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Missing white woman syndrome

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Missing white woman syndrome (MWWS) is the disproportionate degree of coverage in television, radio, newspaper and magazine reporting of an adversity, most often a missing person case, involving a young, white, upper-middle class (frequently blonde) woman or girl. This degree of coverage is usually contrasted with cases concerning a missing male, or missing females of other ethnicities, socioeconomic classes or physical attractiveness.[1][2]

Media coverage

United States

Professor Provost, president of the National Center for Missing Adults, opines that the media tends to focus on "damsels in distress" – typically, affluent young white women and teenagers.[3]

While the disappearances of Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway became sensational news stories, a pregnant black/Hispanic woman named LaToyia Figueroa disappeared from Philadelphia three years later and attracted less national attention, despite efforts by her family to enlist the media to help find her. (Figueroa was later found murdered.)[4] One observer also saw contrasts between the attention received by Peterson and Evelyn Hernandez who was nine months pregnant when she disappeared in 2002.[5]

United Kingdom

Two cases of missing white girl syndrome are given as contrasting examples: the murder of Hannah Williams and the murder of Danielle Jones. Although both victims were white female teenagers, Jones received more coverage than Williams.[citation needed] It is suggested that this is because Jones was a middle-class schoolgirl, whilst Williams was from a working-class background with a stud in her nose and estranged parents.[6]

Yvonne Jewkes[7] cites the murder of Amanda Dowler, the murder of Sarah Payne, and the Soham murders as examples of "eminently newsworthy stories" about girls from "respectable" middle-class families and backgrounds whose parents used the news media effectively. She writes that, in contrast, the street murder of Damilola Taylor initially received little news coverage, with reports initially concentrating upon street crime levels and community policing, and largely ignoring the victim. Even when Damilola's father flew into the UK from Nigeria to make press statements and television appearances, the level of public outcry did not, Jewkes asserts, reach "the near hysterical outpourings of anger and sadness that accompanied the deaths of Sarah, Milly, Holly, and Jessica".[7]

Canada

According to a study published in The Law and Society Association, aboriginal women who go missing in Canada receive twenty-seven times less news coverage than white women; they also receive "dispassionate and less-detailed, headlines, articles, and images." [8]

Cited instances

The following missing person cases have been cited as examples of missing white woman syndrome:

United States

Australia

Jill Meagher (September, 2012) - Was a 29 year old, Irish Australian woman who disappeared after walking home from a night out in Melbourne. A suspect later led police to the location of her body. The case received widespread attention on television and social media with 120,000 people joining the find Jill Meagher facebook page. [13] This contrasted significantly to the case of Anna Chmiel, a 19 year old student with a history of mental illness who went missing for 2 days and received a meager seven line press release from the police. She was later discovered to have committed suicide. [14]

In the Iraq War

Critics have also pointed to media bias in the coverage of soldier Jessica Lynch versus that of her fellow soldiers, Shoshana Johnson and Lori Piestewa. All three were ambushed in the same attack during the Iraq War on March 23, 2003, with Piestewa being killed and Lynch and Johnson being injured and taken prisoner. Lynch, a young, blonde, white woman, received far more media coverage than Johnson (a black woman and a single mother) and Piestewa (a Hopi from an impoverished background, and also a single mother), with media critics suggesting that the media gave more attention to the woman with whom audiences would more readily identify.[15][16]

Lynch herself leveled harsh criticism at this disproportionate coverage that focused only on her, stating in a congressional testimony before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary. People like Lori Piestewa and First Sergeant Dowdy who picked up fellow soldiers in harm's way. Or people like Patrick Miller and Sergeant Donald Walters who actually fought until the very end. The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales.[17]

See also

References

  1. ^ Foreman, Tom (March 14, 2006). "Diagnosing 'Missing White Woman Syndrome'". CNN.com. Retrieved July 7, 2011. phrase invoked by Sheri Parks, a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park
  2. ^ Robinson, Eugene (June 10, 2005). "(White) Women We Love". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 7, 2011. choosing only young, white, middle-class women for the full damsel treatment
  3. ^ Krajicek, David. "Damsels in Distress". TruTV.com. p. 3. Retrieved July 7, 2011.
  4. ^ "CNN Transcript". Transcripts.cnn.com. March 17, 2006. Retrieved November 24, 2010.
  5. ^ St. John, Kelly (April 21, 2003). "Eerily similar case languishes in obscurity; Torso of missing pregnant mom was found in S.F. Bay last year". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved November 24, 2010.
  6. ^ Fiona Brookman (2005). Understanding Homicide. Sage Publications. p. 257. ISBN 0-7619-4755-8.
  7. ^ a b Yvonne Jewkes (2004). Media and Crime. Sage Publications Inc. pp. 52–53. ISBN 0-7619-4765-5.
  8. ^ Gilchrist, Kristen. "Invisible Victims: Disparity in Print-News Media Coverage of Missing/Murdered Aboriginal and White Women" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the The Law and Society Association, Hilton Bonaventure, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 27, 2008. 2011-06-08 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p239140_index.html
  9. ^ a b c d Johnson, Alex (July 23, 2004). "Damsels in distress: If you're missing, it helps to be young, white and female". MSNBC.com. Retrieved July 7, 2011.
  10. ^ “House panel passes 'Dru's Law' in sex offender bill”, USA Today, 2005
  11. ^ “Race Bias in Media Coverage of Missing Women?; Cheryl Hines Dishes on New Show”, CNN, transcript, aired March 17, 2006
  12. ^ “Remembering Michelle” CNN, blog entry recaps In Session anchor Jami Floyd's commentary at opening of In Session's coverage of Gardner-Quinn murder trial, aired July 10, 2008
  13. ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2209844/Body-Irish-journalist-29-raped-murdered-buried-shallow-grave.html,
  14. ^ http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/mother-of-anna-chmiel-says-her-daughters-case-got-no-publicity-when-she-went-missing/story-e6frg6nf-1226486165376
  15. ^ Douglas, Williams (November 9, 2003). "A case of race? One POW acclaimed, another ignored". Seattle Times. Archived from the original on December 6, 2004. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |original_url= ignored (help)
  16. ^ Osha Gray Davidson (May 27, 2004). "The Forgotten Soldier". Rolling Stone Magazine ALT mirror article. Archived from the original on February 24, 2009. Retrieved July 31, 2007. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  17. ^ "Testimony of Jessica Lynch" (PDF). Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 20, 2009. Retrieved February 2, 2009.

Further reading

External links

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