If I was writing the ABC headline, I would have said “woman’s body” because she was a person not just a body, but at at least they recognised that she didn’t just die, she was killed, and her son is the man charged with her murder.
Data gathered by Counting Dead Women indicates more than one woman is killed every week in Australia. Hundreds of thousands more are abused and sexually assaulted by men who claim to love them.
This cannot change while we continue to pretend the men who choose to commit these crimes do not exist.
A couple of years back the ABC asked Jess Hill and I to do some training with their senior editors on how to report men’s violence against women accurately and ethically. I wonder if there’s a connection here…
To be clear, journalists are not trained to be experts in gender based violence. Nor are they supposed to be activists. They’re trained to be journalists – to present verified facts within the bounds of the law. However, as the ABC demonstrates here, it’s not difficult to report crimes like this lawfully AND accurately.
Want to know more about the myths that contribute to this?
BOOKS
Jane Gilmore’s books, Fixed it: Violence and the Representation of Women in the Media, Teaching Consent, 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
Also available now is the Fairy Tale Princesses Will Kill Your Children Podcast in which Jane invites expert guest on the show to explore agism, women’s unpaid work, consent, power and silence, and coercive control. Find out more here.
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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