Media Representation of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
Background
According to the National Operational Overview conducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2014, there is a total 1,181 police-recorded cases of homicides involving Indigenous female victims and unresolved missing Indigenous women.Page text.[1] The number of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women is disproportionately high; with Indigenous women making up approximately 10% of all female homicides in Canada yet only representing 3% of the total female population in Canada.Page text.[2] Missing and Murdered Indigenous women in Canada is considered to be a sociological phenomenon because of the social, cultural and historical factors that contribute to number of MMIW.
Stigma
There is often stigma associated with Missing and Murdered Indigenous women. These stigmas stem from prejudice towards these women’s indigeneity. Often missing Indigenous women are thought to be runaways, people who didn’t want to be found by their families and friends.Page text.[3] There are common stereotypes about how Indigenous families were both neglectful and not a desirable place.Page text.[4] This proves to be a critical factor in the process of finding these women because institutions like the police force and media refuse to officially classify missing Indigenous women as missing persons.
Quality of Coverage
News coverage on the cases of MMIW is often short and lacking of emotion. The stories of MMIW are often less publicized than those of white women.Page text.[5] The stories of MMIW that do get published are often short and lacking of detail.[5] They will often lack photos and contain very detached descriptions of the Indigenous women.[5] If the articles did include photos, they were normally passport size, not visible, not centrally placed and less intimate than the ones of missing and murdered white women. They would rarely include photos of the family and almost never have photos from her childhood.[5] The descriptions of missing and murdered white women would often include their hobbies, personalities, life goals and other intimate information, whereas this was not the case with MMIW. Kirsten Gilchrist who has conducted research on this topic comments that the lack of visual imagery and personal information denies “readers the same opportunity to identify with or become emotionally invested in the Aboriginal women’s cases”.[5]
Identity as a Sex Worker
Focusing on MMIW’s involvement in the sex industry is also a troubling aspect in how MMIW are portrayed in media representations. This focus tends to blame the victims for putting themselves at risk by being a sex worker.Page text.[6] This perspective is explained clearly in Pamela George’s case, an Indigenous sex worker who was brutally murdered by two young men in Regina. Because of the space she belonged to, sex work and Indigeneity, was common for violence to occur, the enormity of her case was grossly ignored.Page text.[7] This was the case for many MMIW where their involvement in the sex industry was magnified to label them as people unworthy of sympathy.
Sexualisation
In the cases of murdered Indigenous women, it has been noted by several researchers that the victims tend to be sexualized by the media. When the victim is sexualized the offenses committed against them by white male perpetrators are then seen as justifiable. The sexualisation of the Indigenous victims is described by Bridget Keating, a researcher who analyzed press coverage of a 2001 rape case of a 12 year old Indigenous girl.Page text.[8] She notes that the media created this “sexualized Pocahontas” image of the girl and the image shifted the attention away from the atrocities done to the victim to a framing of the victim as a “sexual aggressor” that seduced grown men.
Framing of Perpetrators
The disturbing attacks on MMIW cases also include the glorification of the perpetrators in contrast to the victims. Often when the perpetrators are white males, they are almost presented as a fallen hero, a patron that has succumbed to the evil acts of the “squaw”.[7][8] When the Indigenous women are sexualised and framed to be enticing the perpetrators to commit the crime, the perpetrators are portrayed with a goal to create sympathy for their conviction.[7] Media reports often describe these men as upright and moral members of the community and loving members of their family. In case of Pamela George’s murder, emphasis was made on the possible potential of her two star athlete murderers and it was almost positioned as a bigger loss to society than George’s death.[7]
References
- ↑ [1], additional text.
- ↑ [2], additional text.
- ↑ [Goulding, Warren. Just Another Indian: A Serial Killer and Canada’s Indifference. Calgary: Fifth House, 2001. Print. ], additional text.
- ↑ [Jacobs, Margaret D. A Generation Removed: The Fostering and Adoption of Indigenous Children in the Postwar World . Nebraska: University Press, 2014. Print ], additional text.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 [Gilchrist, Kristen. “Newsworthy Victims?” Feminist Media Studies 2010: 373-390. Print.], additional text.
- ↑ [Jiwani, Yasmin, and Young, Mary Lynn. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication. 2006: 895-917. Print.], additional text.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 [Razack, Sherene. “Gendered Racial Violence and Spatialized Justice: The Murder of Pamela George.” Race, Space, and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society. Ed. Sherene Razack. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2002. 123-156. Print.], additional text.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 [Anderson, Mark C., and Carmen L. Robertson. Seeing Red: A History of Natives in Canadian Newspapers. Manitoba: University of Manitoba. 2011. Print], additional text.