“Missing
White Woman Syndrome” is a term to identify the types of people that the media
focuses on when identifying on a missing person. The media is much more likely
to highlight stories about white, upper or middle class attractive women who
went missing, than people of color. It is a question of who has access to
media, and what is the most likely to draw emotion from the public. As sad and
terrible as this is, a young, attractive, white female will get much more
attention and emotion from the public than women or men of color.
Recently, at the Indiana
University, a Black male named Joseph Smedley went missing, and was later
discovered dead by a lake. Indiana University did not take the proper steps and
media campaign to find him, which is supporting evidence of the “Missing White
Woman Syndrome.” (A student at Indiana University writes about this recent
event in the article http://theodysseyonline.com/indiana/the-death-of-joseph-smedley-how-indiana-university-went-wrong
, on a website where anyone can write an opinionated article). Why is it that
white, attractive females get more attention from the public? In “Missing White
Woman Syndrome: How Media Framing Affects Viewers’ Emotions,” Conlin and Davie
talk about the “damsel in distress” view, that we pity white women just like in
princess and hero movies and want them to be rescued. We are socialized to root
for the ideal picture of a woman, while the media simply does not acknowledge
other tragic occurrences. The media then frames missing women to cater how the
public would like to view it, as a helpless beautiful woman subject to the
evils of our society.
It is not only with attractive
women, but the media does also not focus on missing children of color. In
circumstances of death and murder, we rarely hear about people of color but
more often hear tragic accounts on the media of white upper class people. How
do the intersection of race and class impact the media coverage, to create the
“Missing White Woman Syndrome”?
In addition, I think that gender
plays an important role in the syndrome. I am struggling with the fact that
while women are more likely to be victims of assault, does the media frame
women in a way that they are helpless to the physical power of males? In the
case of kidnappings by males, not specifically to mothers murdering their
children, a woman is subject to the physical power of a man, and the media
perpetuates this oppression by only focusing on the cases of missing women,
such as in the case of Joseph Smedley at Indiana University. Could male
privilege and power in society be an underlying reason for why the media did
not sooner cover the Joseph Smedley story?
To summarize, three social
identities come into play here: race, social class, and gender. Two of these
identities are privileged, yet one is oppressed. How is it that these three
identities come together to create the “Missing White Girl Syndrome,” and what
effect does it have on our society?
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I am looking forward to this for monday! I think both you and Sarika bring up fascinating points about gender and framing. The concept damsel in distress (Conlin and Davie) is so subtlety pervasive in our culture, despite the collective attempts to break through and past gender roles. Most of us are socialized to accept the idea of the white damsel in distress from a young age be it through Disney (as Sarika remarked), picture books and fairy tales. As we have gotten older we see it in movies, fiction and other forms of media--such as the news (this topic). I am really curious to explore the consequences this has for all oh her identies and what this says about men and more specifically about men of color like Josef Smedley.
ReplyDeleteI think in addition to all of the intersections you both have listed, there exists another in this issue that has not been touched upon explicitly in either blogpost: Ageism. I think that they odyssey article talks briefly about amber alerts and how they are only used for people under the age of 17. What about those who go missing who are beyond the college age of 18-22? WhY doesn't society place an equal weight of concern when an older and when an elderly individual goes missing (regardless of gender, SES or race...these do play if and when an older individual or elderly individual goes missing). The people reported missing beyond the age of 22 are often white people who have some connection to the war on terror/turmoil in the Middle East.
I am really excited to continue to explore all of this and more on Monday!! Great topic!
Rachel
ps I am trying to think about this from an ableist perspective. An obvious in is that often the image of white damsel in the media appear to not have any physically disabilities. What does this say about disabled individuals? A somewhat odd question: does having a disability make you a less desirable target to be kidnapped? As I think about this from a perp's perspective I can see how much easier it would be to kidnap an able bodied individual. Yet having a physical disability could make it harder to resist an attacker, as would a cognitively disablity. A disabled (especially when you factor in intersections) person, in the mind of society and of the media seems to be the antithesis of the frame of the most desirable damsel.
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DeleteHi Rachel & Sarika,
ReplyDeleteThis is such an interesting topic - I am so glad you brought this to our attention! I admit this is not something I had thought about much prior to these blog posts but now I am so intrigued by this phenomenon. And, unfortunately, I am also not shocked.
I think a good point to bring up here, which the article about Joseph Smedley brought up I believe, is that there is a general stereotype that people of color - specifically black people - have a higher pain tolerance, or are able to "withstand" and "endure" harmful situations much better than white people. Perhaps this also factors into the lack of media coverage or concern for people of color who go missing, in that people of color can endure through these circumstances, but the white girls just will not make it the same amount of time. I know this dismissive attitude for certain lives is complex and has many facets, but this definitely first jumped out at me.
I'm also curious about whether geographical location within the United States plays into this - what is the community's general or median SES? Are there regional differences? State differences? I can see how a community with a higher SES can therefore expend more police and emergency response forces to help in the search, but I'm wondering if there are differences in response or kidnapping statistics based on other things.
I'm excited to talk about this more tomorrow! Thanks again for bringing it in!
- Amber
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI feel like this goes back to jim crow days where there was this stereotype that black men lusted after white women and white women were like virgin mary's and black men were these evil savages trying to take their innocence. These stereotypes still perpetuate in today's media. They always paint the missing white woman as this perfect woman from the suburbs while others barely get any attention when something happens to them. It's like the society only cares about certain people. Media is based on ratings. Therefore they only show us what they feel people want to watch. They spend more time on the stories that will get the most attention and white attractive upperclass woman fall into that category. It's really sad that we still have not strayed away from this kind of thinking. But if their is a damsel in distress it's more likely to be media coverage on it. This is a prime example of power of the media and power of privilege. It has to do with race and SES but more about race.
Thanks for sharing this topic with us. I'm really excited to talk about on Monday!
-Faith
Media attention, both representation and socialization, is something that I both love to analyze and believe is an important force to interrogate in our lives, so thank you for bringing this topic to my attention Rachel! The intersections of race, gender, and class that I see in this tangled topic lead to some complex situations, with a lot to unpack. The strength of women in the critique of the system is likewise important. In some of the bystander workshops I’ve been facilitating recently we talk about how skills and experience can temper situations, with this kind of social justice work as an example. In terms of gender being oppressed, this is an example of how social capital in other identities can help garner attention towards one marginalized identities.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post!