Katie Crouch asks an important question in the wake of the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito exoneration: What can be done to stop a circus like this one from happening again? There are a number of important flaws in traditional systems of justice that this case helped expose, especially with regards to how character assessment of the defendants is weighed too heavily and actual evidence too lightly, and perhaps addressing those problems could help significantly. That said, one thing that could help is looking at the dangers of an overly simplistic view of prejudice and privilege.

I’ve seen a lot of liberals dismiss the importance of the Knox case because Knox is a generally privileged person: white, upper-middle class, American, young, and conventionally attractive. They rightly point out that these privileges are why her case got so much attention, and that the attention paid to it is why she probably was able to walk in the end, taking the just-as-surely-innocent Sollecito with her. These things are all true, but problems arise when you work under the assumption that “privilege” is a static thing, that you have it and that’s that. What Knox’s case shows is that privilege is often a slippery thing, and what is a privilege in one context can actually work against you in another.

Casey Greenfield has one of the best assessments of this situation that I’ve seen so far. She argues that Knox’s youth and beauty probably did help her finally walk free, but that her youth and beauty are also the reasons she was railroaded in the first place. This cases touches off one of the more difficult conversations in feminist discourse about looks and privilege. Less conventionally attractive women usually face more obstacles and prejudice, so often one shies away from discussing some of the problems that come with being conventionally attractive, for fear of ringing the “poor little rich girl” bell. With the Knox situation, however, this problem is unavoidable. The reason so many people are eager to believe the implausible prosecution claims that Knox was into Satanic orgies, where sexual pleasure was derived from murder, was that there’s a lot of of misogynist hatred for pretty women that goes hand-in-hand with all the privileges being attractive gets you, and this is true in both Italy and the United States.