- Family of murdered wife and daughter criticize the portrayal of domestic violence in the media Archived Message
Posted by walter
on April 30, 2019, 2:07 pm
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The family of a mother and daughter killed by their father have criticized how the issue of domestic violence is portrayed in the media. From a story in the Irish Independent: "Our 'nice guy' father murdered our mother and sister yet the media focused on his suicide" https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/our-nice-guy-father-murdered-our-mother-and-sister-yet-the-media-focused-on-his-suicide-38058754.html The two surviving sons Luke and Ryan Hart write compellingly about the stereotype of the doting Dad (or a pillar of the community) 'snapping'. "In the aftermath of the murders, we witnessed a commentary that described our father as a ‘nice guy’ who was ‘always caring’ and ‘good at DIY’. One report even stated that the murder of our sister and mother was “understandable”. The sympathising male angle of the reporting revealed our default societal perspective: we were forced to read of our father’s ‘suicide note’ rather than the ‘murder note’ that it was to our mother and sister. The murders were treated as an isolated, random and unpreventable news story for which nothing needed to change. Yet, in the subsequent police investigation it was uncovered that our father had been searching online for reports of men who killed their families for months before he killed ours. He would have seen the media providing these men with a public funeral and justifying their actions." They argue that this 'nice guy' stereotype relates to controlling behaviour being overlooked. "It is no coincidence that the media often expresses shock at domestic homicides, highlighting the ‘good character’ of the killers. This should be proof that the stereotypes are wrong and we need to be willing to have conversations about this. As much as the media represents these murders as incomprehensible, they can be understood. The fact that neighbours can think abusers are ‘great guys’ but that their families can suffer so much shows how these men, and it is almost overwhelmingly men, control who they abuse." "These men kill because they believe they can, in fact they believe they should in order to assert their masculine dominance. The emotional language used in the media betrays the true motivations of men who kill women and children. They are not ‘provoked’, they do not ‘snap’, they do not ‘lose it’. They are calculated and cold-blooded." This statement on control highlights an emerging legal issue. Or rather, it HAS emerged. Coercive control became an offence in 2015. Two months ago, a woman who killed her abusive husband with a hammer in 2011 had her murder conviction (for which she was given 22 year sentence, reduced to 18) quashed and she faces a retrial; the defence of coercion didn't exist in 2011 but would have reduced the charge to manslaughter. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6756499/Wife-65-killed-husband-hammer-freed.html This might herald the changing of attitudes, as so far it's been all too common for the police or the public to be dismissive of, or unsympathetic to, long term abuse - because the victim didn't leave their partner. As the Hart brothers indicate, the coercion is often too restrictive. " Coercive control is best understood by considering not necessarily what is done to you, but what is taken away. Fundamentally, coercive control is a liberty crime. It is often asked, ‘why didn’t she leave?’ And that question shows how little domestic abuse is understood. Abuse is not supposed to push the victims away, but to force them to stay. Our father’s behavior made us all, but particularly our mother, a socio-economic hostage; slave to his masculine insecurity. " They conclude: " The media needs to play its role in ending abuse. " The scale of the problem? "Domestic abuse is "a societal problem an order of magnitude more dangerous than terrorism". https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/our-nice-guy-father-murdered-our-mother-and-sister-yet-the-media-focused-on-his-suicide-38058754.html |
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