Is the death penalty gender bias?

Is the death penalty gender bias? The research I've done seems to indicate that it is. The first woman executed, Velma Barfield, was executed in 1984(“Introduction to the Death Penalty” 1). Since then, only fifteen other women have been executed, with the fifteenth being executed on September 30th, 2015. She was sentenced to death in 1998 after she had convinced her boyfriend at the time shoot her husband(Oliver, 1).Since the reinstatement of the death penalty, one thousand three hundred and ninety-nine men were executed. In October of 2014, there were three thousand thirty-five people on death row, and out of that only fifty-four of them were women.(1). These numbers are alarming when you consider the fact that women make up roughly ten percent of the murders committed, but only account for one percent of the executions via the death penalty("Part I: History of the Death Penalty." 1). We still live in a very male dominated society here in the United States, with many people still looking down on women and not really acknowledging them as equals compared to men, and this seems to be the case here when it comes to death penalty sentencing. Often times jurors will look at a woman and see her as emotionally fragile, and may even sympathize with her more than they would a man. According to Ohio Northern University Law Professor Victor Streib, “It’s just easier to convince a jury that women suffer from emotional distress or other emotional problems more than men.”(Qtd. In Oliver, 1). It’s also worth noting that the rule books judges abide by when sentencing people to death or other sentences, was essentially written in it’s entirety by old white men. The way society views men and how we expect men to act and behave also plays a part in this. In order to be a ‘manly man’ per se, you must be dominant, strong, and protective. Women are considered weaker and inferior, so it is your job to protect them and look out for them, so sentencing women to death would go against all of these values you’re familiar with. I think the solution to this bias is simply just embracing feminism, and allowing the movement to grow and take shape, so that there can actually be equality in the justice system.

Works Cited:

Oliver, Amanda."The Death Penalty Has a Gender Bias." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 01 Oct. 2015. Web. 226 Apr. 2017.

"Part I: History of the Death Penalty." Part I: History of the Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center. Death Penalty Information Center, n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.