A prurience about women and murder
The ‘Foxy Knoxy’ case has stirred a deep prurience about women and murder
Why the case of 'Foxy Knoxy has gripped the British psyche'
But the strange thing about the Meredith Kercher case is that the victim has almost disappeared from our morning newspapers - to be replaced by her flatmate Amanda Knox, or ‘Foxy Knoxy’ as she is known on her own web page. It is Knox’s photograph that stares out at us from the front pages - and has done for several days. Ms Knox is indeed very attractive (to look at, I mean - not to take home to meet your mum). But it is the suggestion that she in some way facilitated both the sexual assault on Meredith Kercher and the subsequent murder that has grabbed hold of the public’s interest. Apparently, the Italian police have accused Knox of restraining Meredith while the two men assaulted and then killed her. Knox, meanwhile â” either devious and amoral or deeply confused or all three â” has changed her story several times, having sort of confessed and then sort of unconfessed. She is, say the police, an inveterate liar. And with Amanda Knox we have been given an extra ingredient that will always command acres of space in our newspapers: the sexually deviant Jezebel.
We are accustomed to sexual crimes being committed by men and usually upon women. The merest notion that a woman might be an active participant in a sexual assault immediately compels our attention, as if it were wholly unnatural â” or, rather, more unnatural for a woman than for a man. And our revulsion is all the stronger. In the most extreme cases â” Myra Hindley, for example, and the hatchet-faced hag and serial killer Rosemary West â” our opprobrium for them was demonstrably more severe than that which we sprayed upon their male accomplices. Certainly, Hindley was reviled by the press with considerably more venom and bitterness than her erstwhile friend and accomplice, Ian Brady; indeed it is doubtful that there has been a criminal in recent British history who has been more loathed than Myra Hindley. Her crimes were truly horrible, but certainly no more so that those committed by, say, Dennis Nilsen or Peter Sutcliffe. In the case of Rosemary West, her role was largely confined to abetting her husband, Fred, and yet her guilt seemed to be regarded by the press and public at least as equal to his, if not rather worse.
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Lucan C. Heraclitus
November 15th, 2007 6:46pmThis issue ties feminists up in knots but everybody else understands the need to see women as being above and beyond the worst of excesses of human nature because they have the primary role in the nurturing of children.
Janey
November 15th, 2007 10:35pmThe Erasmus scheme is not about taking a gap year free from study, but about taking part of your university course in another country. The Unfortunate Ms Kercher was studying in Perugia, not holidaying.
cvabunting
November 17th, 2007 10:29amA lot of the comments from readers on Daily Mail stories about this case have deplored the use of the tag 'Foxy Knoxy' and the way that the story is being reported. The prurient details being paraded in the press are merely a reflection on the Dirty Old Man values still prevalent in the Street of Shame.
janie
November 28th, 2007 10:51pmI think too that because there are so few women involved in crimes like these (in direct proportion with men) - it seems even more shocking. No, it's not 'expected' of a woman, nor is it routine for women to be involved in something as violent as this - if it was, there would be hundreds more cases.
Tazia
January 10th, 2008 7:54pmMs Knox was denied her VCCR entitlements, opinion has switched in her favor in the United States. It would appear that she was hit by the Italian police and various witnesses are asking to retract statements. It is possible, perhaps, that the UK perception is colored by circumstances pertaining to UN treaty compliances in the UK. It is no longer possible for Amnesty to go to a female jail in Alabama and say X, Y or Z, because the jail in Alabama will have higher standards than Britain. There is also something else very peculiar about Britain, More US children are sexually victimized via the internet by British teachers than by American teachers. Our FBI are being obliged to keep lips sealed in relation to the 'English disease', and that is the electronic verification that your foxes are far better cotton-wooled than your children.