What scenario do most people imagine if the word "rape" is mentioned? A woman walking alone at night in a quiet street, who is then grabbed and threatened by an unknown man who drags her to a nearby spot and rapes her. It's the "classic" stranger rape incident and it's the type of case that gets the media most excited.
Take the recent case of a woman attacked in an alley in Manchester, as reported in this instance by the BBC and also featured on the Crimewatch television programme. Or a case in Edinburgh last summer where a woman was attacked at night when she popped out to a local shop. Or a woman raped in Glasgow in the early hours last August after being dropped off by a taxi.
Not surprisingly, all these cases were featured in the news media. Journalists love a crime that is suitably dramatic and what they regard as "news" are cases that are unusual. Rape by a stranger in a public area is unusual, so naturally, journalists pick up on it. The police are usually more than happy to collude because they often want witnesses for their investigations. (To be fair to The Edinburgh Evening News and STV, low down in their reports of the above cases, they also quoted a police spokesperson saying this type of incident is unusual.)
The far more common type of rape is one where the victim already knows her attacker - or at the very least, is acquainted with him. More than 80% of all rapes are thought to be in this category. And only around 15% of attacks take place in public spaces. But these cases are usually only reported if a celebrity is being accused of carrying out the rape.
The problem is that the public forms a picture of the classic rape scenario from the media reporting of the rarer cases. So all too often, jurors who sit on trials of the more common type of rape (the attacker is known to the victim, the assault took place in a home, hotel room, club or car) find the case to be fundamentally at odds with their preconceived notions of what a rape actually is.
A report by The Lilith Project made the point that this misconception of what a "normal" rape is can heavily influence the decision a jury makes with regard to the guilt or innocence of the smart-suited "ordinary" man in the dock before them. He's just a regular guy, right? Not the media-created monstrous deviant out stalking dark alleys for "innocent" random victims to rape, oh no.
So what DOES a rapist look like?
In the majority of cases, I would suggest, he does indeed look like an ordinary man.
Showing posts with label media reporting of rape. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media reporting of rape. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
The innocence of victims
Some rape victims, it would seem, are more innocent than others. The woman attacked while going for a morning jog, the young mother accosted while walking her baby in a pushchair, the elderly woman menaced in her own home. Should more sympathy be shown to those women than, say, the women attacked after drinking heavily; or eyeing up men in a bar; or after a shift in a striptease bar; or while working as a prostitute?
The answer is they all deserve our sympathy if someone has forced them into having sex. No matter what a woman does to earn her money or how she behaves to try and attract men, she does not deserve to be coerced into carnal activities. The nun and the prostitute have an equal right not to be subjected to sexual violence and an equal right to be treated with sympathy and understanding if they are.
But media reporting will still tend to stereotype victims as either innocent or not. Often a rape victim will simply be described as a "woman". But equally often, she will be defined in some way which invites the reinforcement of these stereotypes.
Take a rape case that came to court in the south of England earlier this year. Ivars Balodis from Northam was convicted of raping a woman in Southampton. The woman was working as a prostitute at the time, so the local newspaper opened its accounts with: "A man accused of raping a Southampton prostitute," and in its follow up: "A man has been warned he faces a lengthy jail sentence after being convicted of the multiple rape of a Southampton sex worker."
I would argue she was a woman first and foremost and what she did to earn money should have been mentioned a little later in the article. Her profession was relevant to this particular case, so I'm not suggested it wasn't mentioned at all, but a woman attacked is a woman attacked, no matter what she did to earn her living. I do, however, applaud the fact that Balodis was convicted of her rape.
By contrast, take the case of Gary Gunstone, recently convicted of raping a woman in Bideford. Numerous press reports, including a local newspaper there started its report along these lines: "A predatory sex attacker, who raped a 30 year old virgin on a town centre pavement as motorists drove past without stopping, has been locked up for the public's protection."
The woman's virginity at the time of the attack was entirely irrelevant, so why mention it so prominently? Undoubtedly, her virginity was also mentioned in court but again, why was that necessary? Even if the victim had slept with several men by the time she was subjected to this attack, would that make Gunstone any less culpable?
Then there was the woman who recently gave evidence in the trial of the so-called Night Stalker rapist, Delroy Grant. She was his oldest alleged victim and was variously described in one report as "proud and private" (quoting from the courtroom), "frail" and "traumatised". There is no mistaking the report's sympathy for her victim status.
A recent MSc dissertation by Michail Bobotis studied the portrayal of rape victims in the UK national press. The reports of two "quality" newspapers and two tabloids between 2005 and 2009 were analysed. Bobotis found that in almost a quarter of the reports (24.4%) the rape victim was portrayed as innocent, naive and undeserving and in just over a sixth of the reports (16%) the victim was portrayed as "provoking, culpable, deserving".
And so the stereotypes of deserving and undeserving rape victims are continually reinforced, thanks to media reporting. But let me say again: NO woman should ever be forced to have sex against her will. That is RAPE. Full stop.
The answer is they all deserve our sympathy if someone has forced them into having sex. No matter what a woman does to earn her money or how she behaves to try and attract men, she does not deserve to be coerced into carnal activities. The nun and the prostitute have an equal right not to be subjected to sexual violence and an equal right to be treated with sympathy and understanding if they are.
But media reporting will still tend to stereotype victims as either innocent or not. Often a rape victim will simply be described as a "woman". But equally often, she will be defined in some way which invites the reinforcement of these stereotypes.
Take a rape case that came to court in the south of England earlier this year. Ivars Balodis from Northam was convicted of raping a woman in Southampton. The woman was working as a prostitute at the time, so the local newspaper opened its accounts with: "A man accused of raping a Southampton prostitute," and in its follow up: "A man has been warned he faces a lengthy jail sentence after being convicted of the multiple rape of a Southampton sex worker."
I would argue she was a woman first and foremost and what she did to earn money should have been mentioned a little later in the article. Her profession was relevant to this particular case, so I'm not suggested it wasn't mentioned at all, but a woman attacked is a woman attacked, no matter what she did to earn her living. I do, however, applaud the fact that Balodis was convicted of her rape.
By contrast, take the case of Gary Gunstone, recently convicted of raping a woman in Bideford. Numerous press reports, including a local newspaper there started its report along these lines: "A predatory sex attacker, who raped a 30 year old virgin on a town centre pavement as motorists drove past without stopping, has been locked up for the public's protection."
The woman's virginity at the time of the attack was entirely irrelevant, so why mention it so prominently? Undoubtedly, her virginity was also mentioned in court but again, why was that necessary? Even if the victim had slept with several men by the time she was subjected to this attack, would that make Gunstone any less culpable?
Then there was the woman who recently gave evidence in the trial of the so-called Night Stalker rapist, Delroy Grant. She was his oldest alleged victim and was variously described in one report as "proud and private" (quoting from the courtroom), "frail" and "traumatised". There is no mistaking the report's sympathy for her victim status.
A recent MSc dissertation by Michail Bobotis studied the portrayal of rape victims in the UK national press. The reports of two "quality" newspapers and two tabloids between 2005 and 2009 were analysed. Bobotis found that in almost a quarter of the reports (24.4%) the rape victim was portrayed as innocent, naive and undeserving and in just over a sixth of the reports (16%) the victim was portrayed as "provoking, culpable, deserving".
And so the stereotypes of deserving and undeserving rape victims are continually reinforced, thanks to media reporting. But let me say again: NO woman should ever be forced to have sex against her will. That is RAPE. Full stop.
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