Women, Violence, and the Media: Readings in Feminist Criminology

Part I: Gendered Constructions: Women and Violence

·  · PART I GENDERED CONSTRUCTIONS WOMEN AND VIOLENCE Part I introduces readers to gendered constructions of violence. “Gendered ” refers quite specifically to masculine assumptions used by the media to characterize women’s experiences with violence. The constructions in question are discernible in daily news reports, television dramas, films, and textbooks, and they reflect and reinforce complex social, historical , and cultural judgments about violence and its relationship to women. When women run into trouble as victims or as perpetrators, the media invoke a common set of assumptions that reporters, scriptwriters, and others use to valorize or demonize women, depending on the circumstances. These assumptions are based on () a sexualized dichotomy between good and bad women, () a distinction between the social worlds of women and men, () the compounding influence of race, ethnicity, and social class identities on stigmatizing processes, and () the gendered construction of knowledge in disciplinary fields of study. These assumptions shape gendered constructions of women as both victims and perpetrators. Good versus Bad Women “Sexual history” is a shorthand term implying that women who have a “certain kind” of sexual history are less worthy of fair treatment than those who do not. The distinction, however is outdated as women in the United States become sexually active in their teens (National Survey of Family Growth, November , ). The difference between sexual tolerance and the media construction of bad women, thus, requires explanation . The assignment of women to marriageable and sexually available categories reflects masculine prerogatives. Feinman () labels marriageable women as Madonnas and bad women as whores, whereas Benedict () and Boyle () use the terms virgin and vamp to convey the same sexualized dichotomy. Although the distinction has outlived its usefulness, it remains a cultural resource, available when needed to sim- ·  · part i plify complex phenomena such as gender and sexuality. Media outlets use the distinction as a simplifying device to position women with respect to violence. Bad women should expect to be victimized. The media maintain an illusion that good girls have privileges and protections that eroticized bad girls are justly denied. The distinction is readily apparent in media representations of rape victims, many of whom are blamed for their own attacks. When women are raped, sexualized questions of provocation “naturally” arise, the assumption being that the victim wanted it, deserved it, or lied about it. Similar questions arise when the context is date rape, although the male defense in date rape turns on miscommunication, the assumption being that he misread the situation or that the woman was insufficiently clear about her intentions (Boyle, ). Victim blaming, a corollary of the distinction between good and bad women, is gendered; it gives men an edge in the court of public opinion and frequently in criminal court as well. It is important to keep in mind that the good girl/bad girl distinction is relational. Women (good or bad) are defined in relation to men whether men and masculinities are overt features of the construction or not. What is missing is often as important as what is present. For example, in Chapter  of this volume, Meloy and Miller describe an unusual balance in news themes that idealized Laci Peterson and demonized her killer, her husband, Scott Peterson. More typically, violence is gendered as female because the construction omits references to men or masculinity. Representations of evil or threatening women stand alone, as in the cases of Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, both of whom were at the center of high-profile cases about infanticide. The role of the men in their lives is obfuscated or made insigni ficant by transgressive women who killed their children. Home and Work The division of the world into male work and female domesticity is difficult to see in the United States, where the entry of women into the labor force has altered traditional family arrangements. Female-headed households , dual-career families, and common-law arrangements have pushed aside two-parent households financed by a single breadwinner (Ferree, ). These changes have been mirrored in television programming. Taylor () tracked family representations in early television, noting ·  · gendered constructions that family situation comedies (The Lucy Show) gave way to the workplace family as exemplified by The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the s. In a follow-up study, Lodz () related changing images of women on television to the growing importance of females in the television audience. Because television executives believed white, upper-income...