In today’s episode, “Mother’s Milk” (2000), a dead baby was found buried, and the cops arrest his mother for neglect/homicide. The first half was boring and I didn’t watch it. However, the second half was comparably interesting, if only because it poked at feminists.
Soon after the mother is arrested, Replaceable Hawt Female Attorney decides to prosecute the mother because “women have been fighting for reproductive rights, and with these rights comes responsibility.” McCoy asks, “So the father bears no responsibility?” Replaceable Hawt Attorney responds, “That’s not what I’m saying.” She doesn’t explain what she actually means.
During the trial, the mother’s defense attorney asks the father/boyfriend why he didn’t feed the baby or take it to the doctor if he knew it was ill and failing to thrive. An effective question, in my opinion. I can’t remember his answer, but whatever it was, I remember it was stupid and unacceptable. Knowing L&O as I do, this question and its answer will not be enough for the judge to acquit the mother. We shall see.
Not that I think the mother should be acquitted or that mothers who do what this fictional mother did should go unpunished for killing their children. And so, in this case, I think L&O reflects a very realistic gender discrepancy — mothers are considered to be wholly, solely responsible for their children, even when there are men around to help.
Ooh, it’s back on. The trial continues; the ADA is examining the mother’s nursing supervisor, who says that she tried to teach the mother how to nurse and admitted to sort of intimidating the woman into only nursing and not feeding the baby formula. After this part of the trial, the defense and prosecution negotiate for a deal; the ADA tells the defense attorney that the reason they’re only prosecuting the mother is that she is the one who is “ultimately responsible” for the child, even though the child’s father was present for the entire ordeal. They don’t take whatever deal the prosecution offers, and the trial continues.
The mother is put on the stand in her own defense. She says that when the baby died, her boyfriend or whatever slapped her for letting him die and then told her that they had to go dump the body. The ADA crosses, ending with the stab of a statement: “You wanted your baby dead.” Yeah, whatever.
Finally, in closing statements, Replaceable Hawt Female Attorney says, “The same law that protects her right to make that choice demands that she be ready when she makes that choice.”
AHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Yes, I agree, except how much of a choice did she have?
The judge finds her guilty for manslaughter in the second degree — 1.5 – 4.5 years in prison. And the ADA isn’t happy about it — not enough prison time, I assume.
In all, this episode of L&O isn’t as unrealistically misogynist as the one in L&OMW #1 since it tends to reflect a real, mainstream belief about women, mothers, and motherhood: that all women are meant to be mothers, that all women are good at being mothers once they give birth, and that all women are “ultimately” responsible for their children, despite the presence of children’s fathers. Now, it doesn’t really question this belief, and they actually reinforce it by finding the mother guilty without actually trying the father at all, but at least they’re not just making shit up to be sensational. I think this is pretty much how a trial like this would come out.
Though this episode reflects a more mainstream view of women and motherhood, it still betrays its writers’ misogyny in its disingenuous use of pseudo-feminist rhetoric to justify the prosecution of only the mother instead of both parents. While I could maybe say that this episode was feminism-neutral if the Replaceable Hawt Female Attorney had all her lines deleted from the episode, they weren’t deleted and she definitely uses “choice” language to argue that not only should they prosecute the mother but that they shouldn’t prosecute the father. In an hour-long episode where only thirty minutes are dedicated to the “order”/court side of the process, where each line matters, the writers made a conscious decision to use this rhetoric to explain the motivations of the supposedly justice-seeking DA office. Doesn’t it seem that, if the DA were truly interested in achieving justice in the case of the dead infant, they would prosecute both parents equally since they were technically equally responsible for their child? Alas, the need to put women in their place — in the home as Good Little Mothers — overwhelms the fight for justice, even in a fictional show which has the social clout to question that particular norm. The writers’ need to lambaste feminism and the independent women it has empowered overwhelms their ability to contribute to a better world through their fiction. I call bullshit on Law & Order.
The verdict? L&O is misogynist tripe. I don’t really need to continue this series, but I will. Two points make a line, but three make a trend.
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My partner and I were talking about this series and how L&O very obviously reflects a fucked up view of the justice system and the people involved in it.
L: Women just don’t do that. They don’t kill all the guys they want to. They just don’t commit that many violent crimes, at least not as many as Law & Order wants us to believe.
C: Well, but, you’re just not accepting all the women out there who really do want to kill all those men!
L: Yes, I suppose I’m not crime-positive enough. I’ll have to work on that.
It is a long standing tradition in the U.S. court system that when a man abuses children, be he the father, boyfriend, or brother, the mother of the children is charged as an accomplice to the abuse because she did not prevent it.
Men are rarely charged as accomplices to abuse inflicted on children by their wife or girlfriend.
You might think this was a double standard until you remember that anything bad that a man does is a womans fault, and anything bad that a woman does is her own fault. Then it all makes perfect sense.
Seriously, L, you do need to be more crime-positive. Apparently I do too, according to my commenters who think my new rape law isn’t as cool as I do.
thebewilderness is right. I’ve decided that the entirety of our legal system blows. Not that that’s news, but it’s oppressively obvious this week, so I think I’d best avoid L&O until at least Monday.
thebewilderness: YES. Exactly.
Nine Deuce, I like your new law proposal, and I am giggling at how up in arms all the dudes who read your blog are getting at this thought experiment. I mean, it’s a thought experiment, not reality. It has no chance at becoming reality. Criminy. Talk about hysterical overreacting.
We’re apparently really fucking crime-positive in this country as it is. Blah.