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My #VintageMagTweets tonight will be about the media's handling of Peter Sutcliffe, the so-called Yorkshire Ripper. There's an excellent (but obviously upsetting) documentary by Liza Williams that's just been aired and is still available for another week. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003m05
In the documentary, Williams looks at the series of appalling mistakes made by the police at the time, almost all of those errors stemming from systematic misogyny. As I say, it's a hard watch but an incisive piece of investigation, and I thought humanely done.
My tweets focus on the reporting of the murders at the time.
Such as this headline, implying that the real victims of the crime are the men left behind.
Such as this headline, implying that the real victims of the crime are the men left behind.
While Margaret Drabble downplays serious sexual assault, a survey showed that 70% of Leeds women questioned at the time (1979) had been flashed at or kerb-crawled.
The press seemed to sort Sutcliffe's victims into 'innocent' and - well, what? Part complicit, for being forced into sex work?
This attitude was robustly carried into the courts, where the reputations of women were publicly ranked and the tragedy of their deaths adjusted accordingly.
A lot of local men thought the murders were something to joke about. There was a particularly odious football chant of the time which almost celebrated Sutcliffe. (I won't repeat it.)
Here's a fascinating piece of logic: the police 'deserve sympathy' for their own apathetic approach, says the Times.
Some journalists used subtle punctuation to almost endorse Sutcliffe's horrific attitudes.
You can't even begin to fathom the mindset here.
A determined attempt was made to paint Sutcliffe as a victim himself, "driven" to violence by his wife. This kind of journalism is still rife today, with the most hideous crimes of male violence explained away as due to 'grief' or 'jealousy' or 'humiliation'.
It's always staggered me how people will try to defend a vile man. The *same friends who drove him to the red light districts* are here basically claiming he was just normal.
The Sun illustrating a report on the murders with a titillating image, as though it's some kind of spectator sport.
Imagine! Women being genuinely angry at the fact a murderer was being allowed to roam about! Because obviously most female outrage at violence and injustice is 'manufactured'.
"Rent a Women's Libber hit squad."
I still hear this tone on Twitter every single day.
Oh look! The people really affected by Sutcliffe's violence were the male police officers.
And the whole business was basically just a game of male wits.
And the whole business was basically just a game of male wits.
Just look at the way the Sunday Mirror describes these vulnerable, terrified women. It could not be more dismissive or insulting.
I'll stop there and finish this thread on Sunday.
Do watch the documentary if you can. I genuinely do think the police learned lessons from the disgraceful mishandling of the case, misogyny and incompetence which cost so many women their lives. But I'm not sure the press has.
Do watch the documentary if you can. I genuinely do think the police learned lessons from the disgraceful mishandling of the case, misogyny and incompetence which cost so many women their lives. But I'm not sure the press has.
I'll finish this thread about the handling of the murderer Peter Sutcliffe in the late 70s/early 80s.
The entire case was tainted by the idea that certain women were more or less 'deserving' of violence.
The entire case was tainted by the idea that certain women were more or less 'deserving' of violence.
"...we deserve what we get" because they were women in poverty.
The way the papers reported on the women sex workers was disgusting. Judgmental, dismissive, hateful.
Ordinary men laughing at the idea a murderer was killing women in their community. Turning the situation into a joke or a game. This was one of several chants at football matches of the time.
"...there was nothing unusual in his treatment of them."
Over and again this idea that women's lives were ranked by worth, according to their 'virtue'.
More on the way the press tried to make out Sutcliffe's wife was a contributory factor in his crimes. She banned him from the fridge - so he went out and murdered women?
The second Rule of Misogyny, is it? 'Women are to blame for men's violence'?
A male shopworker put up a sign saying "Let the Ripper go free." Two women smashed the window in protest, and were fined. Nothing happened to the man.
Immediately after his conviction in 1981, a waxworks made a model of Sutcliffe as a tourist attraction. They didn't see any problem with that.
Another line the press tried to spin, this time that Sonia was responsible for making her husband murder because he was jealous of an early boyfriend.
Sutcliffe himself pressed this idea.
The criminal justice system and the press were of one (male) voice on this.
It's always women's fault.
"not altogether surprising". So it's expected behaviour for a man to kill a woman if she's embarrassed him? Boys will be boys.
That's the final clipping I have. But what strikes me as I read through them all is not just the incompetence and bigotry of the police, or the blistering misogyny of the courts. It's the attitude of males in the wider community: the ones who joked on the football terraces...
...who thought it was OK to put up banners in shop windows, release films on a ripper theme, make snide comments on public flyers, make a WAX MODEL of the murderer just a few months after he was convicted. It shows widespread and utter contempt for the feelings of women...
...and a total lack of awareness of what it's like to grow up and live your life under the shadow of male violence. That's something all women and girls live with, to varying degrees.
It's a sobering picture. As I said in the last batch, the police have moved forward in their attitudes but the press have not, and we all see headlines every few months where a man's violence is framed within an excuse.
And very few men I've talked to have any idea what it's like to be a woman. A guy I spoke to lately couldn't believe I'd several times had stones thrown at me as I watched for water voles. Or that I'd been followed in the street not that long ago.
He seemed surprised that I'd not made more of a fuss. But generally women don't. We live under this onslaught and rarely report it. It's the background noise through which we move.
*end*
