Sex – She was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty.

The details of these cases are not of interest to me. And while I have no reason to question the reports, I don't have independent verification of the facts. On the other hand, I suspect that there are other similar circumstances that are not listed in the online files. It seems likely to me that the incidence is under-reported. I doubt that many men would complain to authorities that they were forced by a woman to have sex. And I doesn't seem probable that they would do so with sufficient evidence for the woman to be arrested and charged.

As I mentioned, I'm not especially interested in what happened between the man and the woman. It's none of my business. But the criminal justice system is in the public realm and I pay taxes to support it (even if the offenses were in other jurisdictions), so I am more involved in that aspect of the situations. And I'm interested in the equity of the law and its penalties.

I remember, as well, the Bobbitt case. Although it took place in 1993, the story is hard to forget – a woman amputating her husband's penis because she “snapped.” His provocations were responsible for her state of mind. And because of the temporary insanity, she was found not guilty, requiring only psychiatric evaluation. While her husband's misdeeds may have – indeed, they almost certainly did – caused her to take action, her conduct, and that of the jury that excused it, raise questions. As does the penalty.

If a man, using a knife or a hatchet (or any other “persuader”), attempted to force his wife or any other woman to perform a sexual act, my sense is that he would not have been treated as leniently by the legal system. I am sure that his bail – if any were permitted at all – would have been considerably higher. And any incarceration would have been significantly longer. No mention is made of sexual predator status, but a man would surely have been entered in the sexual offender registry for life. It isn't clear from the articles that the women involved in these incidents suffered the same fate. Not even Lurena Bobbitt, who wasn't responsible for what she did (though if her husband had performed a mastectomy on her the result may have been different).

I have no intention of defending the men who have abused women, however they have done it. With or without weapons other than their fists. Abusive actions call for penalties. Severe penalties. And such actions are usually those of men.

Usually, but not always.

Do we treat women more leniently? It seems that way. Is it society's chivalry? Do we assume women can do no wrong? Sexual abuse of students used to be considered a problem of male teachers, until we learned otherwise. Men and women have differences, but many of them can be characterized by numbers – by quantity rather than quality. Women may be less likely to engage in abusive sexual conduct, and their sexual drives may differ in degree from men's, but we deceive ourselves if we deny their existence; we delude ourselves when we view women as if they were (what we believed were) the innocent damsels of the Middle Ages of whom we read. They were, and they are, people, and just as responsible for their actions as men.

It is fashionable, and has become so in part at the urging of women, to view men as insensitive boors responsible for all the ills we suffer. We have accepted that construct and assume that whatever has transpired, if there is any blame to be assigned, it is to the man. We have trained men to feel guilty all the time. Admittedly there are many who don't buy in, but at present it is “correct” to blame the man and let the woman off the hook. Women are in the majority but we treat them as a minority, and it is society's bias that the minority is being oppressed by the rest of us. So we grant them as many of the benefits of the law as we can, or create new laws to do so, while shielding them from its responsibilities. The scales of justice which, in the past, were weighted against them, now provide them with favor. We talk about equality, but we don't practice it.

We need to grow up. Society needs to mature. The time must come when we not only say that we are all equal, but we act that way. Perhaps some day we'll have, to paraphrase John Adams, a government of [equitable] laws, not of [women and] men. That doesn't seem to be the case currently.





September 22, 2016