Women on Death Row :: Capital Punishment Essays

Women on Death RowThe eighth amendment protects Americans from the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. galore(postnominal) ending punishment opponents use this as the backbone to their argument against capital punishment. Other than being cruel, I do not think that the death penalty can be used judiciously in the United States or any other part of the world. Personally, I do not think that tender-hearted beings atomic number 18 perfect and as such they cannot set up a perfect justice system. In any justice system that is flawed and allows mold in certain cases, the death penalty should not be used as a means of punishment because of its irrevocable nature. When I came across Sarah Hawkins name regarding the case of Karla Faye Tucker, I was surprised to see the manifestation of my fears of the biases involved in the use of the death penalty in the case of this woman. Hawkins described how the representations of Tucker as a white, heterosexual Christian woman worked in he r favor in the criminal justice system, and how media representations perpetuated the argument for her release from death row. Hawkins made very reasonable and convincing arguments that representations of womanhood that ar expected in American culture can make a large difference in how we perceive criminals, and in certain cases these representations can be a matter of life or death. Of course, we all know from common sense that women are far less seeming to be sentenced to death row than men. This should tip us off to the differences that the judicial system discriminates even in matters as important as murder or other capital offences. But within the subgroup of women prisoners there can be a distinction made between the representations of women more likely to be sentenced to death row, or in this case shown compassion while on death row. Hawkins describes this compassion as typically extended only to female inmates who fit a certain predetermined societal profile of women. Thi s definition of women or womanhood is very interesting and deserves to be explored. In my past, I have a design of women as being sweet and frail basically incapable of doing wrong because they are too nice or too weak to do so. Women who are too intelligent or too strong are cast off as being masculine or lesbians. When female basketball players are seen on television, they are perceived as trying to be masculine.