Language matters.

We need to talk about language.

We always do, but I want to talk about how the language we use, the syntax, the grammar, the pacing, all of it. And how everything that we write has a part to play in how people perceive our message. All copywriters know that we write in such a way as to encourage people to buy/do something. We know our language is impactful. It plays a part in everything. We know we're persuasive. 

But I want to talk about how language impacts on framing the narrative for larger societal issues and conversations. Specifically, I want to discuss the way headlines are framed when men kill or assault women.

A man murdered a woman in Tullamore, Ireland while she was going for a run along a busy canal route at 4pm on Wednesday 12 January 2021. However, many headlines are saying things like "A woman was killed". "A woman was fatally attacked". While yes, these are true, they are removing the perpetrator from the narrative. 

They are implying that the woman had a part to play in her own murder. "A woman went to get her hair done." This is called active voice = the woman has made the choice to get her hair done. "A hairdresser did a woman's hair" has a totally different ring to it, doesn't it? You can tell that the woman didn't want her hair done, but a hairdresser did it anyway.

Acts of violence against women/minorities are often written about in this way. Very few other pieces of news are written this way. And Ellen Boyle, of Content by the Sea summed this up perfectly in a tweet: 

Ellen's tweet shows how flipping the voice puts the victim of the crime as the main player in the narrative. The person at fault is actually the person doing the crime, but in the above example they only get a mention at the end. 

Subconsciously through our absorption of news stories written in this way, women are portrayed as being at fault. We're not. Growing up, girls are always told to 'be safe'. We're told not to walk on certain roads at certain times. We're taught to hold our keys between our knuckles. 

It's not our responsibility to stay safe. The language we've absorbed throughout our lives, the language used in society, has conditioned us to take the burden of blame on our shoulders. News headlines and articles written about 'women being killed' and discussing 'women's safety' perpetuate this culture of blame.

The conversations aren't about women's safety. They're about men's violent acts against women. They're about male violence. We need to be very clear when we talk about things like this. We need to flip the narrative back. We need to use language to show our power - we are not to blame. We are not complicit in acts of violence done against us. Men are - and they need to feature heavily in the reporting of such crimes.