Look at her, it’s the same old story

ABSTRACT

The silencing of women’s voices and the objectification of women’s bodies have long been identified as ways in which society can facilitate men’s use of violence against them. The purpose of this article is to further this argument using salient examples and analyses from two different media forms exploring ways they might reinforce rape culture and thus violence against women in New Zealand. Drawing from two separate studies, this article looks at newspaper representations of rape and women on magazine covers; critically examining the depiction of women in these two distinct media forms across the same 40-year period (1975–2015). Both studies show silencing and objectification within the media forms in both obvious and abstract ways. Taken together, the findings provide insights into the pervasive nature of silencing and objectification of women in New Zealand media.

KEYWORDS:

• Silencing
• objectification
• sexual violence
• newspapers
• women’s magazines

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Notes

1. In 1985 the New Zealand Parliament agreed to broaden the definition of rape within the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961 and repeal spousal immunity from rape charges (Rosemary Barrington 1986).

2. Whilst rape is a crime that is overwhelming perpetrated by men it is not only perpetrated by men. We acknowledge that women and gender diverse people are also capable of committing sexual violence.

3. The coding scheme was only applied to covers where at least one woman was present in the image—there were 18 cover pages featuring solo men that were not coded but were counted in the total amount.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Royal Society of New Zealand [Marsden E2666].

Notes on contributors

Sophie Beaumont

Sophie Beaumont is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Criminology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research areas are gender, sexual violence, microaggressions, and harmful societal norms.

Anj Millo Barton

Anj Millo Barton finished her Master of Arts degree in 2017 and has been working in a variety of roles since, including as a research advisor at the Ministry of Justice, an educator at the Sexual Abuse Prevention Network and a relationship coordinator at TOAH-NNEST. Anj is currently an advisor with Te Arawhiti – The Office for Māori Crown Relations.

Jan Jordan

Jan Jordan is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Criminology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Jan has conducted multiple studies in the sexual violence area, she was awarded a Marsden Grant in 2014 for the project Rape, Silencing and Objectification: A socio-cultural analysis of barriers to rape reform. This article is based on results from two projects attached to this grant.

Sarah Monod de Froideville

Sarah Monod de Froideville is a Lecturer at the Institute of Criminology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research areas are environmental harm, youth justice, and the media/crime nexus.