Home > Issues > Fake News > Manufacturing Concern > Chapter Two
The Black Ribbon Campaign

Empowering Men:

fighting feminist lies

 

Manufacturing Concern:

Chapter Two: Methodology and Definitions

Jim Boyce
Home Page Articles about Issues 1000 links
alt.mens-rights FAQ Sex, Lies & Feminism Quotations
Male-Friendly Lawyers, Psychologists & Paralegals Email us ! Site-map

 

Contents Page

Summary Article

 

 

 

The_Canadian Newspaper Index (CNI) indexes many types of articles including news (local, provincial, national and international), features, sports, travel and business, and editorials, regular columns, letters and arts reviews. They are indexed under subject categories which include groups (The National Action Committee on the Status of Women), individuals (Marc Lepine), social issues (Violence), government departments (Statistics Canada) and geographic areas (Canada). CNI lists the headlines of articles in these categories but the articles themselves are chosen based on the “significant reference value” of their content (CNI 1992:iv). Features, summary articles, and articles on trends and social issues are given preference to day-to-day coverage or articles on individual cases: “Individual assault cases on a regular basis are ignored. For example stories on battered women will be picked up if the problem exists at a demographic level: if it reflects the socio-economic climate of the country, the world.... All surveys, statistics are picked up” (Atwal 1993a).

We have already seen that headlines tend to reflect article content and that journalism texts, newspaper style manuals and journalists at the newspapers indexed by CNI cite such accuracy as a key goal of the headline writer. A more pressing issue is the extent to which the articles found in CNI accurately reflect the coverage of violence in the seven newspapers being indexed. Proving this goes beyond the scope of this Thesis but a number of factors suggest the headlines being examined are significant. The CNI selection criteria favour articles dealing with summaries of events and issues or with trends, those articles most likely to be linked to general attitudes and perceptions. There were three editors during the four years being examined, reducing the influence of any one person’s biases on the selection policies of CNI.23

Even if leeway is given for some selection inaccuracies, this thesis examines more than a thousand headlines that were read by millions of readers and this, in and of itself, is significant. Finally, these headlines not only influenced those who originally read them but those who are using or will use CNI for research purposes. This potential is great given CNI’s vast clientele: “Our major market consists of public and academic libraries. Our primary users are students, academics, professionals and the general public” (Atwal 1993a).

 

Creating the Sample of Headlines

The headlines examined in this study were gathered from subject categories in CNI which refer to violent trends, violence as a general societal issue or violence as a gender-specific issue. They were chosen after a survey of CNI categories dealing with women, men, crime, violence and the media. Categories referring to individual crimes, such as Murder, Rape and Sexual Offenses, or Seniors -- Abuse, were omitted unless they referred to gender, such as Battered Women. In the case of gender-specific categories like Battered Women, I looked for a similar category referring to the opposite gender, like Battered Men. Six categories were chosen: Battered Women, Crime and Criminals -- Statistics, Family Violence, Victims of Crime, Violence, and Violence Against Women (the last was established in 1990). I wrote to Nina Atwal, CNI’s last editor, and asked whether she thought my choices were appropriate. She suggested several which might be added but said that only one, Crime and Criminals -- Media Coverage, was as important as those already selected (Atwal 1 993b). I added this as a final category. There were 1363 headlines in these seven categories:

 

Category

1989

1990

1991

1992

Total

Battered Women

64

56

50

38

208

Crime and Criminals - Media Coverage

03

10

03

03

19

Crime and Criminals - Statistics

15

36

37

111

199

Family Violence

21

50

99

67

237

Victims of Violence

40

15

27

22

104

Violence

44

16

25

30

115

Violence Against Women

*

94

188

199

481

 

187

277

429

470

1363

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* no such category

 

 

I entered the information that CNI provided on each headline into a computer database. This included publication date, page number, the newspaper where it was published, the type of article headlined (news article, editorial, etc.), the way CNI categorized the article, the title (and any additional bracketed information CNI provided on the title) and whether a photograph and/or graphic accompanied the article. I began by entering headlines from 1989 and proceeded, alphabetically, through the categories for each year. Abbreviations were used to simplify the entry of the information. The following is a typical entry (the fields CAT2 and NOTE were reserved for my categorizations and comments):

DATE:            91/02/27

PAGE:            A2

NEWS:           GM [Globe and Mail]

TYPE: News [News Articles

CAT1:             CC[Crime and Criminals – Statistics]

CAT2:

TITLE: Murder rate in Canada down in 1990 as 637 killed

NOTE: I compared my database to CNI several times to ensure I entered the information correctly. As a result of this verification process, I included three additional headlines I had missed (for a total of 1363 headlines). I then removed several types of headlines. When a headline was listed in more than one category I removed the duplicate (the CNI category in which the duplicate appeared was listed in the CAT1 field of the remaining headline).  Letters were removed since CNI’s policy of including only those by well-known people like heads of major organizations and cabinet ministers makes them unrepresentative of letters in general.  I also removed headlines which focused on child and teenage victims or non-physical crime like fraud, arson, drug abuse and public indecency.  Examples of each case, respectively, are “Security firm aims at young: school clothes bulletproofed” (90.09.10 GM.A3) and “Thieves rolling in 1990: Calgary car thefts jump by 20 per cent” (91.02.08 CH.B2).24  Finally, headlines concerning violence in other countries, such as “Asian maids trapped in Kuwaiti net of terror, abuse” (92.08.09 CH.A2), were removed.  I made two exceptions to this last case:  headlines concerning violence as a global issue and violence in the United States.  The former were included since they implicitly refer to Canada, the latter because of the proximity of Canada to the United States and the similarities between the two countries.  An example of each exception, respectively, is “Violence against women a global problem, study says” (89.03.08 TS.A3) and “US study says 1 in 8 women is raped” (92.04.24 TS.A3).  The removed headlines break down as follows: 25

 

 

Removing these reduced the sample to 1242 headlines.

  

Grouping the Headlines

I began by examining the scope, focus and accuracy of headlines dealing with gender and violence by determining how many emphasize violence against women and how many emphasize violence against men.  Headlines were separated into five groups.  The first two contain headlines with a direct link to gender and violence.  The last three contain those headlines with less direct links or no apparent links.26 

 

Group 1: Literal references to gender and violence

Group 2: Contextual references to gender and violence

Group 3: Connotative references

Group 4: Neutral references to violence

Group 5: Other references

 

I will now explore the scope of these categories, providing a summary and some examples of the headlines found in each.

Group One Summary: Literal references  to gender and violence are divided by two types depending on their directness.  The first type fulfills three criteria.  They contain key words that are clearly or frequently associated with violence, like “crime”, “murder”, “violence”, and “abuse”.  They contain key words indicating the gender of the victims, like “women”, “males”, “husband”, and “moms”.  Finally, these key words refer to gender and violence within the context of the headline.

The second type contains two kinds of headlines.  First, there are those which fulfill the key-word criteria of the first type but refer less directly to violence and gender when taken as a whole.  These tend to contain words like “abuse” and are more easily associated with issues other than violence (e.g. drug abuse).  Second, there are headlines which have key words associated with violence-related issues, like battered women’s shelters and the fear of violence.  These words include “victims”, “shelters”, “fear”, and “protection”.  They also have gender-related key words and refer to gender and violence in the context of the headline.   

Literal references contain key words associated with violence.  These words describe specific types of violence (murder), actions (beating) and trends (crime).  Headlines found in the first group of literal references contain one or more of the following words:  violence, crime, abuse; murder, homicide, kill, slay; shoot, stab, beat, batter, bash, hit, slap, wack (sic); maim, torture; rape, assault, attack, slaughter, massacre; rob, riot, war, rage, lethal and deadly.   They also contain derivatives of these words.  For instance, in addition to “murder” they contain references to murderers, murdered, murder rate, and so on.

The most direct references to violence contain words specifying acts like “murder” and “assault”, actions such as “stabbing” and “maiming”, and the word “violence” itself.  Examples are “Alarm over workplace murders: 42% of women killed on the job site are murdered” (90.12.05 CH.D8), “Blind justice:  women beaten, maimed, tortured in bedrooms of nation” (91.06.15 CH.D6) and “Steelworkers take stand on violence against women” (92.05.29 TS.A17).  Less direct are references to “crime”, which does not necessarily denote physical violence, and “abuse”, which could refer to the abuse of children, drugs, alcohol, power, or “the system”.  I have assumed that crime headlines refer to violence since this is a common perception and no headlines in our sample indicate that crime refers exclusively to non-violent acts.  Examples are “Young males likeliest crime victims, study finds” (89.10.13 MG.A3) and “Living in fear: Canadian women cope with night crime” (91.10.23 VS.A6).

In the case of “abuse”, gender-related key words establish links to violence.  “Abuse” can refer to a variety of issues but “wife abuse” has a clear meaning.  Examples of these types of headlines are “Catholic bishops take hard line of (sic) wife abuse: it’s a sin, crime and serious, they say” (91.06.26 MG.B1) and “Canada proposed as international refuge for abused women” (92.11.30 GM.A6).  The significance of gender-related words can also be seen in headlines such as “$5.4m allocated to help battered women” (89.05.03 GM.A14) and “Jokes about wife-beating abound in jock talk of coaches, players, fans” (91.03.08 MG.C9).  Deleting the words “women” and “wife” from these examples reduces their link to violence.  The first could be interpreted as concerning aid to victims of a natural disaster and the second to an emphasis in sports on losing and winning.

Headlines in the first group of the first category also have at least one of the following key words: female, male, woman, man, madman, mom, mother, wife, hubby, husband, ex-husband, daughter, girl, boy, boyfriend, her, his, she and he. Derivatives of these words are also considered. For instance, in addition to references to “wife” there are references to “wives.” The gender of victims can be identified directly or indirectly in terms of the gender of the victimizers. The latter is found frequently in the case of domestic violence. Examples are “Violent husband clinics starved” (89.12.01 CH.B1) and “$200 price tag for abuse: husbands get off too lightly: police” (90.10.04 MG:A1,2). In such cases, it is assumed that the victims are wives and, therefore, women (one might argue the victims could be children but in such a case the victimizers would likely be identified as “fathers” rather than “husbands”).

There are also headlines where violence against men or women is secondary or where both are identified as victims. In the former, we can still determine if the gender of the adult victims is emphasized. The following headline, for example, is considered to emphasize women as victims: “Children are the hidden victims when husbands batter wives: few resources available to help traumatized kids” (90.10.06 MG.A8). In cases where both women and men are cited as victims we must determine which victims receive the greater emphasis. If we assume, in “Speech on abuse by females draws ire: violence against women is the norm, clinic employee tells workshop” (91.10.31 GM.A6), that the “abuse by females” is against males, what appears newsworthy is the clinic employee’s statement that violence against women is greater. Similarly, “Hubby bashing found equal to wife abuse” (91 .06.19 WFP.A27) deals with violence against both genders but appears newsworthy because it suggests that violence against husbands is widespread enough to rival that against wives.

One case requires special consideration: headlines dealing with battered spouses who murder their partners. Examples are: “Top court upholds acquittal: ‘battered wife syndrome’ defence in man’s slaying” (90.05.03 VS.A1) and “Battered wife gets no jail in slaying” (90.05.10 TS.A1,24). As in the previous cases, the emphasis of the headline is key. If the first headline had read, “Top court upholds acquittal on murder charge,” the emphasis would have been on the murder victim. By introducing a second victim, the murder has become significant in relation to the issue of domestic violence, even though the murder may be considered the greater crime by most people. This would be obvious if the second headline had read “Battered husband gets no jail in slaying. 

The key words discussed to this point must refer to violence and gender in the context of the entire headline. The headline “Workplace proves deadly for women, conference told” (91.11.10 WFP.A5) fulfills the key­word criteria but is excluded since it could reasonably refer to accidents rather than purposeful violence. Headlines that are included vary in the degree to which they refer to violence and gender. Those used as examples to this point are direct but others are less so. An example is “Crime and women: biggest danger is at home” (92.11.28 VS.A 12). While women are not literally specified as potential victims -- one could interpret the headline as stating that violent women are most likely to attack people in their homes -- it would seem a reasonable interpretation. In “Topless rally bares male violence fears: city women’s leaders split on feminist crusade” (92.07.16 CH.C7), it is unlikely that the rally concerns topless men, particularly as part of a “feminist crusade” where concern is being raised by women’s leaders towards the potential of male violence. Although these types of headlines are less direct than most in this group I contend that readers would associate them with violence and gender.

The second type of literal references in the first group contains two kinds of headlines. The first kind fulfills the key-word criteria of the first type but constitutes less direct references to violence and gender overall. Examples are: “Showing women how to slam back at attackers” (90.11.09 VS.D9), which could refer to verbal attacks, and “Desperate abuse victim seeks justice: why has the legal system failed, woman asks” (91.11.04 WFP.B 12), where the victim and woman may not be the same person. I contend that these headlines would be linked to violence and gender by most readers but the possibility of them being interpreted otherwise is more likely than those in the first group.

The second, more common, kind of headline contains new key words. Unlike the key words of the first type of headline, which tend to describe violent acts and actions such as “murder” and “beating,” these refer to violence-related issues such as battered women’s shelters and the fear of violence. These words include: safety, protection, danger, fear, threats, guard, stalked and escape; judge, court, legal system, restraining order, sentence, ruling, “get off,” jail, prison, convicts and parole; victims, cycle [of abuse], refuge and “war on women.” Typical examples are “Shelters refuse half the women needing aid” (89.11.15 MG.A 1), “Never at night: fear stalks Canadian women on the streets of the nation” (91.10.23 HCH.D1 2) and “Truce more elusive than ever in war against women” (91.12.05 HCH.A1,2).

This second type of headline also contains gender-related key words. Many help establish a link to violence. For example, “shelters” could refer to the homeless, animals or bombs, but “women’s shelters” has a much clearer meaning. The gender of victims may be identified directly or indirectly. The previous three examples are direct. An indirect example is “Jailing of victim criticized: wouldn’t testify against husband” (91.03.29 GM.A6), which suggests a link to violence by the use of victim,’’ and to gender with an implied victimizer (husband) and, in turn, an implied victim (wife).

As with the first type, headlines vary in how directly they refer to violence and gender. Those provided to this point are direct. Some examples of less direct headlines are “Women as victims too often get the blame, seminar told” (91.10.09 VS.A9), which could refer to women as victims in terms other than violence, and “Wary women tell how they protect themselves” (91.10.09 VS.A9), which could refer to job safety or birth control, among other things. Even so, the use of some of these key words in previous headlines suggests they are associated with violence and I would contend that most readers would make the link.

Group Two Summary: Contextual references refer to events associated with gender and violence at a national level: The Montreal murders and their anniversaries, the White Ribbon Campaign, and the National Panel on Violence Against Women.  Headlines are separated into two types depending on how directly they refer to these events. The first type contains key words commonly associated with these events, such as “Lepine,” “Massacre,” “White Ribbon” and “National Panel,” which are typically published on key dates. Key words and dates refer to these events in the context of the headline.

There are two kinds of headlines in the second type. First, those which fulfill the criteria of the first type but, as a whole, refer less directly to these events. These headlines tend to contain less specific key words, like “panel” rather than “National Panel.” The second kind of headline contains no key words but is included because the headlines were published within a few weeks or days of key events and can reasonably be seen to refer to them.

Group two, or contextual, headlines refer to events between 1989 and 1992 which are associated, at a national level, with violence and gender. The events considered here are the Montreal murders and their three anniversaries, the creation and hearings of the National Panel on Violence Against Women and The White Ribbon Campaign organized by Canadian men.27 Headlines have been separated into two types depending on how directly they refer to these events. The first type contains the following key words:

 

The Montreal Murders and Their Anniversaries:

murders, killings, slayings, shootings, deaths, massacre; fourteen, Polytechnique, Marc Lepine, campus; anniversary, services, vigil, memorial; and references to Montreal, such as “Montreal tragedy” and “Montreal women”;

The White Ribbon Campaign:

white ribbon, ribbon;

The National Panel on Violence Against Women:

panel, panelist; national, anti-violence, violence and abuse panel.

Examples of headlines which contain these words and typify references in this first group are: “Speaking about the unspeakable: the massacre in Montreal” (89.12.08 GM.A7), “Males show support with white ribbon” (91.11.28 CH.A12) and “Tolerance of violence must end: time had come for direct action, panelists declare” (92.02.16 CH.A14). Other headlines are less direct. “Bill would datemark massacre” (91.10.24 VS.A3) may not be published in December or literally identify the Montreal massacre, but it is difficult to see what other massacre would merit being remembered in a Bill in 1991. “Horrifying stories of torture, abuse leave panel’s co-­chair cringing” (92.03.23 VS.A3) could refer to a panel other than the National Panel on Violence Against Women but the link seems reasonable given the widespread media attention it received.

Key dates are essential in many of these headlines. The word “ribbon,” for example, could refer to the red ribbon campaign in support of AIDS research. However, the headline “MPs with ribbons didn’t laugh” (VS.A 15 91.12.07) can safely be linked to the White Ribbon campaign because it was published the day following the anniversary of the Montreal murders. It should be noted that key dates are important primarily in the case of the Montreal murders, their anniversaries and the White Ribbon Campaign. In all three cases these dates are the days and weeks surrounding December sixth of each year.

Unless they specify men as victims, contextual references of the first type are considered to emphasize the violent victimization of women. All of these events refer to a violent act against women, like the Montreal murders, or arose in response to such an act, like the White Ribbon Campaign. The focus is explicit in the title National Panel on Violence Against Women. There were no high-profile national events portrayed as symbolizing violence against men in this period. This focus is seen in headlines associated with these events which do indicate gender: all but one (which is counted as emphasizing men) emphasize women as victims. Finally, after selecting the headlines to be included in this first group I observed that CNI had categorized every one of them as Violence Against Women.

There are two kinds of headlines in the second type of contextual reference. One kind fulfills the criteria of the first type but, when considered in the context of the headline, refers less directly to these events. These headlines tend to have words such as “ribbon” rather than “white ribbon,” or “panel” rather than “violence panel” or “National Panel.” An example is “Women urge panel to seek changes to the legal system” (92.03.24 GM.A4). This headline is included because of the link between ‘‘panel,’’ ‘‘women’’ and ‘‘legal system.’’

The second kind is determined by the date of publication. It would be hard to associate the following with the Montreal murders if they had been published a month earlier or later: “Anti-woman and anti-feminist sentiments are all around us” (89.12.09 MG.B1,4), “We mourn.., all our daughters” (89.12.10 MG.A 1), “A year after the trauma, the answers and insights still go begging” (90.12.04 GM.C1) and “Silence honors the dead” (90.12.07 CH.A3). I contend that most readers will link the headlines in this second group to gender and violence although they are more open to interpretation than those in the previous group.

Like the first type, the second is considered to emphasize violence against women. When I examined how CNI had categorized the headlines, all but three were found in Violence Against Women.

 

Group Three Summary: Connotational references are literally neutral in identifying the gender of victims but there are strong clues suggesting such a link. Two types are examined here: sexual violence and family violence. Headlines dealing with sexual violence contain key words like “rape” and “sexual assault” while those dealing with family violence contain words like “spousal abuse,” “conjugal violence” and “battering.” These key words refer to sexual or family violence within the context of the headline.

In the first two groups, the link between violence and gender was explicit, whether in literal terms or the context of specific events. Connotational headlines, however. provide implicit links. They are literally gender-neutral in their references to violence but may imply a gender-specific focus. Two types are examined here: sexual violence and family violence. References in previous groups which dealt with these types of violence emphasized women in every case (sexual violence) or the vast majority cases (family violence). Given this, the question arises whether headlines such as “Rape victim faces stiffer sentence than attacker” (9 1.12.07 HCH.A3), “Social churchgoers among most likely to abuse spouses: study” (92.05.25 MG.A9) and “City’s program protects domestic-abuse cases” (92.10.23 GM.A21) imply a gender-neutral or gender-specific focus.

We can begin to answer this by examining how CNI categorized these headlines. In the case of sexual violence, connotative references contain the following key words: rape, sexual assault, sexual violence, sex crimes and sexual harassment. Within the context of the headlines, they refer to violence. Of the 20 headlines meeting these criteria, nine were categorized by CNI as Violence Against Women. Of the remainder, seven are found in Victims of Crime, including three before the category Violence Against Women appeared, five in Crime and Criminals -- Statistics, and one each in Battered Women and Crime and Criminals -- Media Coverage.

All nine literal references to sexual violence emphasize women as victims and were also distributed across several CNI categories. Four were categorized as Violence Against Women, two each as Victims of Crime and Crime and Criminals -- Statistics, and one as Battered Women. Given that literal headlines focus exclusively on female victims and that they and connotative headlines are categorized similarly by CNI, we have some evidence that literally gender-neutral headlines imply women as victims.

References to family violence are more complex because some literal headlines identify males as victims. Connotational references contain the following key words: home, conjugal, family and domestic violence; spouse, family, domestic and parent abuse; domestic and family murder; domestic killings, crime and assault; battering and abuse. They also contain references to violence and the home, family, marriage, relationships and partners. If we examine the previous category of literal references, we find these same key words linked to gender-specific violence. Examples are “The deadly toll of family violence: 37 women and children murdered in Quebec this year” (90.12.29 MG.B5), “Family violence affects men too: researcher says women often initiate ugly cycle” (91.05.04 CH.B2) and “Domestic violence sweeps Montreal: four women killed in last three weeks (92.08.07 WFP.B26). These headlines are infrequent, however, likely due to the space they require and their repetitiveness. The vast majority of other references to violence concern the victimization of women, a focus suggested by the second-last headline which implies that husband abuse is rarely recognized as an issue.

When we examine how literal headlines are categorized in CNI, we find some emphasizing women in the category Family Violence rather than Battered Women. This is most typical in cases where men are identified as perpetrators (“Violent husband clinics starved” 89.12.01 CH.B 1) or where policies or actions regarding wife abuse are addressed (“Campaign against wife assault to be permanent, Ontario says” 90.11.02 GM.A4). There are also headlines which are found in both categories, such as “Chances of charges increase for Ontario men who beat wives” (89.08.30 GM.A14). Others, which would seem to fit in either category are found in Violence Against Women. These include “Two women killed weekly in Canada by male partners, says Statscan” (90.10.13 HCH.A1) and “Abusive husbands get help” (90.10.16 CH.B1). In the case of family violence, it appears that terms for wife abuse, family violence and violence against women are, to some degree, used interchangeably.

A similar trend occurs in connotative headlines. While the majority are categorized by CNI as Family Violence, nearly one-quarter are found in Battered Women and Violence Against Women. Respective examples are “Health woes linked to domestic violence: those who are battered more likely to have mental problems, Quebec research finds” (9 1.02.14 GM.A6) and “Ottawa bares plan to combat home violence” (91.11.08 VS.A4). Given the blurring between wife abuse, family violence and violence against women, what is the reader to think of gender-neutral headlines that refer to “battering”? It would appear we are to envision women as victims since there are no references to “battered men” and we find such gender-neutral headlines in the category Battered Women (“Battered rarely seek treatment, papers say” 90.05.14 GM.A1 1, and “Doctors want all batterers charged” 91.10.13 CH.A1).

 

Group Four Summary: Neutral references fulfill two criteria. They contain key words related to violence which, when read in the context of the headline, refer to violence. Unlike literal references in the first category, these are not considered to refer directly to the gender of victims.

Neutral headlines contain the same kinds of violence-related key words as those in category one but do not directly emphasize the gender of victims. Many appear not to have even the slightest literal, contextual or connotative link to gender (this should not be surprising since it would be unusual to find such a link in every headline). This is most obvious in headlines with quantitative information, such as statistics from studies, surveys or reports. Examples are “24% of Canadians were victims of crime” (89.04.26 GM.A 13), “Murder rate in Canada down in 1990 as 637 killed” (91.02.27 TS.A2) and “Violent crime on the increase” (91.08.24 GM.A4). There are 113 such headlines. The intuition that they are gender-neutral is supported when we examine how CNI categorized them: 101.5 are found in Crime and Criminals -- Statistics, four each in Victims of Crime and Violence, 1.5 in Family Violence and one in Crime and Criminals -- Media Coverage. Only one is found in the gender-specific category of Battered Wives.

Some of the remaining qualitative headlines in this group also appear to have no link, however indirect, with gender. Examples are “Workers find help coping with stress after job violence” (89.02.19 TS.E24) and “Justice called blind to victims of crime” (91.01.03 GM.A9). Others, however, do hint at the gender of victims. Some are literal, such as “Women make passionate plea for Ottawa action: government ‘major obstacle’ in fighting violence” (90.12.12 CH.A8) and “Women’s groups want inquiry into killings” (91.02.21 TS.F6). Others are contextual, being published near key dates, including “It’s natural to have that feeling of shame: Ottawa shooting spree survivor urges students to vent their guilt” (89.12.10 MG.A5) and “‘Some things have to change and violence is one”’ (89.12.14 CH.E1). Finally, there are headlines identifying groups or people who are linked to gender-related issues. These include feminists (“Feminists get death threats” 91.12.06 MG.A8), women’s groups and men’s groups (“Men take to streets protesting violence” 90.10.21 WFP.A1,4). Turning to CNI, we find these headlines distributed across all seven categories. The largest is Violence Against Women with 51 headlines, followed by Crime and Criminals -- Statistics, Victims of Crime, and Violence with approximately 40 each. In total, more than a quarter of the headlines (59 of 209) were in Battered Women or Violence Against Women, with the emphasis appearing to be on women in most cases. There is some reason, then, given CNI’s categorizations and the hints at gender, that if these headlines tend to emphasize the victimization of one gender, it is women.

 

Group Five Summary: Other references comprise the remaining headlines. Some may hint at or have weak connections to violence but are not considered direct enough to be included in a previous category. Others have no apparent link.

The fifth group of headlines contains the remainder of the sample. There are two kinds. The first contains literal hints to violence but the references are too easily associated with other issues to be included in our previous categories. For example, “Mother hopes to form group for victims” (89.02.27 HCH.A 18) could easily refer to victims of a disease, “Media blitz against abuse is real McCoy” (91.01.20 CH.E3) to alcohol and drug abuse, and “Judges need more training NWT women maintain” (90.07.19 MG.B7) to matters ranging from general attitudes towards women in the legal system to child support payments. In the context in which they were published, readers may have easily linked these headlines to violence and gender. Readers might have known, based on previous news articles and other types of media, that the “blitz” was against wife abuse and the “NWT women” were reacting to a judge who gave a husband a reduced sentence for wife abuse because she had been wearing a “provocative” t-shirt. A focus on women is suggested by CNI’s categorizations: one-third of these headlines (15 of 44) are found in Battered Women or Violence Against Women. 

The second type of headline has no literal link to gender. Examples include “University newspaper apologizes for cartoon” (89.12.15 CH.A15) and “Overcoming roadblocks to a strategy for sweeping social change” (92.01.25 VS.B8). These types of headlines are common atop opinion columns and editorials, such as “By the numbers” (92.10.24 VS.B1 1), “Nothing funny in comic’s humor” (9 1.08.20 GM.A6) and “Four sensible cornerstones” (92.04.10 HCH.C1). Again, the link to violence and gender may have easily been made by readers in many cases, given the context in which a headline was published. This is particularly true of headlines which contain names of people. For example, in the case of the headline “Pat Marshall: she maps out landscape of patriarchy” (92.09.27 TS.B5), the association with violence and gender would be natural for readers who knew that Marshall was co-chair of The National Panel on Violence Against Women. When considering CNI’s categorizations, we find strong hints of a focus on women as more than sixty per cent (79 of 128) are from the categories Violence Against Women or Battered Women.

Separating the headlines from our sample into five groups -- direct, contextual, connotational, neutral and other -- gives us an idea of the various degrees to which they refer to gender and violence. These groups form the basis for further examining how headlines portray male and female victims of violence.

 

FAQ

Webmaster

Peter Douglas Zohrab

Latest Update

2 August 2015

Top