Friday 15 February 2013

her name was reeva steenkamp

late last night (nz time) news broke that oscar pistorius had been charged with murdering his girlfriend.  the tv news item was pretty sketchy, so i immediately went on to twitter to find out what was going on.  like countless millions around the world, i'd found him inspiring at the olympics (though i only managed to put in 1 line about him in this post).  hence, again like countless others, i wanted to find out what was going on.

my own reaction was mixed - yes, i thought about yet another fallen sports hero, immediately connected him in my mind to lance armstrong, but mostly i thought about the young woman who had just had her life cut short, who had died an awful death.  and given that an act of violence like that doesn't happen in isolation, i wondered what she might have been through prior that.

the one thought that didn't cross my mind was "poor oscar".  of course he may be found innocent, and regardless of whether he is or not, there is no doubt he is suffering because of this incident.  but really, his suffering is totally secondary to the fact that an innocent woman lost her life, (allegedly) at the hands of a person she was close to.

yet on twitter, there was a constant stream of "poor oscar" tweets.  it's not that i have a problem with people feeling sorry for mr pistorius per se - particularly when some people were believing that he shot her by mistake thinking she was an intruder.  but it was more that was a serious shortage of tweets of "poor girlfriend who just died".  it was almost she didn't exist, or if she did, it's only in relation to the great tragedy that mr pistorius' life had just become.

i read a couple of article by sports writers, and yup, the main focus was on fallen heroes and "how much can we really know our sportpeople" and "but what he achieved as a sportsperson is still inspiring".  all of which is true, but what about her who died?  what about her right to be safe, to be alive?  you're writing a piece within hours of her death, and yet you have nothing to say about her other than to passingly mention her name?  and yes, i get that you're sportswriters, but that doesn't mean you're not allowed to mention domestic violence in piece about someone who just been involved in a fatal incident of domestic violence.

some of the news reports today have been better.  we are at least getting to hear about reeva steenkamp and from her family.  but the majority are still like this one.  because he's the more famous one, he gets to be the one reported about, the main focus.  it's taken a "gratuitous" picture by a british newspaper for the hashtag #HerNameWasReevaSteenkamp for her to become, at least for one aspect, the centre of coverage.

until she becomes the focus of coverage across the board, we won't be talking about the issues that are most important here.  not the loss of a sporting hero, but the need to deal with domestic violence, to focus on the causes and to work a lot harder to prevent the loss of life.  given that we so recently had the 1 billion rising initiative designed to raise awareness about domestic violence, you would think that would influence some of the coverage.  but clearly not.

this tweet says it all:


ETA: i had to include this one as well:

15 comments:

SMS said...

She probably wanted to leave him and he just could not take it to see her with someone else, so he killed her.

K said...

Another demonstration of how the value system in our society is a little fucked up.

Sports should NEVER take priorty over a person's violation (this case, the rugby world cup + sexual assult of hotel worker, etc) yet the media reinforces the distorted value concept.

Richard said...

Fair comment.

The Wikipedia entry on Reeva Steenkamp says, "It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Oscar Pistorius#Shooting incident."

RIP Reeva Steenkamp.

Anonymous said...

@SMS - sadly that is usually the case. Greatest risk a woman has of being murdered is when breaking up with a male partner. I feel awful for this poor woman's family. It's really revolting how adoring the media coverage has been of Pistorius. As if being an advocate for disabled rights/awareness is incompatible with being a violent thug. Clearly it isn't.

me.

Vasla said...

Stargazer, if you really are trying to leave open the possibility that it might have been an accident, maybe you shouldn't be approvingly reposting tweets that call him a murderer.

stargazer said...

Vasla, please read the tweets again. Neither of them call him a murderer. They both state he killed her, which is not in doubt. The only question to be answered is as regards his motive. And the first tweet is saying that we can't discount the possibility of domestic violence because of his status ss a sportsman.

LudditeJourno said...

Then there's the fact there were previous incidents of domestic violence, and the fact that Ms Steenkamp was going to give a public talk on her previous experience of domestic violence, just hours before she was killed http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/africaandindianocean/southafrica/9874246/Reeva-Steenkamp-Pistorius-girlfriend-was-previously-in-abusive-relationship.html

Thanks stargazer, couldn't agree more.

ChundaMars said...

Ugh, the speculation in this case is terrible. I've read stories that more or less directly contradict one another! Hopefully the truth comes out in the trial...
LJ, surely Ms Steenkamp's previous experience of domestic violence has no bearing on this case? As

Anonymous said...

@ChundaMars - it does in the sense of victims usually being revictimised and/or being attracted to similarly destructive personalities. Very relevant in fact.

me.

Anonymous said...

That's a very simplistic summary, though - also that once you've been abused it's easy to feel like you don't deserve any better.

I'm sure you get my point anyway!

me.

ChundaMars said...

Sure, I understand that me. But the fact she was previously in an abusive relationship does not tell us anything about her current (well, it i>was<i current) relationship. In other words, it neither strengthens nor weakens any case against Pistorius...

ChundaMars said...

Doh! HTML fail :-)

LudditeJourno said...

Chunda - it's not impossible, and I recognise this is completely me wondering, that Ms Steenkamp giving a talk about dv when she was currently in an abusive relationship (and there were previous Police call outs so I am making that assumption) might not be very threatening indeed to someone with the profile Mr Pistorius has. That was my point.

ChundaMars said...

Ah, you're pointing to possible motive then? I guess that's no weirder than anything else in this case. But murdering his girlfriend to protect his image is kind of throwing the baby out with the bath water, don't you think? At best he's looking at manslaughter so his career must be over now regardless.
If we're to believe it was accidental though, why the hell would you think a burglar would enter your house and lock themselves in your bathroom? But on the other hand, murdering someone by choosing to shoot at them through a closed door is also very odd.
Hell of job being on that jury I'd say...

Richard said...

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/as-blade-weeps-in-court-we-forget-the-blonde-is-the-victim-20130222-2ex07.html