I will be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about the Amanda Knox murder trial. I didn't follow it when it was going on and most of the hysterical coverage here in the states was little more than background noise to me. I will also freely admit that I should have been paying more attention. In the wake of her exoneration on appeal, the coverage has been most interesting. I don't know if she and her boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito were guilty or innocent. I haven't read enough about the case to have a fully formed opinion. But it seems evident at this point that whatever else it may have been, this was another case of a woman being put on trial for her sexuality. There are also disturbing elements of a Satanic Panic similar to that that robbed the West Memphis Three of eighteen years of their lives. The Wild Hunt gives a little overview.
Now that Amanda Knox has been acquitted of the murder of Meredith Kercher on appeal, more than a few have been noting the ties to “Satanic panic” that marred the original conviction. However, a bizarre editorial from Brendan O’Neill in The Telegraph says that the Satanic panics were started by feminists, not Christians, using one whole data point (and Oprah) to feed his narrative. In truth, this moral panic incubated, at least in the United States, in Christian churches, not feminist gatherings. The textual evidence for this is so pervasive that I can only think that O’Neill has an ax to grind.
The Brendan O'Neill piece is nothing short of bizarre and his animus towards feminism is glaringly apparent.
