At 14:06 13/06/2007 +0100, John Bibby wrote:
>IMHO (and _pace_ Ray), the UK feminist movement learned a lot from
>the US Civil Rights movement. However, the Civil Rights movement was
>intrinsically class-based, because colour and class were so
>intertwined. However, gender and class are far from intertwined
>(almost independent one cd say). Thus many gender issues focus on
>the interests of upper-class/academic women e.g. the poor
>millionairesses who are discriminated against in the City.
>
>For every column-inch on e.g. cleaning-women or working-class women
>generally, one sees a media-mile on articulate upper-class women.
>(The same goes for men: but we seem to have forgotten how to organise!)
The problem is not one of class, the problem is feminism. Boyce
(1994) examined coverage of gender and violence in 1242 headlines
published in seven major Canadian daily newspapers from 1989 to 1992.
Considering that statistics on violence typically show that men are
at least as victimized as women, the contrast in the amount of
coverage given to each was striking. Of the 540 headlines which
directly referred to the gender of victims, 525 (97.2%) focused on
women and 15 (2.8%) focused on men, a ratio of 35 to 1. A random
sampling of the articles accompanying the rest of the headlines
suggested the gap was even greater. He estimated that a total of 991
headlines focused on the gender of victims. Of these, 972 (98.1%)
emphasized women and 19 (1.9%) emphasized men, a ratio of 51 to 1.
Men, it would appear, are not even worthy of being victims.
Regards
Martin
Reference:
BOYCE, Jim, 1994. Manufacturing Concern - Worthy and Unworthy
Victims: Headline Coverage of Male and Female Victims of Violence in
Canadian Daily Newspapers, 1989 to 1992. Master's Thesis, Wilfrid
Laurier University, Ontario.
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