Robert Pickton was found guilty on six counts of second-degree murder, for the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Mona Wilson, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe and Marnie Frey, all of whom had disappeared from Vancouver’s downtown eastside between 1997 and 2001. He will be back in court to face 20 more first-degree murder charges.
The missing women story — and the fact that it took police so many years to act on the disappearance of dozens and dozens of women – has been really horrific. I haven’t followed the trial closely, but since the verdict I’ve been trying to find some insightful feminist analysis (anyone have any good tips of where to look?).
What I did find was an interesting piece by Jessalynn Keller, who interviewed three women journalists covering the trial to find out why mainstream coverage was unable to reveal the major issues that swirled around this case: ongoing and systemic violence against women, racism, and poverty. “Why is it,” she asks, that “media coverage of the case still so reflective of dominant cultural stereotypes of women, violence, sex and race?”
She makes a very good and important argument:
“The issues seem to cloud when [the women journalists] try to articulate these values through a mainstream media lens. They see their power residing primarily in practical journalistic decision-making such as language choices. The result is feminism light - news content without the conceptual tools or framework to help readers see and understand the structural challenges the Missing Women faced, the role of feminism historically and the continued struggle of many women in Vancouver today.”
The major problem, it seems, is that feminist politics don’t jive with the (somewhat problematic) principles journalists are supposed to uphold: objectivity, accuracy, facts. It’s interesting to see how journalists working for large newspapers and wire services try to negotiate the limitations placed on them, particularly when it comes to language choices.
There are also some moments that drive home the structural problems we face, particularly the way in which sex work is regarded in the mainstream media. Because the women missing from downtown eastside are poor, racialized, sex workers or drug users, they were depicted in a much different way than, say, Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, who were murdered by Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. The names of the women Pickton murdered are not household names, and I wonder if they will ever be.
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six comments
I am not quite sure where to begin on the Pickton case. First of all, I think the only reason for Pickton's arrest and the court case is to polish Vancouver's image for the winter Olympics, as well as to create the perception of a safer environment for all the sex trafficking the Olympics will bring.
While Pickton was clearly a predator, in no way do I hold the illusion that he acted alone. As the prostitution trade is mainly controlled by the Hell's Angels, and as Pickton's farm was a major Hell's Angels hangout, these coincidences are a little too much to overlook.
What is missing from any analysis I have read is that the murders of prostitutes constitutes a crime of violence against ALL women (actually, I believe that prostitution and pornography in and of themselves are crimes of violence against all women). These women are targeted because they are easy prey, because they will not be missed, and because it is well known that law enforcement does not care about the murders of prostitutes. There also seems to be a complete lack of acknowledgement of the familial violence which often drives young girls into prostitution.
In several locations in British Columbia, as well as in many cities in Canada and the United States, the serial murders of vulnerable women continue unabated. The devaluation of women's lives creates an environment in which serial predators of women and girls operate freely, and I suspect this situation is not likely to change until society reaches a point where the voices of women are as valued as those of men.
Posted by John
December 10, 2007, 4:11 PM
"These women are targeted ... because they will not be missed, and because it is well known that law enforcement does not care about the murders of prostitutes."
While I agree that this is true, I have to say that the families and friends of these women have done an amazing job at being at the forefront of justice. There are a number of advocacy groups, activists and family members involved in the case who have done an amazing job of humanizing these women beyond their profession. I often think justice was served because these people, even in their unbelievable grief, were tireless in bringing attention to the case.
Posted by Stacey May
December 10, 2007, 6:05 PM
Yes, I do believe they will be missed by their families and by others who have reached out to help. I was referring to the sense that they will not be missed in society as a whole, as I have the sense that society does not place any value on the lives of prostituted women, nor does there seem to be much empathy for the circumstances and lack of choices which lead women into prostitution.
Posted by John
December 10, 2007, 6:19 PM
One superficial thing that really bothered me about the Pickton trial was the photo they keep flashing of him. He looks unkempt, leery and a little deranged, and to me that photo - which is shown over and over again - seems to be saying: this is what a sexual predator looks like.
I find that in news coverage of sexual predators, it's almost as if media goes out of their way to find creepy pictures of the accused men. It just seems to reinforce the idea that it's only men who don't shave or bathe regularly who are capable of violence against women - as opposed to the truth that all men in a patriarchal society are capable of, and complicit in, violence against women.
The belief that it's just individual creepy men that we have to fear, not the way our society is composed on the whole, is so wound up with the media's inability to see that the central issue needs to be "ongoing and systemic violence against women, racism, and poverty."
Posted by Thea
December 10, 2007, 10:57 PM
Brilliant comment, Thea, thanks.
Posted by Allison
December 13, 2007, 2:52 PM
John, you said "actually, I believe that prostitution and pornography in and of themselves are crimes of violence against all women."
While I do believe that many women enter sex work because of familial violence, poverty and structural racial inequality, other women do sex work for different reasons. Many women work in this field because they see sexual expression as vital to their lives and work. Despite the sexual violence they face, women still have sex and I think of this sex as everyday resistance, as an everyday way to assert your own right to pleasure and sexuality. And imagine that this is ONE field of work where women outperform (!!) men in terms of wages! I feel the need to point this out because for whatever reason the women who were murdered got involved in sex work, they were also human beings who were more than victims of our misogynistic society: they were living, breathing women who made choices everyday to have intimate relationships, paid or not. Acknowledging this agency is critical to empowering women of all sexualities and professions. The families repeatedly pointed out the humanity of their murdered sisters, daughters, and mothers. I think it might be too quick a judgement to view all forms of paid women's sex work (including dancers, prostitutes, phone sex workers, porn actors) uniformly as crimes of violence. What do others think?
Posted by piKe
January 25, 2008, 9 AM
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