Yates Will Get Off "Because She Is a Woman"

	posted by Nightmist on Sunday July 08, @09:02PM from the inequality/sentencing dept.
	Without running the Andrea Yates story in the ground (mother who killed her five children by drowing them in a bathtub), this commentary from the Iowa State Daily in plain-English states what I think many men are probably thinking right now. If the father had been the perpetrator, he would've already been convicted: both in the mind of the public, and especially in the press. The press seems ominously sympathetic to Andrea Yates, though, because of her claims that post-partum depression made her do it. Check the author's stats on that in this piece.

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Yates... (Score:2) by frank h on Monday July 09, @08:52AM EST (#1) (User #141 Info) I was with Paluch until he indicted the father. Then he lost me. Rusty Yates may have exercised poor judgement, but Andrea Yates was not raped or held against her will. As far as anyone can tell, she was not denied birth control. She was aware of her diagnosis and continued to get pregnant anyway. Therefore, she and only she bears the responsibility for continuing to get pregnant. And therefore, she bears full responsibility for killing her children.

Re:Yates... (Score:1) by BusterB on Tuesday July 10, @12:30AM EST (#2) (User #94 Info) http://themenscenter.com/busterb/ I was with him even after he indicted the father. His point was exactly that Rusty Yates exercised poor judgement; that in the face of a neurotic woman who obviously wasn't coping well as a mother, Rusty could have taken steps to make sure that the problem didn't get worse than it already was. I would say that Andrea Yates couldn't be trusted to make intelligent decisions considering how depressed and neurotic she was. That said, I am not implying that the inability to make "intelligent decisions" somehow means that she's not a cold-blooded killer. There's one hell of a long way between making bad decisions regarding your future and killing five children. Does she bear full responsibility? Obviously. However, in every situation there are also those who might have prevented the situation or at least made it less likely. Rusty Yates is in that category. (In my experience, it's only feminists who for some odd reason confuse "might have prevented the situation" with "guilty" and "incapable of making good decisions" with "innocent of any crime".)

Re:Yates... (Score:2) by Nightmist (nightmist@mensactivism.org) on Tuesday July 10, @08:50AM EST (#3) (User #187 Info) There's no question in my mind that Rusty Yates was irresponsible in his judgement. Personally, I think that's why he's so adamant about defending Andrea Yates. If he had exercised better judgement--at least by getting Andrea Yates help and either looking after the kids himself or hiring someone to keep them while Andrea was under a doctor's care--I doubt he would so readily stand by her. All the same, I think the media and those who opine in it are trying to shift blame from Mrs. Yates to Mr. Yates, and that's partially why I posted this article. Someone finally said, "Yeah, Rusty Yates showed poor judgement... BUT, Andrea Yates is still guilty as hell."

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