Missing white woman syndrome is a phrase used by social scientists and media commentators to describe the extensive media coverage, especially in television, of missing person cases involving young, white, upper middle class women or girls. Instances have been cited in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The phenomenon is defined as the media's undue focus on upper-middle-class white women who disappear, with the disproportionate degree of coverage they receive being compared to cases of missing men, or women of color and of lower social classes.
Contents
- United States
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Jessica Lynch
- Presumed kidnapping of blonde angel in Greece
- Cited instances
- References
The late PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill was said to be the originator of the phrase. Charlton McIlwain, a professor at New York University, defines the syndrome as white women perpetually occupying a privileged role as violent crime victims in news media reporting, and concludes that missing white woman syndrome functions as a type of racial hierarchy in the cultural imagery of the West. Although the term was coined to describe disproportionate coverage of missing person cases, it is sometimes used to describe the disparity in news coverage of other violent crimes. Missing white woman syndrome has led to a number of right-wing tough on crime measures, named for white women who went missing and were subsequently found harmed.
Moody, Dorris and Blackwell (2008) concluded that in addition to race and class, factors such as supposed attractiveness, body size and youthfulness function as unfair criteria in the determination of newsworthiness in coverage of missing women. Also noteworthy was that news coverage of missing black women was more likely to focus on the victim’s baggage, such as abusive boyfriends or a troubled past, while coverage of white women tends to focus on their roles as mothers or daughters.
United States
With regard to missing children, statistical research which compares national media reports with FBI data shows that there is marked under-representation of African American children in media reports relative to non-African American children. A subsequent study found that girls from minority groups were the most under-represented in these missing-children news reports by a very large margin.
A report that aired on CNN noted the differences between the level of media coverage given to Caucasian women like Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway, who went missing in 2002 and 2005 respectively, and LaToyia Figueroa, a pregnant Black/Hispanic woman. Figueroa went missing in Philadelphia the same year Holloway disappeared. Figueroa and her unborn daughter were found murdered. The San Francisco Chronicle published an article detailing the disparity between the coverage of the Peterson case and that of Evelyn Hernandez, a Hispanic woman who was nine months pregnant when she disappeared in 2002.
Kym Pasqualini, president of the National Center for Missing Adults, observed that media outlets tend to focus on "damsels in distress" – typically, affluent young white women and teenagers.
Dr. Cory L. Armstrong wrote in the Washington Post that "the pattern of choosing only young, white, middle-class women for the full damsel treatment says a lot about a nation that likes to believe it has consigned race and class to irrelevance".
Canada
According to a study published in The Law and Society Association, aboriginal women who go missing in Canada receive 27 times less news coverage than white women; they also receive "dispassionate and less-detailed, headlines, articles, and images."
United Kingdom
University of Leicester Criminology Professor Yvonne Jewkes cites the murder of Amanda Dowler, the murder of Sarah Payne, and the Soham murders as examples of "eminently newsworthy stories" about girls from "respectable" middle-class families and backgrounds whose parents used the news media effectively. She writes that, in contrast, the street murder of Damilola Taylor initially received little news coverage, with reports initially concentrating upon street crime levels and community policing, and largely ignoring the victim. Even when Damilola's father flew into the UK from Nigeria to make press statements and television appearances, the level of public outcry did not, Jewkes asserts, reach "the near hysterical outpourings of anger and sadness that accompanied the deaths of Sarah, Milly, Holly, and Jessica".
In January 2006, London Police Commissioner Ian Blair described the media as institutionally racist. As an example, he had referred to the murder of two young girls in Soham in 2002. He said "almost nobody" understood why it became such a big story. Two cases of missing white girl syndrome that have been given as contrasting examples: the murder of Hannah Williams and the murder of Danielle Jones. It was suggested that Jones received more coverage than Williams because Jones was a middle-class schoolgirl, whilst Williams was from a working-class background with a stud in her nose and estranged parents.
Jessica Lynch
Social commentaries pointed to media bias in the coverage of soldier Jessica Lynch versus that of her fellow soldiers, Shoshana Johnson and Lori Piestewa. All three were ambushed in the same attack during the Iraq War on March 23, 2003, with Piestewa being killed and Lynch and Johnson being injured and taken prisoner. Lynch, a young, blonde, white woman, received far more media coverage than Johnson (a black woman and a single mother) and Piestewa (a Hopi from an impoverished background, and also a single mother), with media critics suggesting that the media gave more attention to the woman with whom audiences supposedly more readily identify.
Lynch herself leveled harsh criticism at this disproportionate coverage that focused only on her, stating in a congressional testimony before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary. People like Lori Piestewa and First Sergeant Dowdy who picked up fellow soldiers in harm's way. Or people like Patrick Miller and Sergeant Donald Walters who actually fought until the very end. The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales.
Presumed kidnapping of "blonde angel" in Greece
In October 2013 a girl estimated to be about 4 years of age was found in the custody of a Roma couple in Greece and was presumed to have been abducted. The story about the "blonde angel" and the search for her biological parents received international media coverage. A Roma rights activist commented on the case to say "imagine if the situation were reversed and the children were brown and the parents were white". The child was later identified as Maria Ruseva. Her biological mother was a Bulgarian Roma who gave Maria up for adoption.
Cited instances
The following missing person cases have been cited as instances of missing white woman syndrome; media commentators on the phenomenon regard them as garnering a disproportionate level of media coverage relative to contemporary cases involving missing girls or women of non-white ethnicities, and missing males of all ethnicities. The date of death or disappearance is given in parentheses.