I am just going to start with a small yet VERY important video to ‘set the scene’ for my argument and outrage that Kate Clark has installed.
In the article linguistics of blame language is said to have a large effect on how and where blame is placed. The article examines articles from the sun on the subject of violence against women. The attacker of a woman is not always held responsible for his actions even though the acts reported in the sun tend to be of the most brutal kind, the victim (always a woman) may be blamed. The way in which language is used can portray the woman in a particular way. The author suggests the idea of ‘naming’ analyses. In the negative, the paper names the attacker as a beast, maniac, ripper etc. the absence of these names is more significant though as without them indicates “that the sun does not find the attacker or his actions shocking’. And finds the paper misogynist and pitiful and outraging to women everywhere. It is even subtle usages of languages that permit discrimination to emerge and substantiate within society. By not naming the attacker as a beast they aren’t acknowledging the harm and blame that should be placed on him. Therefore naming the victim becomes significant. Only certain named victims are linked to ‘beastly’ attacks. Like mum, married, housewife, and daughter. But labels where the attacker is named sympathetically, victims of ‘non fiend’ attacks are given different labels like BLONDE, unmarried, Lolita, divorcee. Implying that these things are bad but in reality it is moderninity that allows these variations of women to be created. There is nothing wrong with unmarried but this implies there is, so by the sun implying that the attack was ‘allowed’ in a sense because of these women and that their lifestyle falls out the sides of ‘normality’ that they deserve it. This labeling also limits women’s choice to be a Lolita if they want to be a Lolita and taps into the still standing detrimental stereotype that women encounter and must argue against every day. And can I just ask blonde? Really? If a blonde is raped then the attacker due to this gets of being called a beast or if she was unmarried? But if she was brunette, married with three kids then the attacker would be a ripper? This is just another attempt to punish women from diverting against the stereotype and passive female figure.
The use of language has created this stereotype which the Sun shockingly exploits in regards to rape victims. And this has been created by language and stereotype. Feminist theory and feminists like Laura Mulvey have acknowledged a concept of ‘looked- at –ness’ which allows this stereotype to exist. ‘Looked-at-ness’ is now a widely accepted concept inside the ‘male gaze’ concept which denies consciousness on the part of the looked at object, rendering them an object for visual harassment, despite the fact that this ‘looked-at-ness’ is usually directed at an ‘object’ that is human, possessing emotions, thoughts and individuality. This coded looked-at-ness falls under the heading of the male gaze, as an objectifying tool used to activate the male fantasy in its varying agendas. ‘The controlling male gaze presents ‘woman as image’ (or ‘spectacle’) and man as ‘bearer of the look’. Men do the looking; women are there to be looked at, ‘…obsessively subordinated to the neurotic needs of the male ego’. There is a ‘male gaze’ and this ‘male gaze’ allows people like those in the sun to demean women by naming their attacker insignificantly. This objectifies the woman into an undemanding entity, purging them of their capacity for action and simply rendering them at the mercy of the stereotype.
This week I couldn’t really care about the signs, yes they mean different things for different people and so on but I am more than enraged about Kate’s article. So I will end with the wise words of Germaine Greer; “Most of the women in this world are still afraid, still hungry. Still mute and loaded by religion with all kinds of fetters, masked, muzzled, mutilated and beaten.” Their ability to act against their objectification is being subdued by the men around them whether through religion or the glass ceiling of the workplace or through language which labels them as someone whose rapist isn’t as ‘beastly’ because they are not married, or through language and articles like in the sun.
Tags: Taylee Lewis
