While we assume it is the primacy of the mother-child bond that makes us go easier on mothers who kill their children, McAnulty’s sentence made me consider how looks might come into play, as they do in nearly every other aspect of American life in the twenty-first century, perhaps in any country during any century. While we might believe that pretty is as pretty does, on some level we want to see youth and beauty as signs of goodness, of innocence. The attractive woman is given a pass. The ugly one gets the chair.
