AP photo
Commentary by Trudy W. Schuett
Today in Northern California, the community is shocked and horrified at the tragic murder of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu. Police believe they have the perpetrator, Melissa Huckaby, who now is under suicide watch at the San Joaquin County Jail.
Virtually all the news reports reflect surprise that the suspect is a woman. Early suspects were all men. CBS News goes to extra lengths in their account to emphasize the view that women are hardly ever guilty of this crime, providing supportive statistics and expert observations. Even though the evidence collected by local police must be compelling, Melissa Huckaby is being treated much differently than a male suspect. No male suspect in a murder would have been allowed to drive himself to the police station, as happened in this case.
Statements from the family changed after the sex of the suspect was known. Prior to the arrest, Jose Chavez, Sandra’s grandfather said at SFChron, “There’s a monster out there. He’s got to be apprehended; he’s got to be put away.” Sandra’s uncle, Joe Chavez said, “It’s against my religion, but for me… [I ask for] the death penalty.”
After the arrest, Joe Chavez said to FOX news, "We're not going to be able to see Sandra grow up to become a beautiful, intelligent young woman that she deserves to be. This woman will be in prison and will be able to see her daughter grow up still."
California is a death penalty state, so what happened there? Perhaps we don’t want to believe a woman could be capable of a heinous crime of this nature.
History speaks differently about the issue, as the past is littered with bodies of those killed by women. While Aileen Wuornos was the best-known of female serial killers, she was hardly alone. A look at books, movies, TV and the jails reveal many stories of women who murdered their spouses, lovers, family members, children and even strangers for a variety of reasons.
Today’s popular culture applauds violent women, and in fact, encourages violence. From a multiplicity of sitcom characters who routinely slap around their husbands, to characters like Lara Croft and Mossad-trained killer Ziva David it would appear we really want women to be violent and dangerous, or least admire them when they are. Never mind that the stunts the “heroic” characters do are often physically impossible, or that the spouse-abusing women of the sitcoms would eventually lose both husbands and wise-cracking, precocious children in real life.
Yet, we are collectively stunned when teenaged girls are caught on video in group brawls and gang initiations, but video of boys doing the same wouldn’t even make local news in a small town, let alone national coverage.
Meanwhile, the feminist movement has spent untold amounts of money and time since the 1970s in the attempt to convince the public that women are incapable of intimate partner abuse, and are always victims of “the patriarchy” – possibly the most bizarre of conspiracy theories to emerge in modern times. Yet enough people have been taken in by this factually incorrect idea, that we now have an entire industry based on providing demonstrably ineffective treatments and programs to correct the problem. To compound the error, women who murder their husbands or partners are, as a rule, given light to nonexistent jail sentences because we have somehow been persuaded that murder is excusable when a woman does it.
We all need to recognize that times have changed. Along with the positive advances in gender equality since WWII, came some that were not so positive or salutary. While it has always been possible for women to commit crimes, it is now more likely than it used to be that murder could be on the agenda, and for more women. Today’s society has produced a great number of individuals who, it would seem, are far more self-involved than ever, along with a number of sociopaths. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why women could not be affected.
The case of the Sandra Cantu murder that appears to so many to be an anomaly, may well be a harbinger of things to come. These are difficult times for the most balanced of individuals, and it is simply unrealistic to pretend women with emotional problems will not "go over the edge." Researchers are increasingly discovering that gender is not as important a factor in violent tendencies as was once believed, and society’s response to violent crime needs to take that into consideration. If we want to protect our children, we will need to set political correctness aside and begin to examine the issue of violence perpetrated by women in the light of hard facts and reality.
Update: for those who insist on a heavy dose of numbers along with an opinion, here are sites that provide plenty of raw data, and other information. Since there is far too much information available to be addressed in a short commentary such as this one, readers must visit these sites, read the material provided, and draw their own conclusions.
Women who assault/abuse their intimate partners
Women who assault, abuse, kill
Comments
Dumb article. In a recent statement about this case, the FBI reported that women are involved in less than 7% of murders in this country. That includes murders in which men are accomplishes or were the primary killers. So why is everyone shocked? Because it's shocking. The statistics are even more narrow dramatically when it comes to killing a child who is not theirs. It's not a mystery why people are surprised. You cite no statistics to back up any of your assertions, which you could easily find utilizing Google or Google Scholar. Or doing your research.
I had the same reaction to this article. Lazy "journalism." So what if it's an opinion editorial? Get some facts in there! This sounds like something my aunty would spout after one too many rum runners.
I agree with Fiona. No one has stated that woman can not and have not committed murders.
Bring back Cindy Adams!
Bring back Cindy Adams.
@Beatrice F.: I gave up playing the numbers game years ago. After all, 60% of statistics are made up on the spot. ;>) I've seen some amazing acrobatics done with "FBI statistics."
Bloggers picked up on this days ago. See "baytzim dot com"
What game are you playing, then, Trudy? Because it doesn't seem to be journalism.
I don't get what you are saying here. Is it that the feminists have promoted the idea that women committing violence is impossible? If so, that's ridiculous.
Have you applied to work at Fox News? Oh, sorry, you're not 5'8", 120 pounds, blonde with a 'D' cup. You have to look like a Hooters waitress to be on Faux News.
Ever heard of Lizzie Borden? There are countless stories like hers from frontier times and throughout history, in fact. If you have nothing new to add, why write a blog? What is your hypothesis? That crimes (namely murders) committed by women are on the rise? How can you say that when you have not one fact in your "article"? I don't even buy your hypothesis, but I could write a better story trying to prove it. (I would leave out Lara Croft, def. I think the only thing she proves is how much men and boys dig big boobs.)
Why are there so many hostile comments to this article, and why are these comments so vague? What, exactly, are your disagreements with the editorial?
Most of the replies are so hostile one can only guess that Trudy has touched something important. Many years ago a woman, cute, blue eyed, killed a woman with a pick. She said she felt a "sexual rush" and when I read that I knew a jury would see something masculine with the penetration and sexual feelings and she was, despite being cute, white and female, despite being a "born again Christian, she was going to fry. And she did.
Denise Noe writes about crimes and one of the worst cases I have ever read or heard of [I worked with teen girls in Hawaii, teen boys and girls in CO, - I was a cop and prison guard, I grew up in housing projects, so I am not naive about such things] involved a woman slowly killing a girl, over months, and she too inserted items into the girls vagina. Some didn't see that as sexual - I assume it's because a woman did it.
What Trudy was clearly showing is that the assumption are extreme, women don't do such things... judges have let women go on some crimes saying "women don't do such things".
It looks like a few people from "women's studies" are out to trash Trudy for what she took the time to write but I wonder if they are just shooting the messenger becuause anti PC messages almost always lead to shooting the messenger.
Good article Trudy,your critics don't know half of what you know about gender issues and how the public sees such violence.
SD
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