NEW RESOURCE: Changing the narrative on rape

Leading women’s rights organisation, the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) and academic Alessia Tranchese have today launched a new resource to support responsible media reporting on rape.

Based on analysis of twelve years’ coverage in the mainstream British press, the resource finds a number of rape myths persist in media coverage, shaping how we talk about this violence and influencing public attitudes to it. These include:

• A shift away from overt victim-blaming towards subtler forms of doubt about victims’ credibility, i.e. through use of the word ‘alleged’
• The dominance of the myth that all rape is violent ‘stranger rape’ when in reality, most perpetrators are known to the victim and rape does not always involve additional physical violence
• Hierarchies of victims and perpetrators, with wealthy, high-status perpetrators afforded greater sympathy, and Black or marginalised women receiving less media attention than white women’s cases

These findings are important because information from the small number of cases that gain media coverage is likely to be particularly influential in shaping the public’s understanding of rape, skewing society’s perceptions about this violence and fuelling harmful, sexist myths about who should be believed and why.

The prevalence of rape myths in media reporting also means victims may not immediately understand that what happened to them was rape, meaning they may not access the support and justice they are entitled to. It can also impact the way the criminal justice system understands rape and impact which victims are taken seriously. Link to full story here.