she apparently has rejected what he meant as an at-
tempt to help.
Impact With its novel approach to gender-based
conflicts, eye-catching title, and aggressive market-
ing campaign, Mars/Venus became a publishing
phenomenon, spawning numerous sequels, a line of
videos, a series of television programs, and even a
board game. As popular as the book was with read-
ers, many found its portrayal of gender differences
sexist and outdated, seemingly depicting men as
active and women passive. Nevertheless, Gray’s
anthropological/cultural approach to gender con-
flict offered Americans of the 1990’s a nonjudg-
mental, nonhierarchical interpretation of differ-
ences between the sexes that did not overtly “bash”
or belittle one gender in favor of the other.
Further Reading
Gray, John.Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus:
A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and
Getting What You Want in Your Relationships. New
York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Tannen, Deborah.You Just Don’t Understand: Women
and Men in Conversation. New York: Ballantine,
1990.
Thomas Du Bose
See also Domestic partnerships; Marriage and di-
vorce; Publishing;Rules, The.
Menendez brothers murder
case
The Event Lyle and Erik Menendez kill their
wealthy parents and are convicted of first-
degree murder
Date Murders took place on August 20, 1989;
brothers convicted on March 20, 1996
Place Beverly Hills and Van Nuys, California
The Menendez trials were covered extensively in popular
magazines and on television, reflecting and expanding on
the American public’s interest in sensational crimes and
how media coverage impacts the legal system.
On the evening of August 20, 1989, film company ex-
ecutive Jose Menendez and his wife, Kitty, were mur-
dered in their Beverly Hills home, each suffering
multiple shotgun blasts. Police inquiries focused ini-
tially on Jose’s business relationships. Jose, a driven
and brutal executive whose personal estate was
worth $14 million, had been sued by a former busi-
ness associate with rumored links to organized
crime. However, the police turned their attention to
Jose and Kitty’s sons Lyle, age twenty-one, and Erik,
age eighteen, in the weeks following the murders, as
the brothers gave up their plans to attend college
and spent thousands of dollars on new cars, designer
clothes, and jewelry.
In October, 1989, Erik confessed to his psycholo-
gist, Jerome Oziel, that he and Lyle had killed Jose
because he had been too domineering and had
planned to disinherit them; they had murdered
Kitty because she was unhappy in her marriage. Five
months later, Oziel’s girlfriend Judalon Smyth con-
tacted police, saying she had overheard the confes-
sion and that Oziel had recorded it on audiotape.
Based on Oziel and Smyth’s evidence, police ar-
rested the brothers in March, 1990, charging eachThe Nineties in America Menendez brothers murder case 561
Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez in a courtroom in Santa Monica,
California, in August, 1996. The brothers were found guilty of
the first-degree murder of their parents on March 20, 1996.(AP/
Wide World Photos)