Log in

View Full Version : Karla Homolka a mom



Pages : 1 [2]

Jenny
02-11-2007, 08:50 AM
I'm really bummed by all the Homolka-defending.

It's a different style of sexism. Like, because she's a woman she must have been another of Bernardo's victims? Well damn, maybe HE was molested as a child- does this make what he did OK?

Please.
I would feel the same way if she was a man and they were a gay couple. And there is NO question that she was one of Bernardo's victims. She was - there is a a ton of incontrovertible evidence of that. The question is whether she felt forced, and whether that feeling was rational or irrational for someone in her position, to participate in his other crimes.

Nicolina
02-11-2007, 01:44 PM
Just want to say, I am not defending this woman. I don't know enough about the case. It seems quite possible that she is a sociopath with no empathy and no remorse for what she did. In which case, she is probably still a threat to society and possibly to her own child.

I am interested in what makes a sociopath, though. Very often, severe abuse in childhood is part of that picture, for both males and females. That is why I asked the question about her own past sexual abuse. Sexual violence by women is very rare, which is why I think people look for some explanation for the behavior.

Women are different than men--physiologically, chemically, neurologically, psychologically, and behaviorally. If that makes me sexist, so be it. I am more shocked to hear about this kind of behavior from a woman than from a man. I want to understand how it arose. Attempting to understand a behavior, or derive some kind of explanation for it, is not the same as "excusing" or "defending" it.

My response to Mr. Hyde was directed toward the more general case of "battered woman syndrome": women who behave in very irrational, seemingly insane ways because they genuinely fear for their own lives and/or the lives of their children. He seemed to say that women in abusive relationships are never under the real threat of being killed by their husbands, and that they are never rendered incapable of behaving rationally. I disagree.

lizlizliz
02-11-2007, 06:05 PM
didn't they make a law and order episode about this?

Michele2
02-12-2007, 12:20 PM
They druged many of the women they raped and killed. She also had oral sex with her sister and after she died dressed up as a cheerleader like her sister and they had sex and taped it. All the stuff I saw about the crimes she looked like she was willingly participating. They say she even looked for victims and picked them out. She may have been batered but she is a phsycopath.

VenusGoddess
02-12-2007, 02:04 PM
I think I'm going to hurl.

Really, I remember this back when it first happened and I was horrified.

I totally believe in battered woman syndrome...but not to the extent that it is used today. And, yeah, when you have a woman on tape gleefully parading around in a cheerleader outfit after knowing her sister was killed (watching it) and then fucking the man that killed her sister. She's a psychopath...and she should still be in prison. And, if nothing else, they should take that baby away from her...especially given her history of abusing/molesting little girls.

JustJayda
02-12-2007, 02:09 PM
I don't care how "battered" you are, I just can't see any physical coercion strong enough to make a woman drug her 15 year old sister and present said sister to her husband as a fuck-toy wedding gift, and then to also participate in the drugged-sister sex.

At the point that her husband would have wanted her to do that, she should have left immediately and gotten a restraining order. I don't care how afraid you are, that's fucked up and tells me she was willing or at the very least complicit.

I'm sorry but I've yet to see a restraining order, a.k.a. a piece or two of 8 x 10 paper, save anyone's life. Just saying:(

NinaDaisy
02-12-2007, 04:43 PM
I'm sorry but I've yet to see a restraining order, a.k.a. a piece or two of 8 x 10 paper, save anyone's life. Just saying:(

Sadly, I have to agree, because I've seen it happen.

Jenny
02-12-2007, 05:05 PM
I think I'm going to hurl.

Really, I remember this back when it first happened and I was horrified.

I totally believe in battered woman syndrome...but not to the extent that it is used today. And, yeah, when you have a woman on tape gleefully parading around in a cheerleader outfit after knowing her sister was killed (watching it) and then fucking the man that killed her sister. She's a psychopath...and she should still be in prison. And, if nothing else, they should take that baby away from her...especially given her history of abusing/molesting little girls.
Well, VG this is exactly what is in contention - whether she was really doing it "delightedly" or because she felt that she had no other choice to preserve her own life or some variation of Stockholm syndrome.

Yes, it was a horrible act, yes she may actually just be a psychopath and yes, you even, for public policy reasons, want to limit the way battered woman's syndrome is used to negate elements of crimes against third parties; it just seems to me to be very glib to dismiss the possibility that she was, in fact, fearing for her life when she was married to a serial rapist and killer who had repeatedly abused her, especially when you keep in mind that the way it is used is not based on the premise that the abuser "deserved it". I tend to think that is really what is going on - that people see the abuser as getting what he deserved, and so are willing to extend the doubt in that scenario; in this case it involves third parties. But whether or not the victim "deserved it" is not really the point (at least not in Canada)

That said - Homolka would have faced an uphill battle if she actually went to trial claiming she was forced.

scarlett_vancouver
02-12-2007, 08:08 PM
I don't understand what you're arguing, Jenny- that Karla Holmolka suffered from battered woman syndrome, or that Karla Homolka suffered from battered woman syndrom and therefore should be partially excused for her crimes?

Jenny
02-12-2007, 08:56 PM
Well, whether or not she should be excused is moot - she pleaded. She went to jail. As for what I think - like I said; she could just be psychotic. But these things are not contended:
-she was battered and sexually assaulted by her husband
-who was also a brutal serial rapist and murderer, and pretty fucking scary man
-he had committed violent crimes before her involvement
-it seems pretty unlikely at this point that she committed violent crimes before her involvement with him.

-she is shown to be doing a superlative acting job - if she is acting at all - in numerous brutal criminal acts
-she is peculiarly unaware (it seems) of the nature of her crimes (at one point she publicly stated that she wanted to be an ECE after being released - you have to have some kind of divorce from reality to think that was a possibility)
-she is oddly press-whorish for someone in her position (again, it speaks to some kind divorce from reality)

I don't really know what that adds up to - but it is far from unbelievable that she was forced or felt forced to commit these acts. It not being unbelievable doesn't mean it's true - I just find it really weird that people feel the need to deny those basic facts.

In terms of being excused - I do think there are sound policy arguments for not extending the use of this syndrome to third parties. But I think they need to be addressed as policy arguments; it is sheerly irrational to declare that no, she couldn't have been suffering under any kind of mental duress because there were third parties involved. Like I said - the reason battered woman's syndrome informs some self-defence defences is not because "the guy deserved it" - it's because of the ability of someone in her situation to reasonably understand her options.

If we could show, definitively (that is convince you) that she was, in fact, coerced; do you think that she and Bernardo would (in that event) share the exact same culpability? Especially considering that she turned him in?

Lysondra
02-12-2007, 09:03 PM
Huh... I just thought of something... those symptoms also sound a little like Autism... I mean, if she had adult Autism, she would be completely detached from what she was doing, completely obedient, and then smile for the cameras and want to take care of children... and the fear and harm placed upon her wouldn't have helped that.

Now I wanna take a psych test to her.

Jenny
02-12-2007, 09:08 PM
^^^
Yeah, I don't think Karla Homolka is autistic. The bottom points were the one's that support the "she's psychotic" school of thought.

Lysondra
02-12-2007, 09:26 PM
Probably not... it just seemed to flow with it... but so do a lot of mentally unstable conditions. But since my partner is an Aspie, I can kinda see it a LOT more...

And I've been reading up on it...

..so ignore me.