missing white woman syndrome

frogapplause commented on the word missing white woman syndrome

Missing white woman syndrome (MWWS) or missing pretty girl syndrome is a vernacular term for the disproportionately greater degree of coverage in television, radio, newspaper and magazine reporting of a misfortune, most often a missing person case, involving a young, attractive, white, middle-class (or above) woman or girl.

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May 3, 2011

vendingmachine commented on the word missing white woman syndrome

Society remains uneasy with female strength of any stripe and still prefers and champions delicate damsels—an outdated sentiment that limits all women. But because the damsel’s face is still viewed as unequivocally white and female, it is a particular problem for black women. As long as vulnerability and softness are the basis for acceptable femininity (and acceptable femininity is a requirement for a woman’s life to have value), women who are perpetually framed because of their race as supernaturally indestructible will not be viewed with regard.

This may be why we so rarely see the black women who are victims of violence on true-crime television, despite the fact that black women are more likely to be victims of sexual violence and domestic homicidal violence. Instead, we overwhelmingly see young white women who fit the picture of idealized true womanhood (journalist Gwen Ifill coined the phrase “missing white woman syndrome” to describe this disparate media attention). Young, blond Natalee Holloway and mommy-to-be Laci Peterson are damsels, beneficiaries of sympathetic national media attention and a drive for justice; Tamika Huston and Latoyia Figueroa, black women who disappeared under identical circumstances, are not.

--Salon, 2015 Jul 3.

July 5, 2015