[Dion]

Is Amanda Knox Too Hot to Be Innocent?

But the mentality of mascilismo or machismo that keeps these outdated practices relevant in Italy may well have contributed to her conviction in the court of public opinion. In the days after her arrest, fresh-faced Knox, just 21 when she was arrested for Kercher's murder, was assassinated for her looks and blatant confidence in the Italian press. She was a sexually confident woman who kept condoms in her beauty case, but rather than being applauded for safe sex (God knows no Italian man carries a condom), she was painted as a whore. She didn't wear make-up because she didn't need it, but her natural beauty was a source of resentment in a society where an over-abundance of beauty centers around every corner makes a quick root job or botox top-up as common as grabbing a takeout coffee.

Knox was, and is still, terribly out of context in Italy. Young Italian women are not allowed to be as confident as she was. Few 21-year-old Italian women would have the moxie to move abroad to study without the backing of a rich uncle or a trust fund. During closing arguments in all three of her criminal trials, one of the lawyers who supported the prosecution theory called her a "she-devil" and described her in a court of law as a woman with "impure thoughts" who was "dirty on the outside because she was dirty on the inside." Three different judicial panels heard this argument. None of them ever complained about the blatant sexism. Two of them convicted her of murder.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/ar...-innocent.html