Newspaper Page Text
Writer Questions CL's Right to Sensationalize
To the Editors, Creative Loafing:
In its December 16 issue, Creative
Loafing used as its lead story an article enti
tled "A House Divided: Women Vs.
Women," by Elfflede Kristwald. Kristwald's
article is a tabloid type piece, a supposed
"exposd" of how badly some women act
who are in "positions of power."
As a writer, I'd been aware since summer
that CL planned this sort of article. In
August I was asked to write an article for
CL - to be scheduled for an October issue to
coincide with National Domestic Violence
Awareness Month. The article was to be on
battered women, and I was also asked to
check out the "controversy at the Women's
Resource Center in DeKalb County."
After I'd done over 10 interviews, most
of them with battered women, I met for a
discussion with two of the editorial staff at
CL. The meeting was a disaster, and I left it
knowing that I would not be writing the
story, because, in a nut shell, I considered
the approach outlined by the staff to be "yel-,
low," misogynist, and harmful to the efforts
to end violence against women.
To make a long story short, in that meet
ing, a subsequent meeting, and in several
phone conversations, it became clear that
CL had no intention of chasing a story. The
goal was to chase a headline. Before the first
interview was ever conducted, it had been
decided by at least a part of CL's editorial
staff that, "The story is how women in posi
tions of power ape their oppressors."
Surely there are men who have fired
employees, others who've left the air-condi
tioning running all night, and men and
women directors of agencies whom not
every one likes. But CL chose a woman
director of a battered women's shelter for its
focus. Before the first line had ever been
typed, Sherry Siclair, the director of the
Women's Resource Center who resigned in
October, had been targeted.
Some of the statements made to me by
one of the editorial staff of CL included:
"Things like Domestic Violence Awareness
Month have about as much relevance as
National Sweet Potato Month;" "We don’t
want a straight article on domestic violence.
Everyone understands about that;"
"'Battered Women's Syndrome’ is not news.
That approach is for liberals;" and "The
kind of story our readers would be interest
ed in is how women who get into positions
of power act like men."
Any attempts to convince these staff
members that their approach was wrong and
detrimental fell on deaf ears, so we parted
company. Weeks later, a CL staff member
called me at home and asked to "buy" my
interview with three of the fired staff mem
bers from the Women's Resource Center.
Perhaps this is a common practice in "jour
nalist circles," but I found the request
appalling.
Ms. Kristwald mentions in her article
that some women singled out for her treat
ment did not want to be interviewed, and
that with others she detected an air of "para
noia and suspicion." That's not too difficult
to figure out. In August I had interviewed
most of the major characters in Ms.
Kristwald's article. When it became clear
that I would not be doing the CL article on
"Domestic Violence," I called those I had
interviewed and told them that - and why.
For almost four months, CL’s dreadful lead
story of December 16 had been anticipated.
This may explain why in some cases Ms.
Kristwald did not tell those she was inter
viewing that she was doing a story for CL,
but that she was "doing research for her dis
sertation."
An article on violence against women
would certainly have been timely. On Dec.
6 a gunman murdered 14 women in Canada
as he shouted, "I want the feminists! I hate
feminists!" It's estimated conservatively that
over 6 million women are beaten, raped,
lacked, cut, choked, blinded, gutted, and/or
permanently crippled each year, with 4,000
killed by husbands or male "friends."
But the article shifts the attention away
from this national crisis. The article shifts
the focus away from the wife beaters, the
federal government that doles out money for
battered women's programs with an eye
dropper, from the state government that
coughed up its first cent for battered women
in 1987, and from the root cause of violence
against women - a society that still perpetu
ates at every turn, on every TV channel, and
in every institution discrimination and
exploitation against women. Perhaps the
writer believes that the "inside scoop" on
what is perceived as female infighting is the
sort of item with appeal to the average read
er, sort of like women mud wrestlers. But
childhood indoctrinations aside, in the real
world, the problem is not women who can't
get along with other women.
There is a real need for an alternative
newspaper like CL. This has been shown
clearly in the past with articles like the ones
done by CL on Forsyth County. In this par
ticular situation, in my opinion, CL needs to
back up and take another look, because your
article, "Women Vs. Women," leaves you in
the company of those who have shamefully
used homophobia, misogyny, and terrible
judgment in efforts that have dealt body
blows to the efforts to defend battered
women.
Katherine Bak
Decatur, GA
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a monthly column by KC Wildmoon
The Gray Nineties
Early December, 1989: a gunman shout
ing ‘I hate feminists’ murders 14 women
engineering students in Montreal. Even the
more liberal branch of the Mainstream Media
calls it An Isolated Incident Shortly after
ward two men, a judge and a lawyer, are
killed by mail bombs, and other bombs are
found at a federal court and an NAACP
office. The same liberal Mainstream Media
calls it Terrorism.
Some of you of course are saying right
now So? "So" is this: we've got a long way
to go when a man who kills women and then
himself with a machine gun is called Crazy
while an unknown person who mails bombs
to men is a Terrorist
"Americans for a Competent Judicial
System" has claimed that it is killing judges,
lawyers and NAACP officials in retaliation
for the rape and murder of Julie Love. Do the
bombings now become Isolated Incidents
perpetrated by a nut? If that guy in Montreal
had left a note saying he was a member of
"Canadians for Competent Engineering
Students," would his act then be Terrorism?
Don’t hold your breath.
See, it's Terrorism when it affects Those in
Power. It's Isolated Incidents when it affects
students, women, Queers.. .notice how the
Mainstream Media reports those things.
Isolated Incidents of skinheads murdering
Gay men. A young woman raped and mur
dered had "dumb bad luck." Lawyer killed
by Terrorist mail bomb. Notice a pattern
here?
Terrorism...the use of fear, violence or
intimidation to subjugate people... Did the
reports out of Montreal in early December
frighten you? Do reports of Queers beaten
and murdered in your neighborhood make
you squeamish? Do you like living near
parks where rapes and murders are becoming
more frequent? If your Queemess is a secret,
does it strengthen your resolve to remain
closeted? If you're pretty far Out there, do
you experience a nasty desire to change your
name and move to another state?
Do you feel Terrorised by Isolated
Incidents?
Or are you confident and secure that none
of it could ever happen to you? Have you
convinced yourself that the 80s were just a
bad dream and it'll all be going away soon?
Don't get too comfortable. Nothing
majickally changed on January One to make
this a better decade than the last. In fact, I'll
put my money on the 90s being more of the
same. The Status Quo is a hard thing to
change, and the 90s don't look to be very Gay
at all.
But maybe there's hope. Maybe during
the 90s we'll understand that anybody who
kills anybody is Crazy, and no matter who the
target is, it's Terrorism. Maybe we'll take the
blinders off and realize we live in a violent
society, and that no act of violence occurs in
Isolation. Maybe we’ll see that very little has
changed since the last Gay 90s. Maybe we'll
be afraid enough to be angry enough to start
looking for ways to make a difference instead
of waiting for someone else to do it for us.
And maybe, just maybe, that'll happen before
too many more of us are beaten, raped, mur
dered, and otherwise Terrorised into subjuga
tion.
It's bleak picture. But then, it's pretty
bleak world. Good luck.
January 4,1990 • Southern VoiceP