The language of gender-based violence reporting
By Hannah Coombes, Communications Officer, Womankind Worldwide
Last week, once again, headlines illustrated the terrifying state of gender-based violence.
Rebecca Cheptegei, a Ugandan long-distance runner, Olympian and mother of two was murdered by her former partner in Kenya.
Gisèle Pélicot, a French survivor was subjected to years of violence, abuse and rape after her husband repeatedly drugged her. The trial is currently underway and includes 51 defendants.
We say their names. We honour them.
Often when women* are subjected to violence by men and it makes the news, their experiences and stories spark outrage, collective pain and calls for change. Their stories and lives are held up against the backdrop of statistics that women globally have to bear the weight, and fear of, every day. This is because we know that gender-based violence and discrimination never exist in isolation. At the root of it all is misogyny and gendered inequality.
But, Rebecca and Gisèle deserve to be separated from the statistics that they will now be associated with. Their humanity and their lives matter as all women’s do. The stories we tell about them matter too.
Words build worlds
Stories – and the language that we tell them through – form our understanding of the world. This in turn feeds our behaviour, attitudes, actions which together, build our cultures and societies.
Language also allows us to both construct and mask realities. The epidemic of gender-based violence is one of these. Many current stories discuss women who are murdered but not men who murder. It is women who are raped. Not men who rape. Our grammar holds power. It allows us to deflect or remove responsibility. Gender-based violence in all its forms is not passive but the language used to describe it is.
So, when we see headlines that say that Gisèle Pélicot is taking ‘public revenge on men who raped her every night on husband’s orders’ or that Rebecca Cheptegei ‘died’, what are we being told? Because Gisèle is not taking revenge, she is seeking justice for herself and all survivors of drug related assault. Rebecca was murdered. Another person caused her death, it was not passive. Our words hold meaning.
The narrative web
We repeatedly see how the language around gender-based violence fails to hold perpetrators responsible and positions women as causing their own abuse. Descriptions of survivors, victims of femicide and their perpetrators all serve to support misogynistic tropes. Men who are violent towards women are either presented as monsters or misunderstood. Both of these framings serve to perpetuate the idea that violence against women and girls is a rare, abnormal and unpredictable. When the truth is, these men are part of a web of normalised language, beliefs and behaviours that society continues to perpetuate. This web of misogyny ties the belief that ‘boys will be boys’ to sexual harassment. It ties verbal abuse to not believing rape survivors. It ties all of this to the rising rates of femicide globally.
The media has a powerful and definitive role to play in shaping society’s understanding of gender-based violence. But time and time again we see:
- The use of passive voice that obscures or removes the perpetrator’s role (e.g. “woman was killed” or “woman died” instead of “man killed woman”).
- Language that blames victims and survivors, focusing on their actions rather than the perpetrator’s responsibility.
- Sensationalised or overly graphic descriptions of violence that objectify survivors and victims or in opposition to this, minimising the severity of the crime through euphemistic terminology.
- Language that perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes or tropes.
- Language that revictimises survivors.
- Reporting that seeks to uncover information (or misinformation) about survivors in an attempt to discredit their experiences as valid.
Language as a tool for change
Responsible reporting on gender-based violence requires a trauma-informed, survivor-centered approach that avoids revictimising language. This approach centres the experiences, humanity and dignity of women and those impacted. When journalists, politicians and public figures adopt feminist approaches to speaking about men’s violence against women, this has influence over our collective narratives around gender-based violence. This provides hope that we can in fact, change the story.
As individuals we hold power too. Start by interrogating your own language around gender-based violence. Next time you see an article that includes any of the above list of language issues, contact the media outlet and call it out. We all have a part to play in reimagining, redefining and reshaping the narrative.
Rest in power, Rebecca. Solidarity, Gisèle, to all survivors and those who did not survive.
*when using the term ‘women’ in this piece, I refer to all women including cis, trans and non-binary people.
Further reading
- An overview of femicide, what it is, why it happens and how to end it – Womankind Worldwide
