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She was fatally strangled. The media is making it about her sex life.
This is not just a story about Grace ... but a story about a larger pattern of media treatment of women
Her story is part of a bigger pattern
The coverage of Millane’s death is reminiscent of the treatment of many female crime victims before her. Survivors of sexual assault, for instance, are often blamed and smeared by defense teams and the media. At Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial last year, defense attorneys said that Andrea Constand, who said that the comedian drugged and assaulted her, was a “so-called victim” who wanted his money. Later in 2018, when Christine Blasey Ford came forward to say that Brett Kavanaugh, then a nominee to the Supreme Court, had sexually assaulted her, right-wing media outlets dug (or attempted to dig) into her past.
One, Real Clear Investigations, reported that according to an anonymous source, yearbooks from Ford’s high school “feature a photo of an underage Ford attending at least one party, alongside a caption boasting of girls passing out from binge drinking.” The yearbooks “also openly reference sexually promiscuous behavior by the girls,” the site reported.
Meanwhile, the right-wing site Gateway Pundit published a story titled “Kavanaugh Accuser Is Unhinged Liberal Professor who Former Students Describe as Dark, Mad, Scary and Troubled.” The story was based on online reviews left by students of a different Christine Ford.
Nor are female murder victims safe from this kind of digging. The effect is even more pronounced when the victims — unlike Millane, who was white — are trans women of color. After 18-year-old Jaquarrius Holland was fatally shot in 2017, Chagmion Antoine wrote at the Women’s Media Center that to many Americans, women like Holland “are seen not as innocent victims but as predators.” She quotes a commenter on the blog New Now Next, who says, “it sounds like these trannies were prostitutes who deceived straight male clients into thinking they were women.” And, Antoine notes, comedian Dave Chappelle has also echoed damaging narratives about trans women “tricking” men.
Since Millane was white, her story was bound to get more attention than the stories of many missing or murdered girls and women of color. But her family is still confronted with media coverage that treats her private sexual history as though it somehow justifies her death. It’s a reminder that when girls and women are victims of crimes, they’re often victimized yet again by the justice system that’s meant to protect them, and by the people tasked with telling their stories.
The coverage of Millane’s death is reminiscent of the treatment of many female crime victims before her. Survivors of sexual assault, for instance, are often blamed and smeared by defense teams and the media. At Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial last year, defense attorneys said that Andrea Constand, who said that the comedian drugged and assaulted her, was a “so-called victim” who wanted his money. Later in 2018, when Christine Blasey Ford came forward to say that Brett Kavanaugh, then a nominee to the Supreme Court, had sexually assaulted her, right-wing media outlets dug (or attempted to dig) into her past.
One, Real Clear Investigations, reported that according to an anonymous source, yearbooks from Ford’s high school “feature a photo of an underage Ford attending at least one party, alongside a caption boasting of girls passing out from binge drinking.” The yearbooks “also openly reference sexually promiscuous behavior by the girls,” the site reported.
Meanwhile, the right-wing site Gateway Pundit published a story titled “Kavanaugh Accuser Is Unhinged Liberal Professor who Former Students Describe as Dark, Mad, Scary and Troubled.” The story was based on online reviews left by students of a different Christine Ford.
Nor are female murder victims safe from this kind of digging. The effect is even more pronounced when the victims — unlike Millane, who was white — are trans women of color. After 18-year-old Jaquarrius Holland was fatally shot in 2017, Chagmion Antoine wrote at the Women’s Media Center that to many Americans, women like Holland “are seen not as innocent victims but as predators.” She quotes a commenter on the blog New Now Next, who says, “it sounds like these trannies were prostitutes who deceived straight male clients into thinking they were women.” And, Antoine notes, comedian Dave Chappelle has also echoed damaging narratives about trans women “tricking” men.
Since Millane was white, her story was bound to get more attention than the stories of many missing or murdered girls and women of color. But her family is still confronted with media coverage that treats her private sexual history as though it somehow justifies her death. It’s a reminder that when girls and women are victims of crimes, they’re often victimized yet again by the justice system that’s meant to protect them, and by the people tasked with telling their stories.
More at https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2019/11/21/20976064/grace-millane-death-new-zealand
4 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
That would include the publishers, most of the news editors and many of the beat reporters are male. The Betty Friedans and Gloria Steinems have been pointing this out to us for the last 50 years. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
