If you’ve seen the media coverage and conversation around the Gabby Petito case, or the latest season of Netflix’s YOU, you might’ve heard about the “Missing White Woman Syndrome”.
If you haven't heard of it, this is a phrase about “the observed disproportionate media coverage of missing-person cases involving young, white, upper-middle-class women or girls compared to the relative lack of attention towards other missing women.” Now sadly, this is a real phenomenon, and the outrage of the victims’ families who didn’t get this amount of media coverage is absolutely valid. This double standard warrants it.
It isn’t just confined to America or the west either. Even in many gulf countries, where sexual violence and women’s issues are underreported, the rare news headlines about these topics are mostly about white female tourists. It isn’t seen as big of a deal when the victims are native or immigrant women. Our lives are often seen as more disposable. It’s an unfortunate reality that women of color are not as often the focus of public sympathy, thanks to a combination of racism and misogyny.
My criticism isn’t of the validity of this phenomenon or the valid frustration of people of color. Rather, it is about where the blame is being directed and the lack of focus on male violence, which is what's killing women of all races. Yes, media coverage is a huge deal and it can be really helpful to such cases, but why aren’t we acknowledging the real problem? How is media attention a form of privilege when you’re dead? When your killer is roaming free?
“Six women are killed every hour by men around the world, most by men in their own families.” - World Economic Forum
“Worldwide, almost one third (27%) of women aged 15-49 years who have been in a relationship report that they have been subjected to some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner.” - World Health Organization
Not to mention, a lot of people complaining about this are white men whose racial privilege far outweighs white women. It’s almost like they’re trying to mask their apathy towards misogynistic violence, except in a “woke” way.
The world may care more
when white women are murdered but it doesn’t stop them from being killed in the first place. It still socializes violence towards women in young boys. It still lets them off the hook for it and skews the justice system in favor of perpetrators rather than female victims. Racial and class privilege don’t cancel out misogyny and all the risks women have to live with every day
While it’s necessary to call out double standards, we mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Why is there more blame towards murdered victims rather than the cause of the violence itself? “White Woman Syndrome” is now even listed on Gabby Petito’s Wikipedia page.
Why isn’t there such a phenomenon as “Murderous Male Partner Syndrome”?
Once again, the epidemic of male violence which is literally killing women in the first place has escaped public scrutiny. While as usual, the female victims are pitted against each other. Yes, there's a racial disparity in media coverage of the victims but when the conversation stops here without examining the root cause which is behind all these cases, it's an issue.
It was disappointing to see how this got covered in season three of You too. Dante, a white male character, defines this syndrome as “When upper-class, attractive white-ladies go missing, they get tons of media coverage. Doesn’t happen for other victims.” Failing to mention that these “other victims” are women of color and this syndrome is about the coverage of gender based violence. This erasure of the main issue puts white men in the same category as women of color and implies the myth that white women are even more privileged than white men.
Another ironic thing is how news outlets are also speaking about the “Missing White Woman Syndrome”, when they could literally just end it by properly highlighting the cases of women of color, which they are still failing to do.
This article by a popular news outlet about the missing case of a woman of color, Lauren Cho, mentions this syndrome. But surprisingly, it doesn’t do justice to the story itself. It only mentions the ethnicity of the Korean-American victim, not even bringing up her full name. So in the same breath, they are calling white female victims of gendered violence privileged, without changing their approach to how they cover women of color.
So what is all this talk about white female privilege doing for women of color? It seems like it’s mostly being used to trivialize dead white women who get media coverage while still largely remaining apathetic to missing women of color and gender based violence in general.
Intersectionality is a very important concept which has done a lot for feminist and progressive movements. It brings forth voices and perspectives which are usually ushered sideways. However, it’s tragic when it’s misused to downplay issues.
Class solidarity among all women is desperately needed to combat this. White women should show proper allyship by recognizing the overlapping forms of racism and misogyny which women of color face. Meanwhile, women of color need to recognize when our issues are being twisted to erase important conversations about misogyny and misdirect accountability. This also needs to apply to other identity factors of women like class, nationality, and gender identity. Any feminist movement which is not built on women’s solidarity is pointless.
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