Three men have been arrested on a litany of charges, including aggravated sexual assault, aggravated break and enter, deprivation of liberty, choke a person with intent to commit indictable offence, aggravated robbery, use offensive weapon in company with intent indictable offence… there are other charges but you get the picture.
The men are accused of breaking into two women’s homes to choke, punch, rape and rob them.
Rape is not ‘going over the top’. It’s not boys just getting a bit carried away. Rape is a serious and abhorrent crime.
Note: in this case the men have been charged but have not gone to trial. They are entitled to the presumption of innocence. This commentary is not about the specifics of this case, it’s general commentary about the way rape is erased and minimised in media reporting on sexual violence.
Detective Superintendent Virginia Gorman, the source for the ‘over the top’ quote, was making the point that the alleged violence was ‘excessive’. She did not trivialise the alleged rapes.
That was Channel 7’s choice.
Rape is an ugly, brutal word. It should be. It describes an ugly, brutal act.
Erasing the word doesn’t erase men’s choices to commit, endorse, ignore or deny rape.
Interesting fact: NSW & ACT are the only jurisdictions in Australia that don’t have ‘rape’ in their criminal code. They replaced it with ‘sexual assault’.
The thinking at the time was that rape shouldn’t be about consent (!!) it should be about the assault. Also, ‘sexual assault’ would make it easier for men to plead guilty because it doesn’t sound as bad as rape.
I’ve written more about this on my Substack and I’m working on another piece about the history and how the language we use takes the line between sex and rape – which should be stark and unyielding – and blurs it into a ‘misunderstanding’ or a ‘mistake’. It’s not. Not ever.
Rape is always a choice.
It’s been more than eleven years since I started Fixed It. In that time I’ve seen improvement in how media reports on domestic violence (don’t get me wrong, there’s more to do, but generally it’s much better than it was in 2015.)
Reporting on rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, however, has stayed the same, maybe even gotten a bit worse. Sensationalised, minimised, trivialised, erased, HUGE victim blaming – particularly if it’s even tangentially connected to sportsball – and now this.
This case is almost textbook stranger danger rape (allegedly) and even so, Channel 7 still chose to trivialise and erase the (alleged) crime.
Cops have a solid history of minimising rape, but in this case, the quote was taken out of context. Detective Superintendent Virginia Gorman was making the point that the (alleged) violence was excessive, that the men (allegedly) chose to hurt these women more than they needed to commit their (alleged) crimes. All of this was erased by Channel 7’s headline.
It’s always a choice.
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Substack
This is where I publish long form articles (often but not always) about sexual violence, structural dangers and how we can make change.
Books
Mybooks, It takes a Village to Teach Your Children About Consent, Fixed it: Violence and the Representation of Women in the Media, and Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children are available now with free shipping inside Australia if you purchase from: www.JaneGilmore.com/books
Podcast
The Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children Podcast in which I invited expert guest on the show to explore agism, women’s unpaid work, consent, power and silence, and coercive control. Find out more here.
Fixed It
FixedIt is an ongoing project to push back against the media’s constant erasure of violent men and blaming of innocent victims. If you would like to help fund it – even $5 a month makes a big difference – please consider becoming a Patron
Helplines
1800 RESPECT
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Ph: 1800 737 732
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