Equality?

Does it make me crazy when I say I'm tired of women being the beneficiaries of what I see as sexual bias in the justice system? I live in Texas and since Andrea Yates made national headlines back in 2001, there have been a number women who have drowned, stoned, dismembered or garotted their children to death. An alarming number of them are walking the streets today after being found "not guilty by reason of insanity". A woman in Plano, TX was free in one year after murdering her two children. Depression or mental illness is nearly always the first justification for women who commit murder.

The latest case is the Irving mom accused of murdering her two children because one was autistic and the other had health problems and she wanted "normal children". Now I'm not saying this mother or any of the others isn't mentally ill and deserving of compassion, though I find compassion in short supply when anyone murders a child, any child. What I am saying is that there is a nasty bias afoot when the general immediate consensus is that when a woman commits murder she is mentally ill. Isn't a bedrock of equality being held equally responsible for your actions? So ask yourself next time, what would you think if a man committed the same crime? Would you be as willing to reflexively say to yourself mental illness or stress or isolation or post-partum depression is to blame?