Victim Conversation (off-topic moved)

[Victor]

...she failed to recognize their broken marriages, the stillborn children or the social realities of the life for women in 1888.

Broken marriages because they chose to drink.

And the chance of stillborn children increases the more that's drunk.

I'm not judging them for chosing to drink, I like an odd tipple myself, but I chose not to drink to excess, and make myself vulnerable.

[Ally]

You mean their broken marriages that ended because they drank themselves stupid? Every one of these women started in much better circumstances and it was their drinking that brought them down. There aren't a whole lot of choices for addicts these days either.

And yes, the social realities of women in the 1800's were limited: but the fact remains these women had better options and they pissed them away. Stillborn children happen to millions upon millions of women. They don't all choose to throw themselves in the gutter as a result.

[Jeff Leahy]

To place them all in the same category is simply ignorance of the historical facts. I can strongly recommend, “The Victims of Jack the Ripper” by Neal Stubbings Sheldon.

I noted while Ally dragged their characters through the mire without sympathy, that she failed to recognize their broken marriages, the stillborn children or the social realities of the life for women in 1888. But then the queen of mean was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and has no comprehension of the hardship and brutality that these women went through.

No doubt we will hear the usual voices saying that you cannot romanticize these women’s lives, which is true to some extent. But we can seek to find out more about the world they lived in and have some historical understanding of the way they lived then instead of trying to compare it with our own cushtie lives we live today, as Ally always does.

Pirate

[halomanuk]

We will never know what went on throughout any of these women's lives so it's pointless attributing any judgement on them...and this is heading off topic.

[The Good Michael]

Ally,

so it's always as easy as that, eh? Black and white. That means everyone has the same intellectual capacity to make good choices. I don't think so. Some folks aren't equipped for that, for whatever reasons.

Mike

[Rob Clack]

Annie Chapman had a good life in Windsor and she through it all away because she liked a drink. Mary Ann NIchols had a good life until she stole from her employers. While they don't deserve to have died the way they did. These women weren't angels.

Rob

[babybird67]

empathy

but if we could only feel empathy for people who always made 100% the right choices in life, there wouldnt be many people who we could feel empathy for.

[Ally]

Oh what total bleeding heart balls. The "only solace" they could take... Yeah because you know...drinking, which leads to penury and having to whore yourself to keep your "solace" is really the only outlet for being poor. If you are poor, heroin is the only solace one can take. If you are poor, shooting a whole bunch of rich people is the only solace you could take.

Most of these woman started out in much better circumstances than they ended up in, and they ended up there by their own choice: to drain the bottle.

[The Good Michael]

Victor,

It isn't always as simple as this choice or that choice. Poverty and poor social conditions make for fewer choices, and often things like drinking are the only solace one can take.

Mike

[Victor]

Are you suggesting that poverty is a life style choice?

Are you suggesting that most of the victims didn't chose to drink themselves stupid? Fire-engine impersonations and all.

[Jeff Leahy]

Mike I'll take the heat off you and have it slung my way.I have no sympathy for those victims in the way they lived,it was their choice,but I do not in any way condone the manner of their deaths.

Are you suggesting that poverty is a life style choice?

Pirate

[harry]

Mike I'll take the heat off you and have it slung my way.I have no sympathy for those victims in the way they lived,it was their choice,but I do not in any way condone the manner of their deaths.

[Chris]

Nope. You can't make me do either.

?

I said you might want to think twice before ordering other people to "put up or shut up", as you so often post these rather pathetic bits of cryptic innuendo, and then refuse to explain them.

But I didn't think for a moment that you would.

[caz]

Actually, I'm not that interested in your opinions.

Don't give me a shock like that, Chris. You could have given me a heart attack.

Of course, I can't make you explain what you mean. But you might want to think twice before you next order someone else to "put up or shut up"!

Nope. You can't make me do either.

Put up or shut up, Perry. If you have nothing to back up your strange desire to 'revoke' Liz and Mary's 'admission', I'm not overly keen on reading the next thousand posts about it from you - especially not on this thread!

I don't know if Chris genuinely can't wait for more of the same from you these days. But you may have to brace yourself for the possibility that he is only waiting for his next chance to be offended by me and to reach for the smelling salts. Meanwhile, I'll carry on being offended by writers who manipulate the murder victims for no apparent reason other than to stroke their own egos.

Love,

Caz
X

[Tom_Wescott]

Obviously there's some bad blood here, and poor ol' Michael once again got caught in the middle. I think it comes down to the fact that - like it or not - Jack the Ripper is a super villain of history, and the women he allegedly killed are only known today because of him. To "remove them from the canon", so to speak, would be to erase them from history. They would no longer be relevant. I don't think this has anything to do with men or women, because we all realize this on one level or another. If they weren't killed by Jack, they were killed by a 'nobody', so they in turn become nobodies themselves (ironically, with Kate Eddowes - who gave her name to the police as 'Nobody' - being an exception). I also believe that on some level we all know the five canonical victims were felled by the same man, but in a race to be different or original, we argue underdog theories without thinking them through objectively first.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott