I have recently come across two particularly distasteful examples of the media carelessly (one hopes) doing its part to ensure that women continue to be treated abyssmally by men in our culture.

In the first example, the Austin American Statesman published a story on a program wherein 8th graders at a local middle school learn what the "real world" is like through role-playing exercises. The students were each assigned an income and living situations (e.g. high school-educated single father with three children living on $528 every two weeks) and taught how to manage their bills, balance their checkbooks, and apply for jobs. Part of the job application process included mock interviews conducted by local businessmen who donated their time to the program. Accompanying the story was a photograph (shown below) showing some of the students, two boys and three girls, all age 13, sitting in a lobby, "dressed up" for the occasion as the article suggests they were instructed to do, waiting their turns to be interviewed.

Both of the boys and two of the girls are visible from head to toe. As can be seen in the photo, for the boys, "dress(ing) up" and "confidently present(ing) themselves to employers" means long-sleeved shirts and trousers. For the girls, however, it apparently means "show 'em some leg." Conspicuously absent from the article was any discussion on why girls are expected to flaunt their bodies in order to succeed in the workplace, while boys can dress as plainly and modestly as they feel comfortable dressing. I supect this omission comes from the directors of the program not recognizing the insidious message they were sending their students.

If the Statesman was merely reporting the ignorance/negligence of others in their reporting, the Dallas Morning News was itself guilty of gross irresponsibility in its October 16 report on the trial of one of three men accused of a 1996 murder. The headline reads, "Man Pleads Guilty in Cheerleader's Death," and the story goes on to tell of the evening the defendant and two other men raped an unconscious girl and then, fearing she would press charges, killed her. The lead states,"an Oklahoma man who was part of a trio accused of shooting an unconscious cheerleader nine times and then dumping her body in a creek pleaded guilty Wednesday to murder." (Click here to see the full text of this article.)

Had the murder taken place at a football game with the girl in uniform leading cheers on the sideline, I would be more at ease with the repeated use of the word "cheerleader." But nowhere does the article give any indication of why it is relevant to the story that the victim was a cheerleader. The article also identifies the girl as Heather Rich, "a homecoming queen candidate," but nowhere does it state that she was killed by a rival homecoming queen candidate, or that she was killed on the podium moments before she was to have received her crown, or that she was killed by a jolt of electricity from a poorly grounded microphone as she gave her acceptance speech.

I can only come to the conclusion that the paper makes these references with one intention: to make the story more lurid and sensational. They could have easily called her a girl, a high school student, a teenager, or any number of other less inflammatory things and not comprimised the content of the story. But instead, they chose to identify her as the kind of girl who wears really short skirts and stands on the sideline encouraging the boys in their sporting life. Cheerleaders have a reputation as real-life Barbie dolls -- pretty, perky, dumb, even fast and loose. The lead could easily have read, "An Oklahoma man who was part of a trio accused of shooting a sexy unconscious girl nine times and then dumping her body in a creek pleaded guilty Wednesday to murder."

In addition, the article persistently refers to the defendants as "Mr. Gambill," "Mr. Wood," and "Mr. Bagwell." The victim is referred to only by her first name, "Heather."

In defense of the paper, it is possible that the references to her as a cheerleader and homecoming queen candidate are meant to emphasize the particularly heinous nature of the crime, since we cherish cheerleaders and homecoming queens the way we, as a culture, do. And it is possible that the paper has a policy of referring to minors by their first name while reserving "Mr." or "Ms." for adults. But the terminology only serves to make the story more lurid, just as the repeated reference to Jonbenet Ramsey as a "child beauty queen" rather than a six-year-old murder victim serves to deflect attention from the real significance of that story: that a child was brutally murdered and the killer(s) have not been apprehanded. But more than simply dilluting the tragedy of the murder, the paper's poor choice of words has, in a sense, made it complicit in the murder by fostering an environment wherein young men have such little respect for their female peers that they think it's ok to sexually assault them when they're unconscious. The attitude that girls are at the disposal of boys is reinforced in this story by the cheerleader reference; a "cheerleader" is something of a charicature of a girl, one-dimensional and less fully human. And the attitude that girls are little more than sex toys is reinforced by the insistence on calling the victim by her first name, which also happens to be the style in so many advertisements for pornographic services offering up "beautiful girls," "nasty girls," and even "hot horny nymphos" named Michelle, Kara, Sunny, Priscilla, Sweet Susan, and Mistress Layla for such sexually submissive practices as "sooth(ing) your body from head to toe," "show(ing) you what satisfaction is all about," and "satisfy(ing) your every desire." (All examples from advertisements in the Austin Chronicle, October 17, 1997, pp. 103-105.) The defendants, by being assigned the title, "Mr." are thus granted a dignity and respect that neither they nor the Dallas Morning News afforded the victim and that readers of stories such as this one will consequently continue to deny future victims of crimes rooted in similar disrespect.

The mistreatment of women in our society is epidemic, if not already chronic. Nobody needs to tell this to the schools and the "serious" news organizations; they see firsthand examples every day. And in some ways, they make their livings off this epidemic: the newspapers report prolifically on gender-based crimes and sexual misconduct, and the schools have their hands full with the task of trying to head off further damage. These institutions are our best hopes for righting the situation. But they can only help if they first cease doing the subtle things they do that contribute to the problem in the first place.