A few weeks ago, there was an explosive conversation (debate) in my Race, Gender and the Media class. It started with somebody mentioning Lara Logan, the CBS news correspondent who was sexually assaulted while covering the Egyptian protests. Logan, according to an official CBS announcement, was attacked by a group of about 200 Egyptians and “suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.” Unfortunately, the reaction to Logan’s tragedy was not of sympathy or respect, rather an intense media debate about women’s place in danger zones. Instead of criticism being focused on the mob who attacked Logan, it was placed directly on Logan herself. This woman was actually assaulted, then blamed for it because she’s attractive, has blonde hair and should have known what she was getting herself into.
Of course, this is disgusting. I have trouble glorifying these comments by acknowledging them. Funny enough, someone in class had the audacity to agree. Basically, this person asked how anyone can really be surprised? Elaborating that this is pretty much expected when you put an attractive female in a barbaric place like Egypt. My (correct) professor went off. Rightfully so! Here’s the problem with this: This woman gets the one of the biggest career opportunities to cover this protest, she’s fiercely competing with men to get this chance, she’s already mustering more courage than most people could think of, and then suddenly she’s supposed to say, “Oh, wait, ya know guys, I’m a woman, this is probably not such a good idea, I mean, I might get raped or something right? Please give me more protection.” Why would she think this? Her job is implicitly dangerous. Suggesting that women need more protection is condemning women as a burden, more expensive to employ and more demanding to protect. Anything could happen at any time, to any human. The fact women are more likely to get raped doesn’t discount that we’re less likely to be a target of murder. There’s possible danger for everybody; saying women need extra protection is vocalizing a difference between men and women and, by definition, is sexist.
The second half to this problem is the assumption, or stereotype, of Egypt as an uncivilized, barbaric country, expected to behave like this. Life in Cairo is actually very progressive and Westernized. Women appear unveiled and have rights and are not, in fact, public raping tools. The combination of this erroneous stereotype and sexism as justification for Lara Logan’s sexual assault is severely flawed.
There is no consolation for a woman that was forced to endure such brutal attacks, but there is seriously no right to blame the victim. The people in my class weren’t malicious for thinking such things, but even the most unconscious sexism is socially toxic.
3 comments:
Excellent blog post, Brittany, and a great example of why we need to discuss these issues out in the open. I hope we changed some people's points of view. And I also find it interesting that there was not as much of an outcry about the four NY Times journalists -- one of them a female photographer -- held in Libya recently. She was sexually assaulted but not blonde and high-profile, so it makes me wonder if that had anything to do with it. Hmmm...
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