Jenny M

My mum grew up in Leeds around the time that these murders were going on. Her older sister was heading off to university around the time of the 11-12 murder, so my entire family on my mum’s side has heard the stories of what it was like in that timeframe, the self-defense classes (which consisted of a lot of stabbery with umbrellas whilst shouting “Eyes! Groin!” over and over again), and being told in no uncertain terms that if you were a woman you were to stay indoors the moment it got dark out. So if you’re trying to argue that this series made it out like men were the bad guys and that “feminists are ungrateful” examine your bloody privilege. You can’t know what it was like to be a woman in West Yorkshire during the Ripper killings unless you bloody were a woman in West Yorkshire during the Ripper killings. My mum cried her eyes out during the series because it took her right back to one of the scariest times of her life, it showed her just how close to her home some of the murders were, and that the police really were THAT incompetent that if they hadn’t caught a lucky break that the killer completely f***ed up, it’s likely that he would’ve continued killing well into the 1980s. This series was fantastically done, if a teeny bit slow paced at times. It really shows just how incompetent and disorganized the investigation was, and I think that it did really well to show how women were being affected in such an overtly patriarchal society. I’m not really one for true crime but my mum, dad and I binged the entire miniseries in one evening, we just couldn’t stop watching. Very interesting series!!