Throughout the semester, prompts based on class readings, screenings, lectures, and discussions will be posted on this blog. Responses will be graded on their level of critical thinking, pertinence, engagement with class texts, and grammar/spelling/proofing/
length. Be sure to read the prompt carefully and fully engage with the content of the class materials. At the bottom of your response, type your FIRST NAME and the FIRST INITIAL OF YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Claudia Z.).
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Week Thirteen: Response 13.4
In Katz’s “Stuck in (Gender) Neutral” chapter, what
examples does he cite of the media using gender-neutral language when covering
gender violence? What effect does
this have in our culture?
The media's use of gender-neutral language when covering topics of violence creates a culture where the actions of those in power are complete ignored especially when it involves violence or sexual misconduct. Some examples Katz references in this chapter are when the media refers to the people behind mass murders are referred to simply as "the shooter". They completely take race and gender out of the descriptions of these crimes (which have mostly been committed by white men) and hide it behind a guise causing white men to have a cloak of invisibility. They often blame these situations and label the criminals as "mentally-ill" or "depressed" but if a crime is committed by a minority whether race or gender, race and gender immediately become the headline. This invisibility only perpetuates the ability of white men to get away with committing violent acts.
Another example of how white men have invisibility in the media is with the case of Woodstock 99'. When the concert broke out into a incredibly violent riot where women were beaten and sexually assaulted as part of the rampage of violence the media never mentioned the fact that most of violence was committed by white men. The story was simply written off as a problem with mob mentality and the effect of the music caused people to riot and completely gave all these criminals, who were white, a pass for the violence they committed. Setting this precedent only allows and lets white men to continue these trends of violence because no matter what they do being a white male will never be a headline to put the pressure for change.
There needs to be a realization by the public that race and gender are not the causes of certain crimes. Giving one group of people invisibility in the media only allows them to further the problems that are developing in society. Without changes being led by men there will be limited advancements in creating an equal society and prevent marginalization of minority groups.
In Katz “Stuck in (Gender) Neutral” chapter he cites the media not using men terminology being a reason for most of the gender violence. In media, today most of the literature produced and distributed by battered women and rape crisis programs in written in a way that avoids to say that men’s behavior is the problem, even though nearly 91% of the victims are women. Some examples Katz gives are the pamphlets passed out from these programs never use language that directs the problem. Instead they use language to make it a gender-neutral problem. They often say “primary risk for violence is gender” but refer to it as an “everyone’s” problem instead of a men and women problem. The main issue with this and how rape culture is seen in the media they put it in a passive voice. News often refers to men violence against women as a perpetrator who did X. One major example of this is Woodstock 99’, which was a site for numerous rapes against women. Katz explains how the news language was very passive. They referred to it as an “event where a group lost it’s cool” even though a girl was caught getting gang raped during Limp Bizkit's performance. The main gender neutral issue with this example is the news never identified the rapist as men but as “concert goers.” The main effect this has in our culture is rape and violence against “one in five women” seems like a normal thing. It has become downplayed and happens so often, yet no one is doing anything to fix the problem. It stay’s gender neutral and passive which does not reach out to helping past or future victims. The perpetrators aren’t identified as men so as the media continues to use it in a passive voice it remains to be an “everyone’s” problem.
Katz' analysis of gender-neutral language when covering gender violence in the media, is that the way we allow men to become invisible creates a society where gender violence becomes a women's issue. To allow men to be called the “perpetrator,” the “rapist,” the murderer” we allow them to sink into the background of the crime and have no sense of accountability. The media names the women or allows them to become the focus of gendered violence, creating a world of victim blaming. By giving men a cloak with which to hid under, we allow them to never be held accountable for their actions, to receive no backlash or punishment for the actions, and to go unscathed by the end of incident, we do not give women the same fate. This sort of invisibility perpetuates rape culture, allowing men to act violently towards women well aware that there will be little to no consequences. Katz refers to Woodstock '99 as an example of where the media used gender-neutral language in regards to violence against women. Women were raped, the event looted, there were riots all of which were committed by male concert-goers and yet the media reported them as “crowds,” “mobs,” and “rioters.” Most people associate violence with men and would assume that those were the people responsible, but the media allowed these men to have repercussions for the action and left all responsibility on the girls who were attacked. Similarly, Katz discusses the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake Superbowl performance and how the removal of Janet's top, the exposure of her breast, and the lyrics “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song” all were sexual assaults performed against her body. When the media reported the incident, it was referred to as “Janet's incident” and Timberlake was removed from the scenario all together, allowing him to have no responsibility for the act and normalizing the public sexual assault on Janet's body as well as making it her fault. Gender-neutral language also lends to male bystanders who feel no need to step in or stop abuse against women in fear of retribution by male peers as well as having their manhood questioned.
In “Stuck in Gender Neutral” Katz’s asserts that to achieve dramatic reductions in men’s violence against women; media coverage needs to describe violent acts and rapes as a men’s issue rather the putting emphasis on the victim. If the media uses an active voice (Man Kills Woman) rather than a passive voice (Woman Killed by X) when reporting news about men’s acts of violence against women, then discussions about these issues will focus on the perpetrator rather than the victim. Media coverage consistently refers to perpetrators as “people,” “kids killing kids,” or “concertgoers" which contributes to the gender-neutral language that dominates the national conversations about rape, domestic violence, sexual assaults and related problems. To support his argument that language choice can make a difference in creating alternatives to address men’s violence against women; Katz provides different examples such as The Jonesboro Massacre, Woodstock ’99, and the U.S military rape scandal of 2003-2004. The media reported the Jonesboro Massacre as a “Kids Killing Kids” incident and framed the tragedy as “inexplicable.” However, the Jonesboro massacre was a gender crime. Two boys opened fire on a schoolyard full of girls, killing four and one female teacher. The older of the two boys reportedly acknowledged that the killings were an act of revenge he had dreamed up after having been rejected by a girl, but this factor wasn’t discussed in the media. If this massacre had been framed as a gender crime instead, Americans might have acknowledged that high rates of domestic and sexual violence are caused by the contradictory and the dysfunctional ways our culture defines “manhood.” Another example of gender-neutral language is Woodstock ’99. Woodstock ’99 was a rock/rap festival in New York that turned violent. The audience was for the most part white college students from the Northeast. Due to the poor and crowded conditions of the venue, the audience erupted in violence and as a result overturned cars, destroyed ATMs and looted burned concessions trailers. A few days after, it was reported that it has also been the site of numerous rapes and sexual assaults where a young woman was gang-raped. But once again, the news media covered the incident in a passive voice where the perpetrators were almost never identified as men. Instead, they were “member of the crowd,” “bands of concert goers” or offenders, but never “white men who gang-raped some young woman.” The way the media accounted the U.S military rape scandal of 2003-2004 helped perpetuate the myth that rapes in the military was a women’s issue. In most of the newspaper’s headline and stories made reference to “fellow troops,” “subordinates” as the perpetrators, failing to identify they were all white men who belonged to the United States armed forces. Descriptions of the perpetrators were all gender-neutral as oppose to the constant reminders of the gender of the victim. Although these three events occurred in different years, different locations and in different circumstances, they shared a common factor: the three were a men’s act of physical and sexual violence against women. The gender-neutral language that the media used to report these incidents deflected attention off men. This gender-neutral language makes it difficult to find solutions to resolve the issue of men’s violence against women. As a result, our culture keeps focusing on the victim and holds the victim responsible for what is done to her, rather than asking questions about what prompts men to commit such violent crimes against women.
In chapter 6 Stuck in (Gender) Neutral, Katz gives examples of media using gender neutral language while covering gender violence. It all started in the 1970s when the “second-wave”, rocked the social landscape, one of many cultural norms it challenges was the silent acceptance of widespread violence against women (Katz, pg.93). The “Shift in language” is where it all began for gender neutral words. Little discussion in media about American men and boys raping, harassing, battery, sexually assault, and sexual harassment women (Katz, pg.91). If covered in the media they use gender neutral language such as “people”. Men are never blamed because it forces a spotlight and makes it “uncomfortable”. By using a passive voice deflects attention away from men’s role in violence against women (pg.108). Even the phrase “violence against women” is passive it should be rephrased as men violence against women, although it does not make sense it is the truth/honest. Some examples are Woodstock’99 and Janet Jacksons/ Justin Timberlake Super Bowl incident. Katz explains that men or males diminish the language of violence being reported. The victim is focused on more than the actual perpetrator. Most headlines will say “Woman was raped” which is used in a passive voice and will not state a man raped the victim. Victims are discussed more than the preparatory and lighten their attention. Men or males never get blamed for the crime they have committed. The Woodstock incident of ’99 is an example. The focus was on “group of people” committed a violent act rather than blame the men who committed the crime. They blamed the crowd rather than a few men. It ignores race, class, and gender. Another incident was the super bowl performance of 2004. Janet Jackson and Justine Timberlake were performing on stage, when Justin aggressively ripped Janet’s shirt and her breast was exposed to the world. The blame was focused on “wardrobe malfunctions” or exposed breast. Timberlake was never mentioned in Janet’s wardrobe malfunction knowing he was the one who ripped her corset. Many people did not know he was the reason why Janet had a wardrobe malfunction. When he ripped off the corset, he sang the lyric “I’m going to have you naked after this song”. The lyric was linked to a pantomimed sexual assault. The result was Janet was blamed and not Timberlake. She was absence and controversial light. “Jackson wardrobe malfunction” headline was in a passive voice rather than “Timberlake ripped Jackson corset”. This effect our culture in the sense that it hides the bigger picture about the issues. Using gender neutral phrase to not blame the other victims creates a problem. The victims are put in the spotlight and the perpetrator are left invisibly as if they do not have any involvement. This reinforces the idea “violence against women” is a women’s issue which connect to men are overlooked or invisible.
In Katz’s “Stuck in (Gender) Neutral” chapter, he cites that the media uses gender-neutral language when covering gender violence. The violence that white males bring to society, in which case makes news headlines, without saying what their gender nor race is; the media turns a blind eye to it. Rather the news headlines state in a passive tone if a woman was the victim as “The woman was raped” or another example is with mass shooting, the new headline reads “The shooter killed”. This gives the white male perpetrator invisibility from violence, in which he does not get blamed for when these headlines are created. An example of this gender-neutral and white male invisibility violence that Katz cites is the Woodstock ’99 incident. In which consisted of when the event broke out in violence, and there were incidents of sexual assault. One reported incident was when a woman was crowd surfing and a group of white men pulled her down then began to sexually assault. Another incident within Woodstock ’99, is that again, a group of white males began to destroy the venue set by thrashing it. The commonality these two incidents share is the language of invisibility for those few white males that destroyed not only the venue but someone’s life. Instead of reading “white males gang raped a woman in Woodstock ‘99” it read “woman sexually assaulted”. To add, it also read that “a group of people broke out in a riot at Woodstock ‘99” instead of blaming those few white males who did just that; it blames all the concertgoers rather than the few white men. The language of violence excludes and makes to those white males invisible in the peripherals of ownership of their actions. The passive voice will always be the headline within violence or it will blame all but the white male perpetrator.
In Katz’s “Stuck in Gender Neutral” chapter, Katz acknowledges the use of gender neutral language in mainstream media when covering stories about men committing acts of violence or sexual assault. They use vocabulary like kids, shooter, or perp when talking about the boys committing these crimes. When the media uses language like this it takes responsibility away from men. When ladies or people of color commit crimes like this it is the headline or the first word in the report. Katz brings up a couple of examples, his examples were Woodstock 99 and the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake Superbowl halftime performance. During the music festival Woodstock 99, the crowd erupted in violence and started a riot basically because of poor conditions and over priced water. They caused a lot of damage to booths and other attendee’s property. When the mainstream reported on it the group of men that started the riot, they never identified the group as men. They used language like crowd, group, or people. The other example Janet Jackson’s Superbowl performance. During Super Bowl 38, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed a musical number and by the end of the performance Justin Timberlake popped off a piece of Jackson’s corset. The popping off of the corset revealed Janet Jackson’s breast on the most watched event every year. The next day everyone was referring to that incident as the Janet Jackson incident as if Justin Timberlake was not even there. Even mainstream media referred to it as the Janet Jackson incident, This is not good because the keep perpetuating gender neutral language. They took the accountability away from Justin Timberlake and made Jackson one hundred percent responsible. To this day mainstream media still does this. They take away accountability from white men and then society does not link these crimes with white men because media always links these crimes with men of color.
When interpersonal violence is covered on the media it is often degendered. The mainstream commentary blurs the fact that men commit most assaults on women. Jackson Kratz believes that violence against women is a men’s problem not a women’s problem. Kratz claims that if we called it for what it is, “men’s violence against women”, it would force huge attention on men. This would make many people of both genders to feel uncomfortable because it would force society to acknowledge the disturbing trend of why so many young boys grow up to become violent. Katz cites a few examples of how gender-neutral language obscures the responsibility away from men. One example is Woodstock. Woodstock is a rap/rock festival that turned violent in 1999. The concertgoers destroyed private property, overturned cars, and numerous rapes. There was a case where a women was crowd surfing, when she was forced down by a group of men and gang raped. The media was quick to degender the rapes by using the passive voice. For example, one media outlet wrote, “at least four rapes occurred,” or “this girl was raped.” as their headlines. The problem with this is that the perpetrators where never discussed. The men are not named, so the responsibility is taking away from them and placed on the women who are named. It is also written as if it was something that just happened to these women. Another example is the Puerto Rican Central Park Rampage of 2000. On June 11th a crowd of men sexually assaulted more than fifty women during the festival. The media substituted the word men with thugs, crowd, mob, or concertgoers. This tactic is used to once again obscure the responsibility away from the everyday man. The people who committed these assaults were “normal” men with no prior records. This is a clear example of how men are subconsciously taught to be violent against women. The media coverage diverted the conversation about how our culture teaches men to act with women. When the media uses gender-neutral language and passive voice, it perpetuates the problem and does not solve it, but rather hides it.
In the chapter “Stuck in Gender Neutral” of The Macho Paradox, Jackson Katz examines how gender neutral language is constantly used when covering gender violence in the media. One of the examples he uses is how the media covered Woodstock ‘99. During the festival, crowds of men assaulted and raped a number of women. Unfortunately when the incident was reported, the criminals were referred to as “bands of concert goers” or more simply “crowds.” The fact that the perpetrators were all male was completely erased led to people blaming the horrible conditions of the event for the reason that these people “lost its cool.” Another example he uses was the United States military rape scandal of 2003-2004. In January 2004 the Denver Post ran a story on how numerous servicewomen had been sexually assaulted while serving overseas in the middle east. Unfortunately, the media inadvertently reported the sexual assaults as being a women’s problem. They claimed that “female troops deserve much better” but, more often than not, they referred to the assailants as “fellow troops” or “attackers in their own ranks” or even “superiors.” The victims were always reported as being gendered female, but the attackers were “conspicuously gender neutral.” In both of these examples, white men benefit from the invisibility that language provided. For Woodstock ‘99, the white male assailants were protected from backlash or even punishment as they were just “members of a crowd” who had no control over their own actions. How can anyone be expected to keep a level head when the concert conditions were so bad? Those incidents were bound to happened. With the military sexual assaults, the gender neutrality focused the problem on to the women instead of the actual perpetrators. This even lead to one of the women being tried for adultery, because she was married, while the assailant saw no punishment. Ultimately, each of these examples show how gender neutral language completely shifts the blame off of white men who are the perpetrators of gender violence the majority of the time. -Megan R.
In “Stuck in (Gender) Neutral” Katz describes how the media covers male violence by removing their gender from the story or headline. He shows examples of television outlets covering mass shootings by referring to the man who killed everyone as, “the shooter” or “the perp” rather than identifying his gender. This is clearly illustrated by the events that happened at Woodstock 99. This was a concert event of multiple bands that got huge media coverage when there was rioting, fist fighting, destruction of property and multiple rapes that happened during the concert. Every news and media outlet referred to these men as “concert goers” and never questioned their gender as the reason for the violence. Most all of the people that attended the concert were upper-middle class white men from New England and because of this, their race and gender became invisible. If the concert was attended by a black majority, all the news would have covered was why black youth were so violent. The same goes for women, if they were to be the center of the violence, their gender would have been the center of the story. While genderless language was used in news coverage, the videos from the event show that it is the men that are the center of the fighting and destruction. This is also true of the rape that happened during the concert. The rapists were never identified by their gender even though it is certain they were all male. On top of that, passive language was used to report the rape assaults. Language for example like, “Multiple women raped at Woodstock 99” as oppose to, “Multiple men commit rape at Woodstock 99.” This gender neutral language about male violence and male violence against women, keeps our culture in the dark about the issue of male violence and our culture that defines manhood on anger and brutality. Amelia M.
In Chapter 6 of Katz’s book he discusses a handful of examples/evidence of degendering or gender neutrality in our media. In Woodstock ’99 at a rock/rap festival with a bad venue and terrible condition there was an outburst of anger where men rioted and sexually assaulted multiple women. The major issue about Woodstock was the passive and degendered ways the rapes were discussed. “…this girl was raped” “at least four rapes occurred”. The perpetrators were almost never identified as men. Instead they were called “concert goers”, “offenders”, or just “people”. People even went as far as to blame mob mentality. Yet Katz points out that there were women in that mob and they were not committing sexual assault. With the way the event was portrayed in print or on TV, it would have been easy to believe that both sexes were equally involved. Katz makes an important point of asking you to imagine if it had been women perpetrators. That would be all the news talked about. Girls riot at concert! Then questions would be asked about: why women? What would cause them to act out in such a brutal way? Yet none of these questions were asked of men in relation to Woodstock. We see more of the passive voice and male invisibility with the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake Super Bowl performance. An incident which people refer to as the Janet Jackson incident with no mention of Timberlake. The passive voice takes place when it is announced as Janet Jackson’s exposed breast, as if her breast exposed itself. The gender-neutral language and passive voice effectively shifts responsibility for violence from male perpetrators to female victims. It gives the male perpetrators the privilege of invisibility. This happens so often with most hegemonic powers; all the attention and blame are usually shifted away from this power and onto the victim or the minority. -Victoria L.
In this chapter, Katz message is that men are never the cause of gender violence and women are often at fault when it comes to gender-violence. Katz is trying to explain that even if men are at fault, somehow, men are covered up and they are never the main topic of issue. Katz states, “It is almost as if journalist, educators, and even activists make a conscious effort not to bring up the fact that men and boys commit the vast majority of interpersonal and sexual violence. So we hear regular reports about the ‘people’ who commit these crimes, and we wring our hands about yet another tragic incident of kids killing kids” (Katz, Ch.6). The media keeps using people instead of men, which makes women look bad because women are the ones whose names are clearly stated and men are covered up. The effects it has on culture is that these things continue to happen every day and it is considered “everyone’s” problem. In reality, the problem is that not everyone but men are the one creating these violence acts. Another slogan mentioned in this chapter is, “Domestic violence is not just a women’s problem. It’s everyone’s problem” (Katz, Ch.6). The slogan can easily say its “men” and women’s” problem, but it is clearly avoiding implicating men on this issue. Lastly, one of the examples was the Woodstock ’99 music festival. It was a festival that took place in New York that turned violent. According to published reports, “concertgoers overturned automobiles, destroyed ATM’s, and looted and burned concession trailers” (Katz, Ch.6). This example clearly covers up men and pretend as if everyone was at fault. However, several men started violence and the media had covered men by labeling them as “concertgoers”, which implies that it’s everyone’s fault at the festival. It plays a huge effect on culture because people assume that everyone was at fault. It makes women look bad who are not even at fault and it gives a negative image to society. At this concert, other men raped many women. However, the media never identified them as men. According to the media, “they were “people,” “offenders,” or “bands of concert goers.” However, mostly there were members of a “crowd” (Katz, Ch.6). The media keeps covering men and uses this gender-neutral language when covering gender violence. -Mohemmad M.
Katz traces the shift towards gender neutral language in our mass media to the feminist backlash during the Reagan administration in the 1980’s. When Reagan came into office he cut funding for rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters and replaced their grass roots with a social service model. By doing so, these organizations had to start playing gender politics and stop using feminist language that was utilized in the ‘70s or they would risk being seen as ‘man-haters’ and would lose more funding. An example Katz gave was, “violence against women is used as a patriarchal tool.” Today, gender neutral language is a part of private and public conversations and is mostly subconsciously done. An example Katz gave of the media using gender-neutral language to cover up gender violence was of Woodstock ’99. The 30th anniversary concert of the original Woodstock was a rock/rap concert and it failed, miserably. The music received scathing reviews, the grounds and bathrooms were unsanitary, and there was limited and expensive drinking water. The three-day concert ended in mayhem: overturned automobiles, destroyed ATMs, looted and burned concession stands, and multiple accounts of rape and sexual assault. When the rapes were reported on they were de-gendered and referred to the perpetrator as ‘people’, ‘bands of concert goers’, and ‘offenders’, they were never actually labeled as men. The coverage and commentary about the violence tended to center on the failure to plan the event properly, and the logistics behind the event were miscalculated. This is as if the violence, sexual assaults, and vandalism were solely the result of bad planning and had nothing to do with gender politics. Katz realized that the use of the passive voice deflects attention away from men’s role in violence against women. By utilizing the passive voice, it shifts the responsibility for violence and preventing it from male perpetrators to the female victims. This reinforces victim blaming by keeping men out of the picture and keeping the focus on women, which boils down to the idea that violence against women is a women’s issue and men’s central role is either over looked or invisible. Gender-neutral language will continue to let men, because they are the majority of perpetrators, be blameless in violence against women.
The media's use of gender-neutral language when covering topics of violence creates a culture where the actions of those in power are complete ignored especially when it involves violence or sexual misconduct. Some examples Katz references in this chapter are when the media refers to the people behind mass murders are referred to simply as "the shooter". They completely take race and gender out of the descriptions of these crimes (which have mostly been committed by white men) and hide it behind a guise causing white men to have a cloak of invisibility. They often blame these situations and label the criminals as "mentally-ill" or "depressed" but if a crime is committed by a minority whether race or gender, race and gender immediately become the headline. This invisibility only perpetuates the ability of white men to get away with committing violent acts.
ReplyDeleteAnother example of how white men have invisibility in the media is with the case of Woodstock 99'. When the concert broke out into a incredibly violent riot where women were beaten and sexually assaulted as part of the rampage of violence the media never mentioned the fact that most of violence was committed by white men. The story was simply written off as a problem with mob mentality and the effect of the music caused people to riot and completely gave all these criminals, who were white, a pass for the violence they committed. Setting this precedent only allows and lets white men to continue these trends of violence because no matter what they do being a white male will never be a headline to put the pressure for change.
There needs to be a realization by the public that race and gender are not the causes of certain crimes. Giving one group of people invisibility in the media only allows them to further the problems that are developing in society. Without changes being led by men there will be limited advancements in creating an equal society and prevent marginalization of minority groups.
- RJ G
DeleteIn Katz “Stuck in (Gender) Neutral” chapter he cites the media not using men terminology being a reason for most of the gender violence. In media, today most of the literature produced and distributed by battered women and rape crisis programs in written in a way that avoids to say that men’s behavior is the problem, even though nearly 91% of the victims are women.
ReplyDeleteSome examples Katz gives are the pamphlets passed out from these programs never use language that directs the problem. Instead they use language to make it a gender-neutral problem. They often say “primary risk for violence is gender” but refer to it as an “everyone’s” problem instead of a men and women problem. The main issue with this and how rape culture is seen in the media they put it in a passive voice. News often refers to men violence against women as a perpetrator who did X.
One major example of this is Woodstock 99’, which was a site for numerous rapes against women. Katz explains how the news language was very passive. They referred to it as an “event where a group lost it’s cool” even though a girl was caught getting gang raped during Limp Bizkit's performance. The main gender neutral issue with this example is the news never identified the rapist as men but as “concert goers.”
The main effect this has in our culture is rape and violence against “one in five women” seems like a normal thing. It has become downplayed and happens so often, yet no one is doing anything to fix the problem. It stay’s gender neutral and passive which does not reach out to helping past or future victims. The perpetrators aren’t identified as men so as the media continues to use it in a passive voice it remains to be an “everyone’s” problem.
Sarah D.
Katz' analysis of gender-neutral language when covering gender violence in the media, is that the way we allow men to become invisible creates a society where gender violence becomes a women's issue. To allow men to be called the “perpetrator,” the “rapist,” the murderer” we allow them to sink into the background of the crime and have no sense of accountability. The media names the women or allows them to become the focus of gendered violence, creating a world of victim blaming. By giving men a cloak with which to hid under, we allow them to never be held accountable for their actions, to receive no backlash or punishment for the actions, and to go unscathed by the end of incident, we do not give women the same fate. This sort of invisibility perpetuates rape culture, allowing men to act violently towards women well aware that there will be little to no consequences. Katz refers to Woodstock '99 as an example of where the media used gender-neutral language in regards to violence against women. Women were raped, the event looted, there were riots all of which were committed by male concert-goers and yet the media reported them as “crowds,” “mobs,” and “rioters.” Most people associate violence with men and would assume that those were the people responsible, but the media allowed these men to have repercussions for the action and left all responsibility on the girls who were attacked. Similarly, Katz discusses the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake Superbowl performance and how the removal of Janet's top, the exposure of her breast, and the lyrics “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song” all were sexual assaults performed against her body. When the media reported the incident, it was referred to as “Janet's incident” and Timberlake was removed from the scenario all together, allowing him to have no responsibility for the act and normalizing the public sexual assault on Janet's body as well as making it her fault. Gender-neutral language also lends to male bystanders who feel no need to step in or stop abuse against women in fear of retribution by male peers as well as having their manhood questioned.
ReplyDeleteMegan J
In “Stuck in Gender Neutral” Katz’s asserts that to achieve dramatic reductions in men’s violence against women; media coverage needs to describe violent acts and rapes as a men’s issue rather the putting emphasis on the victim. If the media uses an active voice (Man Kills Woman) rather than a passive voice (Woman Killed by X) when reporting news about men’s acts of violence against women, then discussions about these issues will focus on the perpetrator rather than the victim. Media coverage consistently refers to perpetrators as “people,” “kids killing kids,” or “concertgoers" which contributes to the gender-neutral language that dominates the national conversations about rape, domestic violence, sexual assaults and related problems. To support his argument that language choice can make a difference in creating alternatives to address men’s violence against women; Katz provides different examples such as The Jonesboro Massacre, Woodstock ’99, and the U.S military rape scandal of 2003-2004.
ReplyDeleteThe media reported the Jonesboro Massacre as a “Kids Killing Kids” incident and framed the tragedy as “inexplicable.” However, the Jonesboro massacre was a gender crime. Two boys opened fire on a schoolyard full of girls, killing four and one female teacher. The older of the two boys reportedly acknowledged that the killings were an act of revenge he had dreamed up after having been rejected by a girl, but this factor wasn’t discussed in the media. If this massacre had been framed as a gender crime instead, Americans might have acknowledged that high rates of domestic and sexual violence are caused by the contradictory and the dysfunctional ways our culture defines “manhood.”
Another example of gender-neutral language is Woodstock ’99. Woodstock ’99 was a rock/rap festival in New York that turned violent. The audience was for the most part white college students from the Northeast. Due to the poor and crowded conditions of the venue, the audience erupted in violence and as a result overturned cars, destroyed ATMs and looted burned concessions trailers. A few days after, it was reported that it has also been the site of numerous rapes and sexual assaults where a young woman was gang-raped. But once again, the news media covered the incident in a passive voice where the perpetrators were almost never identified as men. Instead, they were “member of the crowd,” “bands of concert goers” or offenders, but never “white men who gang-raped some young woman.”
The way the media accounted the U.S military rape scandal of 2003-2004 helped perpetuate the myth that rapes in the military was a women’s issue. In most of the newspaper’s headline and stories made reference to “fellow troops,” “subordinates” as the perpetrators, failing to identify they were all white men who belonged to the United States armed forces. Descriptions of the perpetrators were all gender-neutral as oppose to the constant reminders of the gender of the victim.
Although these three events occurred in different years, different locations and in different circumstances, they shared a common factor: the three were a men’s act of physical and sexual violence against women. The gender-neutral language that the media used to report these incidents deflected attention off men. This gender-neutral language makes it difficult to find solutions to resolve the issue of men’s violence against women. As a result, our culture keeps focusing on the victim and holds the victim responsible for what is done to her, rather than asking questions about what prompts men to commit such violent crimes against women.
In chapter 6 Stuck in (Gender) Neutral, Katz gives examples of media using gender neutral language while covering gender violence. It all started in the 1970s when the “second-wave”, rocked the social landscape, one of many cultural norms it challenges was the silent acceptance of widespread violence against women (Katz, pg.93). The “Shift in language” is where it all began for gender neutral words. Little discussion in media about American men and boys raping, harassing, battery, sexually assault, and sexual harassment women (Katz, pg.91). If covered in the media they use gender neutral language such as “people”. Men are never blamed because it forces a spotlight and makes it “uncomfortable”. By using a passive voice deflects attention away from men’s role in violence against women (pg.108). Even the phrase “violence against women” is passive it should be rephrased as men violence against women, although it does not make sense it is the truth/honest.
ReplyDeleteSome examples are Woodstock’99 and Janet Jacksons/ Justin Timberlake Super Bowl incident. Katz explains that men or males diminish the language of violence being reported. The victim is focused on more than the actual perpetrator. Most headlines will say “Woman was raped” which is used in a passive voice and will not state a man raped the victim. Victims are discussed more than the preparatory and lighten their attention. Men or males never get blamed for the crime they have committed. The Woodstock incident of ’99 is an example. The focus was on “group of people” committed a violent act rather than blame the men who committed the crime. They blamed the crowd rather than a few men. It ignores race, class, and gender. Another incident was the super bowl performance of 2004. Janet Jackson and Justine Timberlake were performing on stage, when Justin aggressively ripped Janet’s shirt and her breast was exposed to the world. The blame was focused on “wardrobe malfunctions” or exposed breast. Timberlake was never mentioned in Janet’s wardrobe malfunction knowing he was the one who ripped her corset. Many people did not know he was the reason why Janet had a wardrobe malfunction. When he ripped off the corset, he sang the lyric “I’m going to have you naked after this song”. The lyric was linked to a pantomimed sexual assault. The result was Janet was blamed and not Timberlake. She was absence and controversial light. “Jackson wardrobe malfunction” headline was in a passive voice rather than “Timberlake ripped Jackson corset”. This effect our culture in the sense that it hides the bigger picture about the issues. Using gender neutral phrase to not blame the other victims creates a problem. The victims are put in the spotlight and the perpetrator are left invisibly as if they do not have any involvement. This reinforces the idea “violence against women” is a women’s issue which connect to men are overlooked or invisible.
-Alexis B
In Katz’s “Stuck in (Gender) Neutral” chapter, he cites that the media uses gender-neutral language when covering gender violence. The violence that white males bring to society, in which case makes news headlines, without saying what their gender nor race is; the media turns a blind eye to it. Rather the news headlines state in a passive tone if a woman was the victim as “The woman was raped” or another example is with mass shooting, the new headline reads “The shooter killed”. This gives the white male perpetrator invisibility from violence, in which he does not get blamed for when these headlines are created.
ReplyDeleteAn example of this gender-neutral and white male invisibility violence that Katz cites is the Woodstock ’99 incident. In which consisted of when the event broke out in violence, and there were incidents of sexual assault. One reported incident was when a woman was crowd surfing and a group of white men pulled her down then began to sexually assault. Another incident within Woodstock ’99, is that again, a group of white males began to destroy the venue set by thrashing it. The commonality these two incidents share is the language of invisibility for those few white males that destroyed not only the venue but someone’s life. Instead of reading “white males gang raped a woman in Woodstock ‘99” it read “woman sexually assaulted”. To add, it also read that “a group of people broke out in a riot at Woodstock ‘99” instead of blaming those few white males who did just that; it blames all the concertgoers rather than the few white men. The language of violence excludes and makes to those white males invisible in the peripherals of ownership of their actions. The passive voice will always be the headline within violence or it will blame all but the white male perpetrator.
Kim S.
In Katz’s “Stuck in Gender Neutral” chapter, Katz acknowledges the use of gender neutral language in mainstream media when covering stories about men committing acts of violence or sexual assault. They use vocabulary like kids, shooter, or perp when talking about the boys committing these crimes. When the media uses language like this it takes responsibility away from men. When ladies or people of color commit crimes like this it is the headline or the first word in the report. Katz brings up a couple of examples, his examples were Woodstock 99 and the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake Superbowl halftime performance. During the music festival Woodstock 99, the crowd erupted in violence and started a riot basically because of poor conditions and over priced water. They caused a lot of damage to booths and other attendee’s property. When the mainstream reported on it the group of men that started the riot, they never identified the group as men. They used language like crowd, group, or people. The other example Janet Jackson’s Superbowl performance. During Super Bowl 38, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake performed a musical number and by the end of the performance Justin Timberlake popped off a piece of Jackson’s corset. The popping off of the corset revealed Janet Jackson’s breast on the most watched event every year. The next day everyone was referring to that incident as the Janet Jackson incident as if Justin Timberlake was not even there. Even mainstream media referred to it as the Janet Jackson incident, This is not good because the keep perpetuating gender neutral language. They took the accountability away from Justin Timberlake and made Jackson one hundred percent responsible. To this day mainstream media still does this. They take away accountability from white men and then society does not link these crimes with white men because media always links these crimes with men of color.
ReplyDeletePhilip P.
When interpersonal violence is covered on the media it is often degendered. The mainstream commentary blurs the fact that men commit most assaults on women. Jackson Kratz believes that violence against women is a men’s problem not a women’s problem. Kratz claims that if we called it for what it is, “men’s violence against women”, it would force huge attention on men. This would make many people of both genders to feel uncomfortable because it would force society to acknowledge the disturbing trend of why so many young boys grow up to become violent. Katz cites a few examples of how gender-neutral language obscures the responsibility away from men. One example is Woodstock. Woodstock is a rap/rock festival that turned violent in 1999. The concertgoers destroyed private property, overturned cars, and numerous rapes. There was a case where a women was crowd surfing, when she was forced down by a group of men and gang raped. The media was quick to degender the rapes by using the passive voice. For example, one media outlet wrote, “at least four rapes occurred,” or “this girl was raped.” as their headlines. The problem with this is that the perpetrators where never discussed. The men are not named, so the responsibility is taking away from them and placed on the women who are named. It is also written as if it was something that just happened to these women. Another example is the Puerto Rican Central Park Rampage of 2000. On June 11th a crowd of men sexually assaulted more than fifty women during the festival. The media substituted the word men with thugs, crowd, mob, or concertgoers. This tactic is used to once again obscure the responsibility away from the everyday man. The people who committed these assaults were “normal” men with no prior records. This is a clear example of how men are subconsciously taught to be violent against women. The media coverage diverted the conversation about how our culture teaches men to act with women. When the media uses gender-neutral language and passive voice, it perpetuates the problem and does not solve it, but rather hides it.
ReplyDeleteIshoa G
In the chapter “Stuck in Gender Neutral” of The Macho Paradox, Jackson Katz examines how gender neutral language is constantly used when covering gender violence in the media. One of the examples he uses is how the media covered Woodstock ‘99. During the festival, crowds of men assaulted and raped a number of women. Unfortunately when the incident was reported, the criminals were referred to as “bands of concert goers” or more simply “crowds.” The fact that the perpetrators were all male was completely erased led to people blaming the horrible conditions of the event for the reason that these people “lost its cool.”
ReplyDeleteAnother example he uses was the United States military rape scandal of 2003-2004. In January 2004 the Denver Post ran a story on how numerous servicewomen had been sexually assaulted while serving overseas in the middle east. Unfortunately, the media inadvertently reported the sexual assaults as being a women’s problem. They claimed that “female troops deserve much better” but, more often than not, they referred to the assailants as “fellow troops” or “attackers in their own ranks” or even “superiors.” The victims were always reported as being gendered female, but the attackers were “conspicuously gender neutral.”
In both of these examples, white men benefit from the invisibility that language provided. For Woodstock ‘99, the white male assailants were protected from backlash or even punishment as they were just “members of a crowd” who had no control over their own actions. How can anyone be expected to keep a level head when the concert conditions were so bad? Those incidents were bound to happened. With the military sexual assaults, the gender neutrality focused the problem on to the women instead of the actual perpetrators. This even lead to one of the women being tried for adultery, because she was married, while the assailant saw no punishment. Ultimately, each of these examples show how gender neutral language completely shifts the blame off of white men who are the perpetrators of gender violence the majority of the time.
-Megan R.
In “Stuck in (Gender) Neutral” Katz describes how the media covers male violence by removing their gender from the story or headline. He shows examples of television outlets covering mass shootings by referring to the man who killed everyone as, “the shooter” or “the perp” rather than identifying his gender.
ReplyDeleteThis is clearly illustrated by the events that happened at Woodstock 99. This was a concert event of multiple bands that got huge media coverage when there was rioting, fist fighting, destruction of property and multiple rapes that happened during the concert. Every news and media outlet referred to these men as “concert goers” and never questioned their gender as the reason for the violence. Most all of the people that attended the concert were upper-middle class white men from New England and because of this, their race and gender became invisible. If the concert was attended by a black majority, all the news would have covered was why black youth were so violent. The same goes for women, if they were to be the center of the violence, their gender would have been the center of the story. While genderless language was used in news coverage, the videos from the event show that it is the men that are the center of the fighting and destruction. This is also true of the rape that happened during the concert. The rapists were never identified by their gender even though it is certain they were all male. On top of that, passive language was used to report the rape assaults. Language for example like, “Multiple women raped at Woodstock 99” as oppose to, “Multiple men commit rape at Woodstock 99.” This gender neutral language about male violence and male violence against women, keeps our culture in the dark about the issue of male violence and our culture that defines manhood on anger and brutality.
Amelia M.
In Chapter 6 of Katz’s book he discusses a handful of examples/evidence of degendering or gender neutrality in our media. In Woodstock ’99 at a rock/rap festival with a bad venue and terrible condition there was an outburst of anger where men rioted and sexually assaulted multiple women. The major issue about Woodstock was the passive and degendered ways the rapes were discussed. “…this girl was raped” “at least four rapes occurred”. The perpetrators were almost never identified as men. Instead they were called “concert goers”, “offenders”, or just “people”. People even went as far as to blame mob mentality. Yet Katz points out that there were women in that mob and they were not committing sexual assault. With the way the event was portrayed in print or on TV, it would have been easy to believe that both sexes were equally involved. Katz makes an important point of asking you to imagine if it had been women perpetrators. That would be all the news talked about. Girls riot at concert! Then questions would be asked about: why women? What would cause them to act out in such a brutal way? Yet none of these questions were asked of men in relation to Woodstock. We see more of the passive voice and male invisibility with the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake Super Bowl performance. An incident which people refer to as the Janet Jackson incident with no mention of Timberlake. The passive voice takes place when it is announced as Janet Jackson’s exposed breast, as if her breast exposed itself. The gender-neutral language and passive voice effectively shifts responsibility for violence from male perpetrators to female victims. It gives the male perpetrators the privilege of invisibility. This happens so often with most hegemonic powers; all the attention and blame are usually shifted away from this power and onto the victim or the minority.
ReplyDelete-Victoria L.
In this chapter, Katz message is that men are never the cause of gender violence and women are often at fault when it comes to gender-violence. Katz is trying to explain that even if men are at fault, somehow, men are covered up and they are never the main topic of issue. Katz states, “It is almost as if journalist, educators, and even activists make a conscious effort not to bring up the fact that men and boys commit the vast majority of interpersonal and sexual violence. So we hear regular reports about the ‘people’ who commit these crimes, and we wring our hands about yet another tragic incident of kids killing kids” (Katz, Ch.6). The media keeps using people instead of men, which makes women look bad because women are the ones whose names are clearly stated and men are covered up. The effects it has on culture is that these things continue to happen every day and it is considered “everyone’s” problem. In reality, the problem is that not everyone but men are the one creating these violence acts. Another slogan mentioned in this chapter is, “Domestic violence is not just a women’s problem. It’s everyone’s problem” (Katz, Ch.6). The slogan can easily say its “men” and women’s” problem, but it is clearly avoiding implicating men on this issue. Lastly, one of the examples was the Woodstock ’99 music festival. It was a festival that took place in New York that turned violent. According to published reports, “concertgoers overturned automobiles, destroyed ATM’s, and looted and burned concession trailers” (Katz, Ch.6). This example clearly covers up men and pretend as if everyone was at fault. However, several men started violence and the media had covered men by labeling them as “concertgoers”, which implies that it’s everyone’s fault at the festival. It plays a huge effect on culture because people assume that everyone was at fault. It makes women look bad who are not even at fault and it gives a negative image to society. At this concert, other men raped many women. However, the media never identified them as men. According to the media, “they were “people,” “offenders,” or “bands of concert goers.” However, mostly there were members of a “crowd” (Katz, Ch.6). The media keeps covering men and uses this gender-neutral language when covering gender violence.
ReplyDelete-Mohemmad M.
Katz traces the shift towards gender neutral language in our mass media to the feminist backlash during the Reagan administration in the 1980’s. When Reagan came into office he cut funding for rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters and replaced their grass roots with a social service model. By doing so, these organizations had to start playing gender politics and stop using feminist language that was utilized in the ‘70s or they would risk being seen as ‘man-haters’ and would lose more funding. An example Katz gave was, “violence against women is used as a patriarchal tool.” Today, gender neutral language is a part of private and public conversations and is mostly subconsciously done. An example Katz gave of the media using gender-neutral language to cover up gender violence was of Woodstock ’99. The 30th anniversary concert of the original Woodstock was a rock/rap concert and it failed, miserably. The music received scathing reviews, the grounds and bathrooms were unsanitary, and there was limited and expensive drinking water. The three-day concert ended in mayhem: overturned automobiles, destroyed ATMs, looted and burned concession stands, and multiple accounts of rape and sexual assault. When the rapes were reported on they were de-gendered and referred to the perpetrator as ‘people’, ‘bands of concert goers’, and ‘offenders’, they were never actually labeled as men. The coverage and commentary about the violence tended to center on the failure to plan the event properly, and the logistics behind the event were miscalculated. This is as if the violence, sexual assaults, and vandalism were solely the result of bad planning and had nothing to do with gender politics. Katz realized that the use of the passive voice deflects attention away from men’s role in violence against women. By utilizing the passive voice, it shifts the responsibility for violence and preventing it from male perpetrators to the female victims. This reinforces victim blaming by keeping men out of the picture and keeping the focus on women, which boils down to the idea that violence against women is a women’s issue and men’s central role is either over looked or invisible. Gender-neutral language will continue to let men, because they are the majority of perpetrators, be blameless in violence against women.
ReplyDeleteEllen N.