Take Back the News

Without seeing the judge’s full remarks, I can’t say for certain that her words have not been twisted in this article, but it certainly appears that way. Her actual words, quoted towards the end of the article are:

I am satisfied there is a significant risk that you [a convicted rapist] would, if given an opportunity to commit a relevant offence, fail to exercise control of your sexual instinct.

However, at the start of the article, the newspaper reports:

A New Zealand-born actor has been jailed indefinitely for raping three Adelaide women, with a judge finding he cannot control his sexual urges.

There is a large amount of difference between someone who does not do something and someone who cannot do something.

Is it too much to ask for that the media stops making rapists out to be prisoners of their own desires, with no free will of their own?

So far I’ve been focusing on reporting here in Aotearoa New Zealand, and I intend to carry on doing so, if only because I already have far more I want to write about than I have time. However, I felt this discussion of the court case and media coverage of four African-American women who defended themselves against a physical and sexual attack was worth quoting for reasons beyond the horrificness of the case.

In particular, it highlights the interplay between the media and the courts, and also examines the influence of racism and homophobia. I quote (and I would certainly recommend reading the whole thing):

Deemed a so-called “hate crime” against a straight man, every possible racist, anti-woman, anti-LGBT and anti-youth tactic was used by the entire state apparatus and media. Everything from the fact that they lived outside of New York, in the working-class majority Black city of Newark, N.J., to their gender expressions and body structures were twisted and dehumanized in the public eye and to the jury.

According to court observers, McLaughlin stated throughout the trial that he had no sympathy for these women. The jury, although they were all women, were all white. All witnesses for the district attorney were white men, except for one Black male who had several felony charges.

Court observers report that the defense attorneys had to put enormous effort into simply convincing the jury that they were “average women” who had planned to just hang out together that night. Some jurists asked why they were in the Village if they were from New Jersey. The DA brought up whether they could afford to hang out there—raising the issue of who has the right to be there in the first place.

The Daily News reporting was relentless in its racist anti-lesbian misogyny, portraying Buckle as a “filmmaker” and “sound engineer” preyed upon by a “lesbian wolf pack” (April 19) and a “gang of angry lesbians.” (April 13)

Everyone has been socialized by cultural archetypes of what it means to be a “man” or “masculine” and “woman” or “feminine.” Gender identity/expression is the way each indivdual chooses or not to express gender in their everyday lives, including how they dress, walk, talk, etc. Transgender people and other gender non-conforming people face oppression based on their gender expression/identity.

The only pictures shown in the Daily News were of the more masculine-appearing women. One of the most despiciable headlines in the Daily News, “‘I’m a man!’ lesbian growled during fight,” (April 13) was targeted against Renata Hill, who was taunted by Buckle because of her masculinity.

In ‘Jail for kidnapper outsmarted by schoolgirl ‘, Judge Murray Abbott said:

“In a social context there must be some concern that a young girl, aged 12, would be out and about on the street alone at night,”

Not relevent. Does not make what happened alright. Is not why it happened.

My concern is not that a twelve year old is out late alone, but that if a twelve year old is out at night alone, she is not safe and does not feel safe.

Some words from Christchurch police central area commander Inspector Gary Knowles on the subject of exessive drinking amongst women:

“When women are drunk like this they have no control and are extremely vulnerable.

“They easily become victims of assault or rape and have no idea what has happened.

“How many times do we report stories of women waking up in strange places with only a vague recollection of what has happened the night before? They often have no idea if it was consensual or rape.”

Lets go right back to basics:

1) Women are not raped because they drink, they are raped because men rape them and because society permits it.

2) If a woman is so drunk that she can’t remember what happened in the morning, then she was in no state to give meaningful consent in the first place.

(Also, where’s the panic about men drinking excessively and attacking women? Or just, for that matter, drinking. Or is it only a problem for women, because it’s unladylike and somehow causes men, through no fault of their own, to attack them?)

This blog, a project of Wellington Action Against Rape, was set up to examine the news media’s reporting of issues relating to rape and sexual violence. We plan to point out examples where myths have been reinforced, where women (and sometimes men) have been blamed for violence against them or where they have simply not been permitted to tell their side of the story. And we also hope to find better examples of reporting, and hold them up as a model.

Of course, the media does not work in isolation. Not only are the myths they often reinforce widespread in society, but often they are reliant on the police and the courts for their information, institutions which have a great many flaws themselves. On top of that, they can be bound by legalities - suppression orders, and the risk of libel being the most obvious two. Nevertheless, we feel there is a lot more journalists could be doing in this area.

This article from a few days ago provides a good example of some of the things I’m talking about. Entitled ‘Girl, 12,  admits rape claim was false, the first problem is with its  very existence. Of all the rapes that occur each year (I’ve only been able to find statistics for those that make it to trial, which is in the high hundreds - those that actually occur is far, far, greater) most never reach the news. But those that are deemed (not necessarily correctly) to be false.

I’m not saying false complaints should never be reported. But I would like some balance and some context. I would like every rape to be given the same coverage (with respect for the survivor’s privacy, of course).

She had been at a krumping competition – a high-energy dance craze – with friends, while her parents thought she was sleeping safely at a relative’s home

Victim blaming is the phenomenon, often used in the courts and in the media, by which survivors of rape and sexual violence are blamed for it. It can be attributed to the clothes they were wearing, what they were doing at the time, whether they’d previously consented to sex with the rapist, whether they’d previously consented to sex with anyone ever… and so on. This is a prime example.

So, she disobeyed her parents. A twelve year old disobeying her parents. Shock!  But for doing something which every twelve year old has done, she clearly deserves to be raped. This piece of information is completely irrelevant. I don’t care if she’s been torturing puppies, she still didn’t deserve it. And what’s with this assumption that she had been sleeping at a relatives house she would have been safe. Are these people completely unaware that most sexual violence is done by family members or friends?

And the police said:

“But, on the other hand, we are relieved there is not a rapist marauding around the Raureka area; that is comforting to the community.”

If this rape didn’t happen, it means precisely that. It does not, by any stretch of the imagination mean that there are no rapists in the area. Another assumption that the only rapes that happen are those reported to the police, and hey, apparently half of those don’t happen either.

The boy, who is known to the girl but is not a boyfriend, will be referred to Youth Aid.

This last sentence raises the biggest question mark of all.  If there was nothing to the allegations at all, this boy would not be being referred to Youth Aid.

I don’t know what happened in this case. But since there is such a tendency to view women who make false or incorrect allegations as vicious and manipulative (along with a lot of women who make truthful and even provable complaints), here are a couple of alternative possitibilities:

1) A twelve year old is at a party with a group of friends. Most of them are older than her, and she’s doing her best to fit in. She’s flattered when a sixteen year old boy starts showing interest in her. He asks her to come for a walk with him. She’s a little nervous, but ashamed to turn him down, and she knows she will be looked up at school if she has an older boyfriend. They walk to the school grounds. He kisses her and she kisses him back. Then he rapes her.

She tells her parents who tell the police.  The police put constant pressure on her, forcing her to relive the incident over and over again. They ask why she went with him alone, did she kiss him, why didn’t she scream? (She froze in terror, but in retrospect she doesn’t understand why.) In the end, it just seems easier and less painful to make things up.

2) A twelve year old girl was raped by a family friend, who threatened her if she told anyone. Moreover, she knows her parents like and trust him and doesn’t think she’ll be believed. But in the end the pain gets too much, and she’s desperate to tell someone. She doesn’t feel safe telling the truth, though, so she invents a story that still enables her to talk about how she feels. She didn’t expect the police to be called, but when they are they go over her story, find that it doesn’t add up, and she is forced to admit it wasn’t true.