Women’s Issues Are Still Underreported in the Media

If you were paying attention to the election coverage – especially if you were paying attention to it on a cable news network – you’d think that much of the vote depended on what were described as “women’s issues.” With all the focus on these so-called women’s issues, you’d think that there is a renewed focus on issues and problems of special interest to women. The truth is, though, that with a few exceptions, most women’s issues are still underreported and largely ignored by the media, both mainstream and non-traditional.

If you were to judge by the coverage on the nightly news – even during the hotly debated election months – the most important issues for women are access to birth control, reproductive health and whether or not they’re allowed to sue a former employer for not paying them the same wage they paid males in the same position when they find out about the inequality.

Occasionally, a high profile case of domestic violence – hello, Rihanna and Chris Brown – brings the problem of domestic violence into focus, but the focus soon shifts away. In the most recent high profile case – the murder of Kassandra Perkins by her boyfriend, Jovan Belcher and his subsequent suicide – the issue of whether or not the Kansas City Chiefs should have played their scheduled game the day after the murder/suicide overshadowed any discussion of domestic violence – at least until that controversy was overtaken by the outrage that Bob Costas dared to bring up gun control or domestic violence during said football game.

As a society, we have an odd and awkward relationship with the realities of abuse and crime that affects women and children more than it affects men. We acknowledge domestic violence these days, at least, and it’s politically incorrect to openly blame women for their own victimization if they are raped, imprisoned, sold into slavery through trafficking or routinely paid less than men are for doing the same jobs. In most states, the laws no longer recognize a man’s innate right to “discipline” his wife – but it’s been fewer than 20 years since the last state rescinded laws that tacitly stated it was impossible for a husband to rape his wife.

So where does this odd relationship leave us? It leaves us in a place where most American adults can reel off the facts about domestic violence – how many women are beaten or abused by domestic partners each year, that three of every four American women will be involved in an abusive relationship in their lives and that partner battering is among the most common causes of hospitalization among young adult women – but probably unable to name a single woman of our acquaintance who is a “victim” of domestic violence.

The sad fact is that being a “victim of domestic violence” has come to mean something that doesn’t evoke sympathy – something that no woman wants to admit. Despite the visibility being brought to the issue of domestic violence – and many other similar women’s issues – the women who are the most affected by it remain invisible – until they become a statistic, and then they are all too visible… but beyond help.