CQ Today (sort of) reported that a woman was allegedly stabbed multiple times in the chest and neck by her husband last week, and he has been charged with attempted murder.
IMPORTANT: this man has been charged but not yet tried. He is entitled to the presumption of innocence and any speculation about his guilt or innocence could jeopardise his trial. The following commentary is about general trends in journalism on gendered violence and does not make any presumptions about this specific case.
The invisible perpetrator trope is relentless, dangerous, misleading, ignorant, lazy, unethical, and revolting connivance with the myth that men are not responsible for the violence they choose to enact against women and children.
The National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children and the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence are just two of many reports that show we cannot end gendered violence unless we hold perpetrators to account. At the very least, this surely has to start with recognising their existence.
If I had the time, I could spend all day every day finding and correcting headlines about men’s violence against women that erases the men, the violence and/or the women and I still wouldn’t get to all of them.
Men don’t rape and murder women by accident. Rape is a choice. Murder is a choice. A specific, targeted, deliberate CHOICE. Most men choose to rape or murder a woman they know. Most rapists and murderers deny they are responsible for their choices. Erasing those choices is colluding with rapists and murderers.
Who decided that would be an ongoing choice for journalists?
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