What’s Wrong With This CNN Article? (23)
“If it happens we have to go against each other, remember I look innocent. Impression is worth as much as facts.”
CNN recently posted yet another gender-biased article, this one titled Women accused of murder are usually hated by the masses. Karen Read has fame and supporters. 1
The article is about Karen Read, on trial for the second time, accused of killing her boyfriend, a Boston police officer, running him down in a car after a night of drinking.
There are a few things wrong with the article. Do you know what they are?
First, the article’s subtitle, “With Karen Read’s adoring fans outside, can the prosecution get a fair murder trial?” is a direct (and obvious) contradiction to the main title’s message , that “women who are accused of murder are hated by the masses”.
It sure doesn’t seem that Ms. Read is hated by the masses:
Second, although Ms. Read may well have been framed for the murder, much of the news coverage includes descriptions of her being “glamorous” or “beautiful”; indeed she’s attractive enough to get a 2-part Vanity Fair article published.
Hardly the treatment that a less attractive woman would get.
Third, as explained in a Saturday Evening Post article, Do Beautiful People Get Away with Murder?, attractive people are more likely to be judged innocent in court, and, if convicted, given lighter sentences.
As also explained in the article, female murderers, attractive or not, are treated more leniently by the law. For example, “between 1870 and 1930, 265 women in Chicago killed their husbands. Over ninety percent of these women were acquitted.”
Next, women are generally treated more leniently by the entire legal system for all crimes: males are more likely than women to be charged with crimes and receive 63% longer sentences on average, while women are twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted — Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases
Finally, beyond crime and punishment, and contrary to the feminist-dictated dogma that women are “oppressed”, females are instead in many, many ways privileged:
“Judged by almost any criterion, women are, and always have been, the privileged sex. … As children they are treated more gently and receive more protection. As students they have long been excused, or excused themselves, from whatever subjects were considered hardest. As adults they are under less pressure to compete and perform. As workers they do rather less than half of humanity’s productive labor. As economic beings they are often in the enviable position of being able to consume without having to produce. As criminals and litigants they are treated much more leniently both by the law and the courts.” — The Privileged Sex, a book which makes a solid, convincing case that women are privileged by Western society
In closing, we should remember the words that female serial killer Carol Bundy said to her male accomplice,
“If it happens we have to go against each other, remember I look innocent. Impression is worth as much as facts.”
Note that this article is “For Subscribers” only, a digital paywall that CNN implemented last October, so you might not be able to read the article. Full disclosure: I’ve already subscribed to more than a dozen other news sites, and have decided to forego subscribing to CNN, so I haven’t read it either. But the title by itself is such B.S. I figured it warranted a new “What’s wrong with this CNN article?” post.