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Media Misogyny — Transcript

by Professor Josh Beck · 3,475 words · 639 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:01Hey, folks. So, today we're going to be
0:02looking at
0:03uh media misogyny.
0:06Uh
0:07>> [clears throat]
0:07>> a lot of this is going to be rooted in
0:08the feminist perspective.
0:10And specifically when we look at
0:12feminist criminology,
0:14the the sort of starting point is going
0:15to be the 1970s.
0:18Uh
0:19a number of scholars
0:21um
0:22basically [clears throat] argued and and
0:24wanted to challenge the male-centered
0:26study of crime and criminals
0:29that occurred to this point. Uh men were
0:32typical offenders.
0:34And uh
0:36women who did commit crimes at that time
0:38were often seen as
0:41um
0:43being very similar to men. The the idea
0:45that there were any sort of differences
0:47between the two genders that
0:49could have any sort of impact on how
0:52they offend or how they're victimized
0:53was was a very new idea.
0:55Um
0:56And so,
0:59one of the most important things that we
1:00see as it pertains to crime and media
1:04is uh feminist criminologists being some
1:06of the first to articulate the idea that
1:09women who commit criminal offenses are
1:11seen as having essentially transgressed
1:14two sets of laws,
1:16both the criminal law
1:18and then just the law of nature.
1:22I mean, it's important to remember that
1:23there is no single feminist criminology.
1:27Uh feminist crim is a very diverse set
1:30of approaches that can at times make
1:32different claims.
1:34Uh much like when you look at the
1:36feminist movement broadly, there's
1:38multiple different waves,
1:40each with sort of their own goals,
1:42ideas, ideologies.
1:45Uh but underpinning this broad
1:49uh area of feminist criminology are
1:51three major issues.
1:53Um
1:54The first one is is are women treated
1:56more or less harshly when they are
1:58accused of a serious offense than men?
2:01Second, are women who commit violent
2:03crimes in partnership with men or in
2:06self-defense against a man
2:08seen as passive victims of male
2:10oppression or
2:12are they active lawbreakers who chose to
2:14act criminally?
2:15And then finally, based on those
2:17previous two answers,
2:19how are women who killed represented
2:21media?
2:24Uh
2:26I want to focus for a moment here on on
2:27this first question, this idea of are
2:29women treated more or less harshly
2:32when they're accused of a serious
2:33offense. We have what's referred to as
2:35the chivalry hypothesis.
2:37Um
2:38and that argues that women are seen as
2:40needing special softer treatment.
2:43And they tend to be sentenced more
2:44leniently more leniently uh because it
2:47is seen as an act of chivalry.
2:49Uh oh, this poor woman, she would never
2:51last in prison. We should give her a
2:53softer sentence.
2:55Uh
2:57what we have found though through
2:58research is that
2:59it best case mixed results.
3:02Uh what is abundantly clear is that the
3:04chivalry hypothesis is overblown.
3:07Uh feminist criminologists are asking us
3:09to consider women who do not fit our
3:11expectations for things like behavior,
3:13beauty standards, etc.
3:16And what we end up seeing is that some
3:19women are treated less harshly.
3:22Uh this is typically going to be uh
3:24younger, white, upper-class, straight
3:27women who are conventionally attractive.
3:30Those who
3:31kind of
3:32conform to traditional gender norms.
3:35Other women
3:37who don't conform to those norms uh in
3:40our
3:43Western society, that would include uh
3:46women who are minorities, single
3:47mothers, uh
3:49>> [snorts]
3:50>> anybody who, you know, does not conform
3:53to traditional uh
3:57family setups, right? Whether it's
3:59because I uh don't want to get married
4:02or I want to have kids on my own or
4:05uh my am a lesbian or bisexual and
4:09therefore I'm attracted to other women,
4:11uh we find folks who conform to less of
4:14those traditional norms do tend to get
4:16treated more harshly.
4:21But what we begin to see happening is uh
4:24these sort of standard media narratives
4:27that we use to construct women who
4:29commit very serious crimes.
4:32Uh here they all are briefly.
4:35We're going to talk about each of these.
4:37The idea of sexuality and sexual
4:39deviance, uh
4:41when we look at female offenders,
4:42they're they're just more newsworthy if
4:44we can connect to their sexuality or
4:47their sexual history. Right? Sex sells.
4:50And we can even see through the process
4:53of socialization that behaviors that are
4:55generally seen as normal for boys and
4:58young men, uh having many sexual
5:01partners, drinking and doing drugs,
5:03doing petty crimes and risky behaviors,
5:05tend to be overdram- dramatized when
5:08they're done by women or young girls.
5:10>> [sighs and snorts]
5:10>> Uh if uh
5:13a teenage girl has multiple sexual
5:15partners, uh she's seen as a
5:18If uh teenage boy has multiple sexual
5:21partners, he's seen as a player.
5:24But
5:25this goes beyond just how we see and
5:28understand men and women, boys and
5:30girls. Uh when we look at crime,
5:33obviously we we would love to talk
5:35about,
5:36you know, women's uh
5:38attractiveness or sexual deviance or who
5:42uh they choose to sleep with. But
5:46we also start to see sexuality and
5:50sexual deviance become very, very
5:52important when we look at female victims
5:54of crime.
5:55Uh one of the sort of the hallmarks for
5:57this is when we look at victims of
5:59serial killers.
6:01So, Ted Bundy's victims tended to be uh
6:04college girls.
6:05And Gary's Gary Ridgway's victims were
6:08uh largely sex workers. And we can see
6:11in the response to these two serial
6:12killers that there was more public
6:14outcry,
6:15uh more mobilization, uh generally
6:18people cared more about Bundy's victims
6:21than Ridgway's.
6:22Um
6:24That is in large part because we live in
6:26a very heteropatriarchal society.
6:29Hetero heterosexual, patriarchal,
6:32uh emphasis on men.
6:34And so, we value men over women. And in
6:36addition, uh straight over LGBTQ
6:40identities.
6:41Uh lesbians are often seen as more evil
6:44uh because they do not conform to
6:47traditional gender roles.
6:49But, when we talk about lesbians in
6:51particular,
6:53it's often easier to compare to
6:56traditional male offenders. Right? They
6:59both lesbians and straight men are
7:02sexually interested in women.
7:04And so, we can very quickly sort of
7:07frame uh
7:09lesbians who commit crimes as
7:11uh sort of masculine
7:14in their appearance, in how they act, in
7:16how they see the world, and
7:18while a very reductive and closed-minded
7:22view of sexuality, uh
7:25shouldn't really come as a surprise that
7:28that Western culture in general sort of
7:30makes that that comparison.
7:34We also have this idea of physical
7:36attractiveness or in some cases the lack
7:39thereof.
7:40And so, women who commit crimes are to
7:42scrutiny based on their physical
7:44appearance.
7:45Uh we see this in the uh Amanda Knox
7:49video I showed. Um
7:52often referred to as Foxy Knoxy.
7:54Uh she was sort of framed as this femme
7:56fatale because she's so conventionally
7:59attractive.
8:00Uh but if you're not conventionally
8:01attractive, you're often judged more
8:03harshly. Uh Aileen Wuornos is uh a
8:07female serial uh serial killer who was
8:12often and sometimes unfairly, but
8:14described as being this horrible,
8:16hideous, horrendous-looking
8:19uh
8:19woman. And the argument was because she
8:22was not attractive, she had to sort of
8:24lash out at men and all of these
8:26different things.
8:28Uh and so again, we're just sort of
8:29simplifying all of these narratives.
8:32And instead of looking at motives or
8:34individual reasons or even kind of
8:35societal causes,
8:37we start looking at things like physical
8:39attractiveness, and that sort of sets
8:41the stage for how
8:43these media stories get constructed.
8:47Uh women are often times shoved in this
8:49narrative of bad wives.
8:51Uh
8:52women are expected to take care of their
8:53family.
8:54Women who are uh killed by their spouses
8:57are often times judged on whether or not
8:59they had been a good wife or not prior
9:01to their their victimization.
9:04Uh if a man kills his wife because she
9:07threatens to leave him, the woman may be
9:09blamed for not sticking with her man and
9:11trying to make the marriage work.
9:14As a result, we tend to see women's
9:16violence largely being relegated to the
9:18domestic sphere.
9:20In particular, when we look at things
9:22like spousal homicide,
9:23it tends to be framed as a sort of last
9:25resort when dealing with an abusive
9:27partner.
9:29Even here, there is the sort of
9:30reluctance to frame women as willing
9:32offenders.
9:34They're off It's also often framed as
9:36the only choice.
9:39Sometimes we'll even say that oh, they
9:41wanted so desperately to be a good wife,
9:43to support, to make this work. They
9:45suffered years and years of abuse
9:47because they were trying to make
9:49their, you know, their family, their
9:51marriage work.
9:52And then finally they just had they they
9:55had enough and they they killed their
9:56partner.
9:58That may be true in certain situations
10:02or that that may be part of the truth.
10:05But to sort of wipe [snorts] away every
10:07single instance of spousal homicide
10:10as
10:12at least in part due to a woman being a
10:14bad wife is is just nothing short of
10:17victim blaming.
10:19In addition to bad wives
10:21we see bad mothers.
10:23Uh women are expected to be good
10:25mothers. It's uh the argument is that it
10:27is in women's uh
10:31biological, instinctual, they have this
10:33maternal drive.
10:35And so women who kill their children are
10:38extra problematic. We we sort of
10:40struggle to make sense of this.
10:43Uh
10:45there is this tendency to blame women
10:46for failing their natural duty to care
10:49for their children.
10:50Um
10:53it it becomes a very difficult thing to
10:55square.
10:57Um
10:58As a result, when someone kills their
11:01own child, especially women, there there
11:03tend to be excuses that are often made
11:05without any evidence.
11:07Uh there's sort of this common sense
11:08assumption that oh, of course.
11:11Um the most common being postpartum
11:13depression. The argument is always oh,
11:15mom was depressed and that's why.
11:17Without that postpartum depression, she
11:19never would have been capable of this.
11:22So again, even when we are trying to
11:23give women the benefit of the doubt,
11:25trying to make excuses, trying to
11:27uh potentially frame their decisions as
11:30uh
11:31making them less culpable, what we're
11:33really doing is undermining women's
11:35agency and ability. Uh
11:39>> [clears throat]
11:39>> women are sort of forced to be this
11:41mother, this wife, and any failure to do
11:44so has to be
11:46something has to be wrong.
11:48It can't just be a decision that I, you
11:50know, I don't want kids, I don't want
11:52whatever.
11:54And when we when we look at this idea of
11:56bad mothers,
11:57uh really important theme here is this
12:00idea of carceral feminism.
12:02This is the imposition of often harsh
12:04punishments,
12:06sometimes including imprisonment, as a
12:08way to protect women and children. The
12:10idea is that they're so vulnerable, we
12:11have to do something. This is a very
12:13paternalistic point of view.
12:16Uh
12:18often we see this when dealing with
12:20expecting mothers who have some sort of
12:22substance abuse issues.
12:24Uh critics, of course, argue that this
12:26is coercive. Women are forced into
12:28treatment, often in the criminal justice
12:29system, or with the potential of a
12:31criminal justice system penalties.
12:34Right? If I go to drug court, and I go
12:35to treatment, and then I relapse, there
12:37may be criminal penalties associated
12:39with that
12:40that would not automatically be
12:43attributed to me were I to relapse on my
12:46own outside of the watchful eye of the
12:49court.
12:51Uh and so again, this we tend to see
12:53carceral feminism used the most on
12:57uh
12:58women of color, minorities, right?
13:01Part of the war on drugs involved this
13:03big push
13:04uh to get crack out of inner cities in
13:06large part because of uh
13:09fears of babies being born addicted to
13:12crack.
13:13Um and so as soon as they're born and
13:16separated from their mother, they
13:17instantly go into withdrawals because
13:20mom was doing the drugs, drugs were
13:22getting through the system to the baby,
13:23the baby developed a dependence.
13:25And so the idea is
13:27yes, the woman is suffering, but
13:30we need
13:32uh you know, the the idea of like a
13:35carrot or a stick. Uh the argument here
13:37is that we need a stick. Something to
13:39help mom
13:41uh get off the drugs and and be a good
13:43mother and take care of her her
13:44children.
13:45Uh we don't see the same thing being
13:48done with men.
13:49We don't. Uh
13:52maybe the closest argument you can make
13:53is like failure to pay child support,
13:55but
13:56and that's, you know, fraud with its own
13:58issues, but in terms of
14:02coercing and forcing
14:05women into uh again, specifically drug
14:08treatment, we just don't see that uh the
14:12criminal justice system flexing its
14:13muscles quite like that with men.
14:17Uh there's also this idea of of women as
14:19mad cows. Um
14:21women who commit crimes are often framed
14:23as crazy or at the very least mentally
14:25ill.
14:26Uh infanticide, uh killing of one's
14:28child, a baby,
14:30uh is often claimed to be the result of
14:32postpartum depression.
14:34Uh
14:35generally
14:37there is a tendency to what we call
14:39pathologize the female reproductive
14:41system.
14:43Uh the the source of all of these issues
14:45comes from
14:47women's natural, innate, instinctual
14:51desire to reproduce and have kids.
14:54Again, this is a very old-fashioned view
14:57of women,
14:58but
15:00society generally sees, {quote} "normal
15:03women"
15:05as wanting kids and being naturally good
15:07mothers.
15:08Anyone dealing with any sort of mental
15:09health issues, things like that, are
15:11themselves the problem. That's why they
15:14are different.
15:17But this does not reflect reality.
15:20Uh how do we square this with the
15:21science, with what we know now?
15:24We know on average one in five women
15:26will experience postpartum depression.
15:30Does that mean something like 20% of the
15:32population is abnormal?
15:36Feminist crim argues that we we must
15:38center women's experiences when trying
15:40to understand crime so that we can get a
15:41better sense of things like this.
15:43Just how many women deal with postpartum
15:45depression? What does that look like?
15:48Are the symptoms the same for everybody
15:49or are they different? Uh, is there
15:52something else? Maybe the postpartum
15:54depression is what finally sort of
15:56allows me to
15:59to kill my child, but is that the cause
16:02or is there some other underlying issue?
16:05When we just sort of blanket wave away
16:07all of this as oh, man, that woman is
16:09crazy, then we've simplified all of this
16:12to the point that
16:13it might as well just be guessing.
16:18Uh, Mad Calms also, uh, brings up the
16:21realities of psychiatric treatment.
16:24Uh, a lot of times we'll see insanity
16:25pleas and psychiatric dispositions
16:28where individuals sentenced to mental
16:31hospitals instead of jails or prisons.
16:33And those are seen as like getting away
16:35with it.
16:36But psychiatric dispositions are not
16:39lenient.
16:40Uh, in fact, they're typically what we
16:42call indeterminate sentences. You are
16:44there until you are no longer a risk. In
16:47the case of psychiatric treatment, until
16:49you're better.
16:50Uh, this is often far longer than a
16:53regular incarceration if you get
16:55released ever.
16:57If they decide that you cannot, uh,
17:01reach a stable
17:04condition where you can go out into the
17:06the free world and be trusted to take
17:08your medication and and,
17:10you know, stay
17:12healthy, quote unquote, then you will
17:16not leave.
17:17Uh oftentimes we uh end up forcing those
17:21who are uh
17:23under psychiatric dispositions to uh
17:26take medication
17:28uh with little regard to the impacts
17:30that it may have on them, certain types
17:32of uh side effects or even dependence.
17:36>> [clears throat]
17:36>> At the very least, best case scenario,
17:39we're creating precedent. We now have
17:41some sort of mental health psychiatric
17:45hospitalization on your record. You now
17:47have evidence of these mental health
17:50issues. All of this information will be
17:52used in the future.
17:54Uh you may want to go home, you may want
17:57to get out, you may have gone to hell
17:59with this, I'm not crazy, I've been
18:00stuck in this mental hospital for 5
18:02years, and that will just be used as
18:05argument that you're still suffering
18:06from things like delusions, that you're
18:08still uh are out of touch with reality.
18:12Uh if I don't take my medication because
18:13I don't like the way that I it makes me
18:15feel,
18:16we care far more about you not treating
18:19the symptoms, and we frame you as
18:21non-compliant. And you will not be
18:23released.
18:24There's little care or concern for
18:27uh treating the individual. Instead, uh
18:33>> [snorts]
18:33>> you know, the some have argued that it
18:35it has is actually has the potential to
18:37be worse than prison or jail, uh just
18:39because it can extend for however long.
18:45Uh women are oftentimes seen as evil
18:46manipulators. And so,
18:49when we look at women who kill with or
18:53alongside their partners,
18:55we have
18:56a new issue to consider.
18:59Uh women are are tend to be framed as
19:01sort of the cunning brains of the
19:03operation.
19:04Uh and if they're not at the very least
19:06sort of in charge pulling the strings,
19:08then they are very submissive and
19:11going along with the man,
19:13uh which we'll discuss in a minute. But
19:16>> [clears throat]
19:17>> for the women who are framed as the
19:18manipulators, the argument becomes
19:21without the woman
19:24the man would either never have done
19:26these things
19:27or
19:29would have been so sloppy, so lazy, so
19:30aggressive that he would have been
19:31caught much sooner.
19:34The woman is what makes this a lethal
19:36pair.
19:38Whether it's because the woman can
19:40instill some sort of safety and comfort
19:43to other girls who may be targeted.
19:45Uh
19:48The issue here though is that this
19:49concept conceptualization highlights the
19:52reluctance to grant agency to women who
19:54commit especially heinous crimes.
19:57Men may be evil monsters, but women
20:00shouldn't be capable of such things.
20:01There's still this
20:04othering.
20:05Most women
20:07aren't evil manipulators, but those who
20:10are, you have to be really careful of.
20:14And I can that may be true in these sort
20:17of anecdotal one-offs in this story here
20:20and this partnership there, the woman
20:22was sort of manipulating the whole
20:23thing.
20:25But we have a general reluctance to sort
20:28of typecast all of these women as evil
20:31manipulators.
20:32More often, we frame women as
20:34non-agents.
20:36Some scholars have argued that society
20:38and even significant portions of
20:40academics and researchers are just
20:42simply not ready to accept that some
20:44women will choose to commit serious
20:46crimes.
20:47Why?
20:49Well, the same reason why men commit
20:51serious crimes. We don't always know.
20:55But there's this tendency, especially if
20:59women have some sort of a male partner
21:01to frame women as being
21:04seduced into this or abused and coerced
21:07to go along.
21:09And we have this tendency to remove
21:11agency from women.
21:13Uh whether that's framing
21:15um you know
21:17>> [clears throat]
21:18>> this criminal act that sort of happened
21:20in a flash is this lost
21:23you know the woman lost control, acted
21:25in this sudden and irrational outburst.
21:27Or oh, this poor woman was was tricked
21:30and used by this evil man.
21:33The end of the day, we are far more
21:35comfortable, especially in the West,
21:37where women are sort of seen as almost
21:40second-class citizens to men,
21:42we are far more comfortable in this oh,
21:44that poor woman
21:45was tricked, was coerced, was it she was
21:49not a driving force here.
21:51It was the man's fault. Cuz again, that
21:54fits into our traditional
21:57uh views of men and [snorts] women and
21:59interactions and and all of that.
22:03Uh finally, I just I just want to
22:04highlight
22:06that
22:07it stories about women inherently
22:11check so many of our boxes in terms of
22:14modern news values.
22:16That the horror of these crimes that
22:17women commit meets that the threshold.
22:21There is a predictability to how we
22:22cover women's crimes. Is she pretty?
22:25Did she sleep around? Right? Uh the
22:28pathology is constructed as an
22:30individual issue
22:32in which the motives of the offender are
22:34often very quickly simplified. She's a
22:36bad mom, she's crazy, what have you.
22:40Risk expands now to everyone.
22:43Cuz we should be able to trust women in
22:45society. They should be safe. They
22:46should be this thing. There's There's
22:48women everywhere. And if all of these
22:49women are killers, then
22:52who knows?
22:53Uh sexuality and sexual deviance is a
22:55hallmark for covering stories about
22:57women.
22:58As a result, we often see female
22:59offenders receive this sort of celebrity
23:01status, especially if they're
23:02attractive.
23:04And they're often covered with this
23:05graphic imagery, usually relating to
23:07sex, sexuality.
23:09Uh Casey Anthony, for instance,
23:12uh
23:12a lot of the media coverage during her
23:14trial involved, after her daughter died,
23:17um
23:19her Casey Anthony going out to go party
23:22and drink, and the argument was she
23:24should be grieving.
23:29Children are often the victims.
23:32Uh this all runs in the face of
23:34conservative or you know, family values.
23:38And finally, there's this increased
23:40proximity. Because we all have mothers.

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