Dear Media,
This is Reeva Steenkamp.
She has a name. And she was a living, active person who had her own thoughts and life. When you are reporting about her murder, I'd really appreciate if you would give her the dignity of calling her by her name. STOP referring to her as "Oscar Pistorius' elite model girlfriend."
Sincerely,
A. Lynn
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This topic was brought to my attention last night by Jill Filipovic's twitter. As she pointed out, the New York Times wrote 23 paragraphs about Reeva Steenkamp's murder, and mentioned her name once, in the 8th paragraph. Not to be out done, the Washington Post referred to her as a "leggy blonde" and said, "While known for her bikini-clad, vamping photo spreads, she tweeted messages urging women to stand up against rape." As Filipovic rightfully pointed out, it's hardly like those things are in opposition to each other.
I went to bed last night with the idea for this blog but on the way to work this morning I heard not one but three updates from NPR news about this murder case, all of which named Pistorius and just referred to Steenkamp as his girlfriend never stating her name.
Needless to say, at the point of writing this, I'm verging on rage. Is it really so much to ask that we refer to women by their names and not their relationship to men? Especially a man which might have murdered her! I've written before about the importance of names to me as well as the fact that our society far too often reduces women to their relationship to men and boys. But Steenkamp's case has made this trend abundantly more clear and all the more disturbing.
Even allies like President Barack Obama mess up on this front. As was pointed out by many feminists live tweeting his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Obama frequently frames women's issues by stressing the importance of helping our "mothers, sisters, and wives." It's as if we can't decide, collectively as a nation, that women matter in and of themselves.
I truly believe that the way we use language shapes our reality. When we describe women by their relationship to men, we are again and again affirming a sense of male entitlement and ownership. It could be easy to brush this under the rug and talk about how it's "no big deal" but I absolutely refuse to ignore this trend. I mean--really, I'm in the year 2013 and I'm lobbying for a woman who was murdered to be called by her own name and not by her relationship to a man? Seriously?
I'm not even sure what else to say. The importance of this simple request should be self-evident.
I can NOT with these people anymore. I was literally yelling at the radio in my car yesterday listening to NPR's coverage of this story. The police have stated that there was a "history of domestic incidents" between Pistorius and Steenkamp, that the situation was "an ongoing concern." Then the whole entire rest of the coverage goes on to emphasize what an NICE FUCKING dude he was and how SURPRISING it is that this could happen.
ReplyDeleteThe only few sentences of sanity were uttered by Adèle Kirsten, a South African gun control advocate:
"I'm angry, because violence is not random. It has patents, it has trends. We know who perpetrates gun violence, we know who the victims are. We know that women are particularly vulnerable in their homes at the hands of a known person, an intimate. This kind of gun violence is preventable, and someone like Pistorius should not have had a gun."
I totally agree and share your outrage. Please just be careful w/ terms like "sanity."
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