Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Media Airbrushing Mothers Out of the Lives of Their Children

"We spent thousands of dollars trying to find him, thousands of dollars to prosecute him and now we're spending thousands of dollars trying to keep him alive?" said John Denis of Jewett City, where Ross lived. "They were our girls. Most locals don't care about him living."

Edwin Shelley, father of 14-year-old victim Leslie Shelley, says any sympathy for Ross is misplaced. "If you recall what he did to eight young women, it's hard to have sympathy for a man like that," he said. "I don't care how he dies, as long as he does."

Reverend Lou Harper wrote a letter on behalf of the First Congregational Church of Griswold.

F. Whalen Stetson, Griswold, says,"In the church services Sunday morning and there were people crying. Now that's too much."

Emotions ran high when the congregation learned the Conference to which it belongs filed a lawsuit seeking to postpone Michael Ross's execution. Two members of this congregation were murdered by Ross. The state Supreme Court tossed out the appeal on Monday.

Rev. Lou Harper, pastor, says,"It makes it sound like they're doing it on our behalf and that is not the case."



Has anyone noticed how women in their roles as mothers have been totally airbrushed out of the media recently? In the case above, for instance, which discusses Michael Ross, serial killer of eight young girls and women in Connecticut, I find it hard to believe that NOT even ONE mother of any of the victims could be located to ask about her opinion on whether or not this guy should be executed. Or to talk about how her entire world had been devastated by the lost of what many mothers and daughters (when we get a chance to be heard that is) frequently describe as being their ‘best friend’…

Obviously the opinion of a mother on what should become of the person who murdered her daughter (and in a time of small families, sometimes her only child) SHOULD be significant but clearly isn’t.

I don’t think we have to look very far to find the reasons why.

This is another attempt by the media, dominated by males and their gender neutralized female allies, to paint mothers as insignificant in the lives of their children, their opinion of no relevance. Actually three totally strangers, in no way related to any of the young women murdered, obviously carry more weight then the mother of any of the victims when the media is looking for someone to interview on this story.

This is not the first time I have noticed this reluctance to allow the voice of a child’s mother to be heard. I noticed it in the case of Jerica Rhodes as well as Jessica Lundsford, two young girls, alienated from their mothers during their brief lifetime and then after their death as well. We have not heard even ONE interview from these mothers on their pain. I’m sure losing custody of their children (one when still a nursing infant) and then NOT being allowed contact with their daughters was bad enough, but at least there was some hope that once the children reached their majority, there could be a reconciliation. Now, even that slim hope has come to nothing and both of these mothers are only left with faint memories.

It’s a sad commentary on our times that mothers could be treated as such…

One final irony: I’ve also recently taken note of how male jealousy has even managed to get the military to distort a simple fact of our history. During previous wars, it was oftentimes said that the last words MOST soldiers dying on the field uttered would be a call for their mothers. The jealousy of men, however, could not allow this simple fact to be left alone. NOW, they have changed this to: a dying soldiers’ last words are a call for their wives. This has the subtle effect of degrading the role of women in their role as mothers. Nevertheless I believe this to be a lie anyway, for a number of reasons, the main one being that MOST combat veterans are too young to even be married. Thus, I don’t believe for a minute that their last words are calling for their wives…in fact, I believe their last words are, what they have always been, a call for their mothers.

As I said before but it bears repeating, this trend of ignoring women in their role as mothers’ voices is more of the ongoing attempts by men to place themselves in charge of everything again. This silence from and about mothers proclaims that, men (and their brain-addled female allies) are in fact winning their media propaganda campaign against women in our roles as mothers, and we must begin playing catch up fairly quickly to stop their insidious jihad against us.

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