Rape victims and the papers
We all know the name Jaycee Lee Dugard, as we did Elisabeth Fritzl, thanks to the media who have ensured the cases have been highlighted, sensationalised and removed from all the dignity and solemnity that you might expect for victims of repeated sexual assault. There are a few things going on with these stories and their treatment so I thought it might be worthwhile having a look at them, and comparing them with the treatment of Katie Price, who this week has said in an interview with OK! magazine that she has been raped on two occasions.
First, what links the cases is that they took place outside the UK - and our favourite newspapers, usually forced to keep victims anonymous, can't help themselves. Because they can reveal all about the victims' identities, they do. Because they can reveal all the details without denying someone the right to a fair trial, they do. Because there's a detachment of distance between them and the events, it seems that things like compassion go flying out of the window.
Even despite that, I was a bit gobsmacked to see this on the front page of the Mail the other day:
"Girl fathered by monster". A blurred image of the back of someone's head. Why go to the trouble of showing them, if you're going to blur it? Why not just print their face, their address, their shoe size, everything? But no. There's a veneer of respectability involved; there's the titillation of the "monster" and the incest while pretending to be sensitive about identifying the children involved. The Mail, and others, have been happy to use the names of the children. And you get the feeling they will probably never be left alone:
The two girls are coming to terms with the news that Garrido was not the 'perfect father'.
Jaycee is revealing 'bit by bit' to the girls how he snatched her at a bus stop while she was on her way to school aged 11 and kept her prisoner for 18 years.
She is telling how she pretended to be Garrido's wife and brought them up as his daughters to ensure they all survived. "This is going to take years of therapy," said Jaycee's stepfather.
It's a horrible story, but you have to wonder: what benefit is there to anyone in knowing any of this? Not just the names, but the details? Is this just descending into a bit of a point-and-leer freakshow, rather than the distressing crime it really is? And are the newspapers really helping or just making it worse?
Hadley Freeman in today's Guardian writes:
How should newspapers refer to a victim of kidnap? Heaven knows in these modern days the question of appropriate nomenclature seems to get more complicated – and my hat is tipped to the female actor v actress debate that so exercised Guardian readers recently – but the aversion some newspapers in this country felt towards the term "kidnap victim", or even just "victim", when reporting the discovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard last week was notable. Even more surprising was the term that is apparently more acceptable, more au courant: sex slave.
Last week the Daily Mail and, less predictably, the Times used this term in their headlines about the case, while the tabloids, of course, pledged their support to the term, too. London's Evening Standard slapped it on their familiar billboards all over town, which managed almost to neuter the term through prosaic repetition. But then, "kidnap victim" does lack an illicit erotic kick, don't you find?
I have to admit it's a pretty unpleasant term, sex slave, as it's one that can be used in a consensual context far removed from the awfulness of these crimes. Rape slave might be a bit more near the truth of it, though I'm not sure even about that. But why use anything like that at all? We're all adults; we all understand what has happened if a woman has been held captive for years by a sex offender who has fathered children with her. We don't need the endless details being spilled out - or do we? And if we do, how does it help any of us to know them? What do we learn? Or is it just satisfying a prurience, a curiosity? And if so, is that right?
There's an attitude towards victims of sex crimes that goes beyond the simple gawking at Fritzl or Dugard, who hopefully will be able one day to be able to live relatively normal lives. Perhaps, like Sabine Dardenne, the victim of Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux, there will be the chance to come to terms with what has happened and even find a way to use the media in a positive way to express themselves. We can hope. But what of others who break their silence over sex crimes? What if they happen to be celebrities?
It's quite obvious the story of Katie Price has appeared so prominently in the Star and Express
because the interview is an exclusive in OK! magazine
in which she says she has been raped more than once. It's a big admission for someone to make when you bear in mind the seriousness of the crimes and it would be difficult for anyone to imagine it as a cynical ploy for media manipulation. I say 'difficult' because it's certainly not impossible, as these comments from Mail readers on their version of the story. Sometimes you have to think - as I did last week when my local paper bewilderingly asked readers to 'have their say' on a man who had committed suicide and allowed through all sorts of unpleasantness, including "I'm glad he jumped" and "Where were his family?" - and ask yourself what benefit comments on stories like that actually produce, other than some web traffic? What can you really add to a story about rape or suicide without opening the sluice gates and seeing a raging flow of effluent heading towards you, or at the very least crushing insensitivity?
These are the top rated comments. Please note that as the Mail itself says they have all been moderated in advance:
The worst rated are even more startling:
"Rape is a bad thing" - NO, VOTE IT DOWN! It makes for fairly unpleasant reading, how anything approaching sensitivity is dismissed instantly whereas anything shrill and hateful is given glowing approval. Is that just the way the world of internet commenting is, with the spiteful and nasty winning out over the reasoned and sensible? I hope not.
I also kind of hope that doesn't sum up the British public's view towards these subjects, but you have to wonder.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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September 2nd, 2009 - 15:33
"Is that just the way the world of internet commenting is"
Maybe on the Mail's website, but you only have to go to somewhere like Shakesville to see that intelligent, reasoned commentary is possible, provided you've got moderators who actually care about the quality of the output!
September 2nd, 2009 - 20:22
As a rule, I think the press is bizarrely far more squeamish about the rape of grown women (let alone men!) than the sexual abuse of children. Kiddie-fiddlers are monsters, they are extremely rare and none of us perceive ourselves or the people we know as anything like them. It's like reading about the boogie-man.
Whereas, the rape of adults is relatively commonplace and most of us will know someone who has committed rape even if we don't know who they are. And to some extent our culture is one which makes rape all about the victim – as women we grow up being given all manner of advice about how not to get raped, there are posters in the ladies' loos about watching our drinks, police bosses lament the fact that women go out after dark and thus leave ourselves vulnerable. So much so that some Mail commenters think this serious violent crime is a "private matter" for Katie Price (evidently not so private that it isn't okay to participate in a public forum on the matter).
Child-molesting monsters – especially strangers who snatch little girls at bus stops – are both more horrifying and far less challenging that your everyday value rapist, who is just an ordinary bloke with a contempt for women and an overblown sense of entitlement. The victims are easier too; our culture is still a little wobbly with the idea that a sexually-active adult women – especially someone who makes money from her sexual attractiveness – can be an entirely innocent victim of sexual assault.
September 2nd, 2009 - 20:30
Well, Charlie Brooker once said that inviting the public to comment is like switching a massive idiot magnet and, yes, I appreciate the contradiction of this in a view of me posting a comment myself.
And yes once again, this is the world of internet commenting. It's easy, requires very little actual effort, it's pretty much instant and therefore often produces the sort of idiotic outpurings so frequently seen on DM comment boards where the readers (using the term reader loosely as the majority of DM comments are complete knee-jerk reactions to red buttons activated by key phrases used in the article, rather than reading the text with any comprehension or an attempt at analysis) often react to a headline, and not even to the entire article.
Great blog by the way.
September 2nd, 2009 - 21:14
I once wrote a *slightly* critical comment about the Mail's approach to journalism, they got rid of it. Yet others can call a (more than likely) rape victim every name under the sun and they deem it an appropriate comment.
Good to know their moderators are doing a good job.
September 2nd, 2009 - 22:02
It's the difference between 'good' victims & 'bad' victims. Innocent young girls abducted by evil predators but rescued by good people. Right now they're faceless & voiceless so people can project their emotions onto them whereas Katie Price is loud, brash & opinionated and has made a living using her body so in the eyes of most isn't innocent & therefore 'brought it on herself'.
Depressingly, I think you're right and it's exactly how most people think, not just those who comment on the articles. More worrying is how the papers will treat these women once they have a voice, the Mail will tear them to pieces if they aren't perfect.
September 2nd, 2009 - 22:09
I feel sick after reading those comment pages…
September 3rd, 2009 - 12:00
It definitely follows something that I think you've noticed the Mail pushing before: this idea that the world is a big, bad, scary place, so you must be afraid of it. It provokes that 'tut, aren't people awful' reaction that they go for so often.
There's was also a really good article somewhere in the Times (can't remember who wrote it, sorry!) saying that these stories will have the worst effect on female children who are growing up now, as they will see their freedom to roam and play outside away from adult supervision again curtailed by worried parents trying to keep them safe.
The Mail's treatment of the story does nothing to discourage this view, sadly.
September 3rd, 2009 - 12:04
I read the worst rated one and couldn't bear to read any more. Horrendous.
September 3rd, 2009 - 12:22
Deeply nasty stuff but our tabloid press has a long history of using rape cases as low-key pr0n, indeed the Daily Sport used to run a rape story front page nearly every other day; filling it with explicit details with the clear aim of getting it's readers off.
September 4th, 2009 - 10:59
i'm shocked but not surprised at how sensible comments are rated in the daily mail.
This newspaper is dangerous and vile. nothing more to say.
September 4th, 2009 - 22:42
Some of these comments are word-for-word from the victim blaming manual: "all right, so it was 'terrible' I guess, but can't she shut up about it?" Seriously? Rape is one of the most under-reported crimes for exactly that reason: people (women) are told that they should keep mum and go on about their day as usual because no one cares and no one will believe them. It's frightening and more than a little disgusting.
I'd also like to pound this notion into the heads of victim-blamers: Look, it's an enlightened age, supposedly. It's entirely possible that a woman dresses up nicely and goes to a club with – shock! – the idea of having sex with someone.
She has the right to do that. She also has the right to choose who she wants to have sex with, and that's the point that sails so magnificently over everyone's heads these days. Sexually active women can be raped. Prostitutes can be raped. Your mother and grandmother can be raped. Why is this so hard to comprehend?
September 6th, 2009 - 18:50
The Jordan rape story came out the same week as research suggesting a high number of teenage girls are raped or coerced into sex by their partners. After a few sites of comments on both stories (she deserves it/girls shouldn't change their minds when they sober up) I came to the conclusion that it would probably be a good thing if swine flu kills us all.
September 7th, 2009 - 15:15
I know I'm five days late to comment here, but since all the comments here so far have focussed on rape, the Mail, and what utter bastards most people who pass comment on either are, I'm going to chuck in my own tuppence worth, in response to your invitation to "ask yourself what benefit comments on stories like that actually produce, other than some web traffic?"
A couple of weeks ago a dear friend of mine died in a road accident. Partly owing to a tenuous family connection to a vaguely high profile person, it received moderate national coverage – the Beeb's website, among others, ran a short piece – and a lot of the articles were open for comments. On the one hand, this allowed some commenters to correct a few factual errors in the articles, presumably taking some comfort in the knowledge that at least the lost life need not be reported completely inaccurately.
On the other hand, the many unmoderated comments from people who (perhaps understandably) felt no emotional or empathic connection to the story, and thereby felt entitled to boldly ascribe blame and/or use my friend's death as 'exhibit a' in some barely-cogent argument about something-or-other, were rather painful to read.
As I said, I can understand people reading about a random death/rape/horror and not having the time to connect with the story on an emotional level, and I can also understand the compulsion to use a comment field like a soapbox. What I cannot understand is why so many news websites feel it is so crucially vital to allow Joe Schmuck to weigh in on matters that he has no expertise on, right in front of grieving loved ones and/or the injured parties. Why don't they take it a step further, and offer a phone line for people to ring and vent their opinions, which can then be replayed via loudspeaker for the mourners/victims/etc to hear outside the funeral/court case/etc?
I can appreciate that this sense of open dialogue between content-creators and their audience is important to keep the audience engaged and coming back for more, but would it really be so hard for the news sites to offer a mailto: link, instead of an unmoderated (or barely-moderated) comments field? And wouldn't that small step filter out those who respond immediately, without pause for thought?
So no, I don't understand why the Mail (in particular – so many other news sites are guilty too) think it is appropriate to invite comment on stories which provoke no debate, which merely inform us of the latest shitstorm that some incredibly unfortunate people are having to live through.
September 11th, 2009 - 01:27
I'm also fairly late in posting a comment here, but I have to say Anton, that this is one hell of a fine post from you!