GENDERED MEDIA: A STUDY OF HOW NEWSPAPERS FRAME EDUCATORS INVOLVED IN
i
GENDERED MEDIA:
A STUDY OF HOW NEWSPAPERS FRAME EDUCATORS INVOLVED IN
STATUTORY RAPE ACCORDING TO THE GENDER OF THE ADULT
Anthony Warren Alexander LaFortune-Brown
B.A., California State University, Sacramento, 2008
THESIS
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
SOCIOLOGY at in
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
SPRING
2012
GENDERED MEDIA:
A STUDY OF HOW NEWSPAPERS FRAME EDUCATORS INVOLVED IN
STATUTORY RAPE ACCORDING TO THE GENDER OF THE ADULT
A Thesis by
Anthony Warren Alexander LaFortune-Brown
Approved by :
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Randall MacIntosh, Ph.D.
__________________________________, Second Reader
Jacqueline Carrigan, Ph.D.
____________________________
Date ii
Student: Anthony Warren Alexander LaFortune-Brown
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis.
__________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________
Mridula Udayagiri, Ph.D. Date
Department of Sociology iii
Abstract of
GENDERED MEDIA:
A STUDY OF HOW NEWSPAPERS FRAME EDUCATORS INVOLVED IN
STATUTORY RAPE ACCORDING TO THE GENDER OF THE ADULT by
Anthony Warren Alexander LaFortune-Brown
Statement of Problem
There are a growing number of studies into the subject of female sexual offenders and how they are perceived. In the past, the concept of female sexual offenders was considered an oddity and rarity; but is now recognized as occurring more frequently than previously thought. Past studies examined the perceptions of students about educators who sexually offend. This paper, however, examines the perception given by newspaper articles concerning educators who sexually offend. This is a quantitative content analysis of the adjectives used by newspaper reporters to see if there is bias in how they report female and male educations who sexually offend.
Sources of Data
The source of the data is from the ProQuest newspaper online database. ProQuest catalogs 721 newspapers from the United States as well as 139 newspapers published in the United Kingdom. The newspapers used for this study span between 2002-2011. iv
Conclusions Reached
Using crosstabulations, a quantitative content analysis was conducted. There are four key findings. First, the data show that newspapers will label male educators as predators more often than their female counterpart. Second, newspapers use more gentle and lenient language in their description of female educators who sexual abuse their students. Third, newspapers will use the term mentally ill more often in their description of female sexual offenders than a male sexual offender. These three key findings supports that the use of inflammatory descriptive terms or placating terms is dependent upon the gender of the offender and not the seriousness of their crime. In addition to these findings, this study also shows that American newspapers use more inflammatory language toward educators who sexually offend while United Kingdom newspapers use more innocuous terms. This may be attributed to the fact that it has only been since 2003 that sexual crimes against children by educators are treated more seriously by the Crown
Prosecutors.
_________________________________, Committee Chair
Randall MacIntosh, Ph.D.
_______________________
Date v
DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to my mother,
B arbara
B rown. Her wonderful parenting skills, love, humor, and guidance provided the proverbial springboard for me to transcend and to continually evolve. In fact, because of her and her self-sacrifices I have been able to pursue and attain my educational goals and dreams. And as most children, I only have a vague notion of how much she has sacrificed in my behalf and of how many of her own goals, dreams, and plans she has put on hold for me; I need her to see and know that it was not in vain. I completely recognize that without her help, support, love, and everything else, I would have never graduated college and would have never pursued and now obtain a masters degree. To put it simply: THANK YOU MOTHER .
I also want to thank my mother for rearing me as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Being a
Jehovah’s Witness has given me three things: 1. a love of people that I do not naturally have. 2. A love of knowledge, realizing that knowledge comes at a cost of time and energy, but ultimately knowledge that leads to wisdom is the best thing for any human to attain. 3. And knowledge that there is truth in a world mired with obfuscations and mendacity. For these reasons I think it is a natural fit for me to study sociology, for I see it as a window that explains the world and human behavior.
To my Grandmother, whom unfortunately did not live to see this moment, the confidence she had in me to achieve great things was unwavering. This paper is a reflection of the beginning of things to come and of her confidence in me.
Lastly, to those who still refer to me as friend, even after I constantly had to take rain checks while I wrote papers, went to classes, and prepared for what felt like countless test: Thank you. In jest
I say thank you for your quasi-support, pseudo-understanding, ersatz sympathy, but definite real love and encouragement
(Linda B., Bob M., Pat M., Jack Ŵ., James Ŵ., MI LΩ., Jason Æ, Shane .,
Michael Ĝ., Marvena B., Ǻyuba B., Mumuni Ŧ., and to everyone else whom I didn’t name but you know who you are).
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To being with, I have to acknowledge and give much thanks to Prof. Randy
MacIntosh. I believe that without his undeserved patience, persistence, the constant rewrites, and guidance this paper would not have been possible. Not only did he use his time, skill, knowledge, and ability to provide constant readjustment, guidance and ideas, he did so at great cost to his own time and his family’s time as well. I truly believe that any expression of thanks that I give to Professor MacIntosh pales in comparison to what I owe him. With Professor MacIntosh’s help, I have learned a new level of humility, modesty, and humbleness. He has been more than a Chairperson for my thesis he has been my mentor, my wise advisor. And I can only express nothing but my sincere gratitude, heartfelt thanks, and appreciation.
I also need to thank Prof. Jacqueline Carrigan for volunteering her time as my second reader on my thesis. I also need to thank Professor Carrigan for allowing me to stretch my wings as a teaching assistant. With her trust in me, she helped me solidify my future dreams and aspirations in teaching others. I believe that without these two outstanding professors providing their skills, knowledge, guidance, and patience… tons and tons of patience, that this paper would not have been possible. In addition, I can only hope that I will be as half as skillful in teaching as Professor Carrigan and Professor
MacIntosh are.
I also have to give thanks to Prof Amy Liu. As a graduate coordinator, Prof. Liu provided constant guidance and attention. Prof. Liu provided a light for the graduate vii
students as they transition from an undergrad student that just absorbed information to a graduate student performing and creating research.
I have to acknowledge Professor Mridula Udayagiri, who always challenged me in her classes. Moreover, I want to express my gratitude to her for her support when I went through a personal tragedy. Without her help, I would have never progressed educational. Thank you Professor Udayagiri.
To Prof. Paul Burke, whose enthusiasm for society, social problems, and sociology infected me to the point that I changed from a psychology major to sociology major. And in hind sight I am complete happy that I did so.
Lastly, to Myra Warren, thank you for your time reviewing my paper, for your input, and help. Your contributions as my unofficial third reader helped me further focus and correct my arguments and expressions. Thank you. viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Page
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Table 7 Prison Sentence Received by Offender ................................................... 23
8.
9.
Use of Predatory Terms ...................................................................... 26
10.
Innocuous Terms Based on Author’s Gender ................................... 29
11.
Innocuous Terms Based on Teacher’s Gender ................................. 32
12.
Perception of Offenders ....................................................... 34
Regional Differences of Innocuous And
Regional Differences of Innocuous And
15.
x
Chapter 1
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
To state that news accessibility has never been as available as it is in the 21st century would be an understatement. In America alone, there are over 1,450 daily newspapers with a combined readership of an estimated fifty five million readers.
Nielson estimates that the cable news shows reach well over 100 million viewers. In a
Nielson 2010 survey, they discovered that 78% of Americans rely on their local network television channels for news. However, the news source that is gaining the greatest growth is news obtained via the internet. Recent studies suggest that 61% of Americans
1 rely on the news they are able to access via the internet (Jounrnalorg.org). With all of these media outlets available to the public, it would seem that Americans would be well informed when it comes to the daily news.
However, the assumption that since Americans have more access to more variety of news sources that they would be more educated about the current events is not the case. In a 2007 study regarding Americans’ understanding of current news events, it was stated that most Americans in general are no more knowledgeable about news events today than they were twenty years ago (Pew Reseach Center 2007). Those whom the study found to be the most educated about the current events are those with a higher education background. Yet, even though there is a proliferation of available news sources this does not imply that the news reported is fair, balanced, and unbiased. It has been studied quite thoroughly that that most news outlets are known for possessing some bias
(Baron 2006; Mullainathan and Shleifer 2005; Larcinese 2005; Besley and Prat 2003;
Djankov, McLiesh, Nenova, and Shleife 2003; Strömberg 1999). Yet, what is usually studied when it comes to news organizations biases is the political leanings of the media.
These studies usually focus on whether the news’ organization is liberal, conservative,
2 moderate, or independent. The purpose of this paper is different. Instead of focusing on the political leanings that a news organization may have, this paper will examine the language usage when it comes to statutory rape. This will be an examination of the language used to describe the statutory rapist, their victims, and the crime itself. The question that this study is asking is: as a group, do news organizations display any type of bias toward female statutory rapists who are educators compared to their male counterparts? There have been other studies in the past to understand the perception of male and female statutory rapists (Sahl and Keene 2010; Devon 2003). However, instead of focusing on the media, those studies surveyed college students’ perceptions of educators who commit statutory rape, their victims, and their crimes. Up to date, the findings of the two past studies were almost identical. The studies concluded that male statutory rapists were viewed more negatively and more deserving of punishment.
Whereas the female educator, who was guilty of the same crime, the study states were viewed as less deserving of punishment and that their crimes were benign in nature.
Instead of studying it from the perspective of college students this paper will look at how the media portray it. In order to examine this issue, this study will utilize a content analysis of news reports of statutory rape committed by educators against their students.
Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Power of News Organizations
When asking do news organizations display any type of bias toward female statutory rapists who are educators compared to their male counterparts, the question becomes why examine it via the media? The past studies that looked at students’ perspectives were an examination to see how students perceived it. Yet, as to what can help create a perception in our society as a whole, students possess very little to no power
3 at all. So when it comes to the power to help create, influence, and effect the perceptions and opinions on different topics and issues there is only one group that possesses that power: the news media organizations. To understand the power of the media one of the best theories that applies is framing theory.
Framing theory, when applied to the news media, explains how information is placed into “interpretative packages” (Gamson and Modigliani 1989). These
“interpretative packages” do not allow the consumer of the news to come to their own beliefs, values, or opinion. Instead these “interpretative packages” force the receiver to accept a “force specific interpretation” of the news events (Gardner, 1993). A prime of example of interpretive packaging of the news is the events connected to September 11,
2001. Geiger (2011) brings out how Americans were given informational packages via the news media and the American government that connected the terrorists of 9/11 with the nation state of Afghanistan. In reality though, 16 of the 19 terrorist was not connect to
Afghanistan, but to Saudi Arabia. The argument is that this obfuscation via the government and the media was to protect the interest of “U.S Elites and the oil supplies of the United States.” This allowed America to downplay Saudi Arabia’s involvement in
4 the events of 9/11, instead linked that act of terrorism to Iraq, and subsequently allowed
America to declare war against that nation. Therein is the power that news organizations have, how they choose to frame the event influences (if not dictates) how events are viewed, perceived, and acted upon. To gain a better understanding of how framing theory works, it needs to be broken up into two parts.
The first part is known as the frame-building process, which includes not just how a news event is to be reported but also which events are worthy of being reported on
(Vreese 2005; Shah, Domke, and Fan 2002; Shoemaker and Reese 1996). As noted by
Jennifer Earl "news agencies do not report all events that actually occur” (2004). She notes that newspapers are not a true representative of the crimes that happen but instead is "structured by various factors such as competition over newspaper space, reporting norms, and editorial concerns” (Earl, 2004). This implies that there are important events that occur within our society that are not reported on because it does not fit with the internal factors of the news organizations or its political ideology. This can be seen with the stories that news organizations like Fox News and MSNBC chooses to report. If it is not the news organization that possesses a bias, then it can be the journalists themselves that consciously or unconsciously, try to persuade public opinion. For example, Detweiler
(1987) stated that some journalists use capital punishment cases to either convey support
5 or condemnation of capital punishment itself.
The second part of framing theory is known as framing setting. Whereas frame building involves the choice of news events to report, framing setting is about how the news should be reported. No longer is just about reporting the news, as one article put it, it is now about the vitriolic editorialization that can only be defined as “infotainment
(Anderson 2004).” Instead of just reporting events, they try to inform as well as entertain by focusing on divisive issues, feel good stories, and emotionally charged issues.
Compound this with what Shaw explains that even the words that news organizations use can shape public opinion (Shaw and McCombs 1977). This power can be dangerous when it is explained that news organizations often misrepresent reality (Heath, Linda, and
Gilbert 1996).Ultimately, this has the effect of influencing opinions, attitudes, and behaviors, or reinforcing previously held ideologies (de Vreese 2005).
By using “frame setting” it easy to see when news organizations are trying to influence how people feel and think about topics, ideas and politics (Noelle-Neumann,
Mathes, and Rainer 1987; DeFleur and Dennis 1996; Lipschultz and Hilt 1999). A prime example can be seen in how the media framed recent presidential candidates of 1992 and
2008. The media’s positive coverage of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama has been theorized to have helped both of them secure both their parties’ nominations and ultimately the presidency itself. This is in comparison to the negative media exposure that
George H. Bush, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton received (Smith 2010; Stelmack
6
2010). The media’s influence is not limited to the United States of America. In Israel, the media/news has had a significant influence on the political spectrum (Cohen 2008). A recent example of that is an Israeli television program that is like an “Apprentice” type show. The purpose of the show is to conduct a search for someone who could be a community leader. In Canada the media’s detrimental influences is also seen. Canada is a country that is known for having a low level of crime and victimization rate.
Contradictory to that fact, the citizens of Canada have a high level of fear of crime and victimization. What is the cause of this contradiction in reactions? It is considered that this fear is due to the high level of crime and victimizations shown in crime dramas, reality shows, and of course the news (Dowler 2006).
The above paragraph mentions just some small ways in which the media is influential. When you place that in perceptive with the fact that Americans are inundated by 1,450 daily papers, 24/7 cable and internet news access, and local television news it is easy to see why studying how the media frames a crime is important. Especially when that is a crime involving those with the least amount of power in our society: minors.
Statutory Rape
Rape, whether it is marital, statutory, or incestual, in our society is considered to be the ultimate crime or “master offence” against women (Ferrano 1995). Rarely though, is it seen as a crime against men. There are rare exceptions though when a study will view every type of rape and not just those with the females as a victim. One such study completed in 2003 discussed the different types of rapes that exist such as female victims
of male assailant, female victims of female assailant, male victims of female assailants,
7 and male victims of male assailants (Wakelin 2003). Typically, though, after discussing the different types of rape, the focus of the article was only about male assailants with either a female victim or male victim (Scarce 1997). In most discussions about rape, the idea of a female perpetrator is usually avoided and at times, some articles refuse to address the topic entirely (Allen 2002).
As the previous paragraph notes, males are rarely depicted as being capable of being assigned as a victim. Yet, when males are victims of raped it is studied only from the view of homosexual rape (Sleath 2011). Usually the victims of homosexual rape are not among the public at large, because the victims are incarcerated when the assault happens ( Einat 2009; Isely 1998; Zeringer 1972). This is just further proof that some authors choose not to address the idea of females as rapists and only focus in on male rapists (Graham, 2006). The dogma that only males can be rapists and victims is not limited to literature only, nor is it solely an American ideology.
For example in England, it was not until 1994 with the Criminal Just and Public
Order Act that men could be considered victims of rape (Rumney 1997). However, even though this was a step forward toward a more gender neutral law, the definition of rape still required “penile penetration of the victim.” This meant that because of the linguistics used, legally a woman could not be charged with rape; only a man could. It was not until the Sexual Offences Act of 2003 that explicitly stated that a male could be a victim of rape by female. In addition, this same Sexual Offence Act of 2003 for first time stated
that in England a male child, over the age of 13 and less than 18 years-old, could be consider a rape victim (Tullo, 2003).
The above is why statutory rape is exceptional and worth studying. Originally, in
America statutory rape laws were not created to protect children in general but were
8 created in order to protect young female virgins so they can remain suitable for marriage
(Sutherland 2003). However, unlike Europe, all states in America have had statutory rape laws that protect both males and females for many years ( Lauer 1981; Miller 1995). For example in 1986, the Maine Supreme Court stated that a woman could be charged in the rape of 13-year-old boy (New York Times, AP1986). This is what makes statutory rape unlike every other type of rape because it is a sexual assault that both males and females can be the perpetrator.
However, there seems to be another problem when it comes to statutory rape.
There is very limited data available on both statutory rape and on statutory rapist. In addition, even less information of statutory rape committed by educators. Perhaps this is due the age of the victims and sensitive nature of the topic that limits the data available.
However, instead of just studying criminal data of statutory rape, this study finds it best to study statutory rape by educators and how it is perceived via the news.
Why study how the news organizations report statutory rapist? In recent years, we have seen and heard sensational reports of female statutory rapist such as Debra LaFave,
Margaret De Barraicua, Mary Kay Letourneau, and Stephanie Ragusa. At times it may feel that news organizations are on a media crusade against statutory rapist (Jenkins
1998). However, in truth, most statutory rapes receive little to no attention by the news organizations because they are not considered sensational or even important (Cavanagh
9
2004, Cheit 2002). This is because statutory rape is considered one of the mundane items that is usually not front-page news worth stories but usually is just a small story in most newspapers (Schlesinger 1991). Those that are mentioned in the newspapers with follow up articles are mentioned because the story itself is considered sensational. The articles can be “highly repetitive” and easily “contextualized.” These cases can usually be called
“mega cases” (Dowler 2007).
These “mega case” most people have heard about. For example, the trial of Mary
Kay Letourneau (the teacher that was sentence to 190 days in jail after raping her 13year-old student, only to violate the terms of her parole and was sent to prison) and the outcome of her marriage with the young boy she raped. Or the case of Debra LaFarve, who raped her 14-year-old male student. When she was convicted, she claimed she was too pretty to go to jail and the judge acquiesced and sentence her to house arrest.
However, it is doubtful that anyone knows who Georgianne Harrell, Gina Marie Watring,
Jennifer Dorland, or Ruben Rodriguez is or their crimes. Yet, each one of the persons mentioned are all educators that are guilty of statutory rape with the youngest victim being 9 years old (WorldNetDaily.com 2010; http://badbadteacher.com/) .
Yet, currently there does not seem to be any research or theories that apply to why the media may portray one gender differently from another. The closest theories that help explain why there is this dichotomy are feminist criminal theory and sexual script theory.
Feminist Criminal Theory
It has already been noted that females are treated less harshly when it comes to
10 criminal sentencing (Akers 2004; Farnsworth and Teske 1995; Crew 1991). One of the prevailing theories in feminist criminal theory that can be applied is “chivalry theory”
(Visher 1983; Pollak 1961). Chivalry theory insist that the reason why a woman at times may receives a more “lenient treatment” by the courts is because of the fact that she is a woman (McGee and Baker 2003; Steffensmeier, Darrell, Jeffery Ulmer, and John
Kramer. 1998). In fact, this theory insists that traditional gender roles are what can help determine the sentence a woman receives and not the merit of her crime. Chivalry theory insists that judges and prosecutors view and treat women with kid gloves. This is evident when either lawyers and/or judges treat women differently by dropping or reducing charges, and even given a lesser sentence when convicted. When using this theory, it becomes evident why female defendants are viewed by the court system differently than male defendants. If we stretch this theory to the news media complex then it would be easy to surmise that female statutory rapists would be treated less harshly and reported upon less negatively than males.
“Chivalry theory” has been one of the theories used to explain how females are treated and viewed by the criminal justice system and it can apply to the news media as well (Grabe 2006). However, a stronger theory that can apply is sexual script theory.
Unlike chivalry theory that is just referring to crimes in general and the court systems, sexual script theory focuses on the “relevance of culturally denied expectations for
women and men’s appropriate sexual behaviors” (Sahl 2010). Sexual script theories, as
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Mendel (1995) states, are myths about each gender that permeate and are perpetuated by society. Sexual script theory implies that males are supposed to be sexually aggressive and domineering (Murnen, Wright, and Kaluzny 2002). This is in sharp contrast to sexual script that women are to be innocent, guileless, and vestal virgins. Nowhere within sexual script theory does it allow males to be victims of sexual abuse or for females to be perpetrators of sexual violence. When using sexual script theory it explains why our society doesn’t allow for the idea of women being sexually aggressive and the idea of a woman being a sexual deviant (i.e. committing statutory rape, child molester, or pedophile) is almost inconceivable (Denov 2001; Byers 1998). In our society, when it comes to rape cases, rarely do we think of young and male. In America, we are taught to think of a victim’s characteristics, as being female, young, and white whereas the offender’s characteristics are male and maybe a minority. This is because of the impression we get from the media itself, which teaches the sexual script that we are supposed to subscribe to (Cheatwood 2007). The idea that each gender has a different traditional sexual script that they have to ascribe to is even seen among social services and clinical professionals. This in turn causes professionals to be dismissive of male victims of statutory rape, especially when the perpetrator is a female (Devon 2004).
It may seem though that according to statistics of sex offenders, that female statutory rapist are a relatively small group, especially when compared to the amount of male sex offenders that exist. This too is explained by sexual script theory (Wiederman,
2005). As mentioned before if males are looked at as being sexually aggressive and sexually domineering, then when males break the law and commit one of these offenses
12 then it is more likely to be reported to authorities and dealt with appropriately. Yet, as
Denov (2004) stated, the insidious view that female sexual offenders are harmless is because
“
Pervasive reliance on the traditional women as sexually harmless is likely to affect the official recognition of the problem. Official statistics on female sex offending which suggest that female offenders account for 1 to 4% of all sexual offences may be more of a reflection of the (gendered) norms and beliefs which appear to shape the criminal law, victim reporting practices, professional decision making, and societal attitudes than a true reflection of the extent of the problem. The low rates of female sex offending in official sources must be considered within this context (12).”
Whether it is chivalry theory or sexual script theory, it has only been recently that there have been serious examinations of female statutory rapist. Well maybe it is that our patriarchal society excludes the idea of “sexual equality” both under the law and within in our news media (Miller 2005; Barber and Williams 2004). Whatever the case maybe this paper joins the group of studies that exist on this subject.
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Chapter 3
DATA AND METHODS
Database and Sample
In the United States alone, there are over 1,400 newspapers and another 90 newspaper companies in the United Kingdom (Kirchhoff, 2010; Greenslade, 2010).
Interestingly there are not any national online databases that include all 1400 newspapers; instead, there are several online newspaper databases each with a certain number of newspaper available to them. ProQuest cover a total of 721 newspapers in the US throughout all of the 50 states, and 139 newspapers in the UK.
As mentioned earlier, there does not exist one single online database with all of the newspaper articles printed in America. This means that the sample type that was used for this study is a representative sample of the population of articles available to
ProQuest.
Search Terms
One of the things of note in this study is that there does not exist one legalistic universal term for sexual offensives against minors. In addition to this, newspapers rarely use psychology terms such as pedophiles, hebephiles, and phebophilies when discussing educators who have sexual assaulted their students. This was discovered when using these words in ProQuest database with only small number of articles that were retrieved using these search terms. After a review of other articles and studies about statutory rape, sexual offensives against minor, and child molestation the term that was repeatedly used
14 was “sex offender” (Sandler and freeman, 2007; Ford, 2006; Vandiver and Kercher's,
2004; Denov, 2004; Vandiver and Walker, 2002; Nathan and Ward, 2001; Miccio-
Fonseca, 2000; Wakefield and Underwager, 1991),
After attaining the correct terms to search with, it was necessary to choose a specific period to work with as well. This is necessary because the ProQuest database is continually expanding daily. In an effort to make this study as relevant as possible, it was necessary to choose a keystone year that would align both the United Kingdom and the
United States news articles.
Instead of just choosing an arbitrary date and proceeding from there, the beginning timeframe of this study is January 01, 2002. This is because 2002 is a year before the Sex Offender Act of 2003 that was adopted as law in the United Kingdom. The
Sex Offender Act of 2003 expanded the previous sex offender registration act by including new types of sex crimes, added new mandatory sentencing, and for the first time both genders are treated equally by the law both as victims and offenders (Griffin
2010; Tullo 2003). Prior to this law, sexual assaults in England seem to consist of two categories: males as the sexual offender and females as the victim. The last article collected for this study was August 15, 2011. This covers a nine-year period.
However, using the search terms ”sex offender” and the word “teacher” within the above mentioned time frames can produce thousands of articles that fit those search parameters. Instead of just including every article returned by the search criteria, it was necessary to include certain articles and exclude others. In order to only include the
relevant articles that apply to this study, there are several things that would exclude an
15 article from being included in this study: (1) The article cannot be solely about a teacher who was arrested for possessing child pornography, (2) the child involved in the study must be a pupil of the teacher at the time of the sexual assault, (3) articles that are about sexual assault that occurred ten years before the article was written were also excluded
(this is because there is a statue of limitations involved in most cases after a certain amount of time), (4) articles about religious teachers who sexually abuse their students were also excluded (religious teachers were excluded because they violated both religious authority and secular laws but not the secular authority since religious teachers are not approved by a teacher board of education) (5) in the case of multiple stories about the same incident but written by different authors only the first two articles were included,
(6) in the case of multiple of articles from the same author only the first article was included, (7) articles that are missing certain facts were also excluded, such as if the age or gender of the sex offender was missing or the gender or age of the child(ren) was missing.
After applying the above criteria to filter what articles were to be included in this study, it narrowed the 4,000 potential articles that came from the search term “sexual offender” and “teacher,” down to 343. From each of these articles, this study used fifteen pieces of information, separated into three groups. The first group of variables records information about the minor and the educator: the gender of the offender and the victim, any descriptive terms about the educator, the presence of the word “victim,” and terms
that makes the abuse seem innocuous. The second groups of variables that were coded
16 are: the legal description of the crime, if bail was received, the amount of the bail, probation received, and jail/prison time received (if any). The last group of variables captures the background information of the newspaper itself. This included the gender of the writer and the country of origin the newspaper was printed.
Hypotheses
All of the variables mentioned earlier will be used to test the following hypotheses:
H
1
: There will be a correlation between the use of predatory terms and the gender of the offender.
H
2
: Sexually abused female students will be labeled as a victim more often compared to male students.
H
3
: Female authors will use innocuous terms more frequently than male authors.
H
3a
: Female authors will use the term “affair” more frequently than male authors.
H
3b
: Female authors will use the term “consensual” more frequently than male authors.
H
3c
: Female authors will use the term “groomed” more frequently than male authors.
H
3d
: Female authors will use the term “relationship” more frequently than male authors.
H
3e
: Female authors will use the term “tryst” more frequently than male authors.
17
H
4
: Newspaper articles will use more terms that are innocuous in their description of female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders.
H
4a
: Newspaper articles will use the term “affair” more frequently when describing female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders.
H
4b
: Newspaper articles will use the term “consensual” more frequently when describing female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders.
H
4c
: Newspaper articles will use the term “groomed” more frequently when describing female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders.
H
4d
: Newspaper articles will use the term “relationship” more frequently when describing female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders.
H
4e
: Newspaper articles will use the term “tryst” more frequently when describing female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders.
H
5
: Male sexual offenders who are educators will receive longer incarceration time than female educators.
H
6
: Female educators who are sexual offenders will be labeled more frequently in the articles as being “mentally ill” than are male educators who are sexual offenders.
H
7
: Female educators who are sexual offenders will be labeled as being less responsible for their actions because the “victim was to blame” for the sexual assault
H
8
: Due to the recent egalitarian law that prosecute both genders for sexual assault against children in the United Kingdom called the Sex Offender Act of
18
2003, innocuous terms will be used more frequently in articles about female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders, controlling for country.
H
9
: The use of predatory terms will be more frequent in articles about female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders, controlling for country.
H
10
: As stated earlier the recent changes in the United Kingdom lead to the hypothesis that articles written in the United Kingdom will use more innocuous terms than articles written in the United States, controlling for offender’s gender
H
11
: America’s long-standing laws against statutory rape compared to the United
Kingdom’s leads to the hypothesis that articles from American will have more frequent use of predatory terms than articles from the United Kingdom, controlling for offender’s gender.
Variables
Gender. For each article that was examined 14 variables needed to be coded. To begin with, the gender of the victim was coded as male or female. When there were articles with multiple victims, only the first victim’s gender was recorded. In addition to coding victims gender the offender was also coded as well as either male or female, however if there was more than one offender only the first offender’s gender was encoded. For each of the above variables males were coded as “0” and females were coded as “1.” The gender of the author of the articles coded, as well. However, because
some news articles do not include the name of the author because they were submitted
19
“anonymously” or by “Associated Press” this variable included a category for anonymous. For author’s gender it was coded as males=”0” females=”1” and articles without a byline were coded as “2.”
Table 1: Gender of Victim
Gender of Victim Frequency Percent
Male 157 45.9
Female
Total
185
342
54.1
100.0
Table 2: Gender of Offender
Gender of Offender
Male
Female
Total
Frequency Percent
210 61.4
132
342
38.6
100.0
Table 3: Gender of Author
Gender of Author
Male
Female
Anonymous
Total
Frequency Percent
144 42.1
127
71
37.1
20.8
342 100.0
Descriptions of the Victim and Offender. The next set of variables that were coded was the terms used to describe the abuse either by the author themselves, or someone quoted by the author. If there was no description of the event at all then it was codes as being NA=”0” affair,=”1,” consensual,=”2” fling=”3,” friendship=”4,” groomed=”5,” love=”6,” molest=”7,” molestation=”8,” relation=”9,” relationship=”10,”
romantic=”11,” romp=”12,” seduce=”13,” snogging=”14,” and tryst=”15.”These words
20 connote an innocuous connection between the abuser and their victim.
Besides the official charges leveled against the offender, the description of the offender was coded for as well. If there were no descriptive terms that was coded as
NT=”0”, consensual=”1”, depraved=”2,” forced=”3,” icky =”4,” lure =”5,” lust=”6,” mentally sick=”7,” molestation=”8,” molester=”9,” pedophile=”10,” pervert=”11,” predator=”12,” prey=”13,” seduce=”14,” sexual predator=”15,” and language that blames as being responsible for the sexual assault was coded as blame victim=”16”. With the sixteenth variable, this requires examining the language used or quoted by the author.
An example of this is a article from the San Francisco Chronicle ( 2002):
A former San Mateo teacher's aide pleaded no contest yesterday to having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy who worked with her in an after-school program.
The charge stemmed from a relationship that began in the summer of 1997, when Trinicia
Makasini was a 22-year-old teacher's aide at Turnbull Learning Academy School and the boy was a student volunteer.
Defense attorney Geoffrey Carr said Makasini and the boy, now 17, no longer have a romantic relationship, although they do communicate and have a daughter together who now is 2 years old.
Makasini, arrested May 26 during a county crackdown on statutory rape, had tears in her eyes as she entered the plea in San Mateo County Superior Court yesterday. She will return to court Feb. 2 for sentencing.
Judge Robert Foiles said that under a plea agreement, Makasini will be sentenced for a maximum of six months in county jail. She could have faced a sentence of as long as four years in prison. Foiles said he would consider the sheriff's work program in lieu of jail if Makasini's probation report is positive.
Makasini will also be placed on three years' probation. Upon completion, she will be able to have her felony conviction converted to a misdemeanor. Ten other counts were dismissed under the plea, including one that would have required Makasini to register as a sex offender if convicted.
Deputy District Attorney Linda M. Eufusia, who prosecuted the case, said she agreed to the deal because Makasini will face severe penalties -- four years in prison -- if she violates the terms of her probation.
Eufusia also said she agreed to the plea bargain because Makasini had never been in trouble with the law before, is the sole provider for her daughter, and because the victim in the case strongly opposed harsher penalties.
"He felt this was to some extent also his responsibility because he was a willing participant," Eufusia said. "He was very flattered by the attention of someone who was older. . . .
It was just a situation that got out of hand."
Defense attorney Carr said the victim's willingness and social attitudes that he said are more forgiving about sex between young men and adult women than vice-versa, should have prevented the case from ever being brought to court.
"The sexes need to be equal for their treatment under the law, but that doesn't mean sexual behavior is equal," he said. "(The case) shouldn't have been brought at all. In other counties, it wouldn't have been brought at all."
But Eufusia pointed out that despite the consensual nature of the relationship and witnesses' descriptions of the victim as physically and sexually mature, Makasini should have known that her participation in the relationship was wrong.
The above article highlights how the victim of this story, who was a 14 year-old minor,
21 was referred to as being “physically and sexually mature.” The author even decided to include a quote from the sexual offender herself by stating the boy blames himself and feels he is partly responsible. The author of this article also quoted the district attorney whose expressions seem to denote that prosecuting a female for having sex with a male minor is not issue and that this type of crime there should there should not have been prosecuted for type of crime.
The last descriptive term that was coded is the presence of the word
“victim.” This meant that if the word victim wasn’t mentioned in the article then that was coded as NA=”0” and presence of the victim was coded as victim=”1.”
Table 4: Presence of the Word Victim
Victim Label Frequency
No 229
Yes
Total
113
342
Percent
67.0
33.0
100.0
Table 5: Innocuous Terms
Innocuous terms
NA
Affair
Consensual
Fling
Friendship
Groomed
Love
Romantic
Romp
Seduce
Snogging
Tryst
Total
Frequency
213
25
2
1
2
13
70
6
1
1
1
7
342
Table 6: Predatory Terms
Description of Educator Frequency Percent
NA
Consensual
Depraved
Force
Icky
Lure
Lust
Mentally sick
Molestation
Molester
Pedophile
Pervert
Predator
Prey
Seduce
Sexual predator
Victim to blame
Total
268
1
1
1
1
1
1
30
5
5
1
2
5
342
8
9
2
1
2.3
2.6
.6
.3
.6
1.5
100.0
78.4
.3
.3
.3
.3
.3
.3
8.8
1.5
1.5
.3
Percent
62.3
7.3
.6
.3
.6
3.8
20.5
1.8
.3
.3
.3
2.0
100.0
22
23
Crime Data . In addition to coding all of the data related to the crime itself, the other data collected are the sentencing data that the article may contain. The criminal data that was collected was the sentence received by the sexual offender if the article mentions it. This, as with the probation variable, had to be coded differently because jail/prison sentence ranged from two days to eight years. Jail sentence was coded as NA=”0,” no more than 3 months in prison=”1,” no more than 6 months in prison=”2,” no more than 9 months in prison=”3,” 12 months or less in prison=”4,” less than 15 months=”5,” less than 18 months in prison=”6,” 2 years in prison=”7,” 3 or more years in prison ”8.”
Table 7: Prison Sentence Received by Offender
Prison Sentence
NA
No more than 3 months in prison
No more than 6 Months in prison
No more than 9 months in prison
12 months or less in prison
Less than 15 Months
Less than 18 months in prison
2 years in prison
3 or more years in prison
Total
Frequency
219
6
11
10
25
9
3
10
Percent
64.0
1.8
3.2
2.9
7.3
2.6
.9
2.9
49 14.3
342 100.0
Newspaper Data.
The last group variables collected is the background of the newspaper. This only includes two separate variables. The first variable is the country of origin in which the article was printed. Articles printed in the United States is label
US=”0,” and the articles from the United Kingdom was labeled UK=”1.”
24
Table 8: Story of Origin
Story of Origen Frequency
United States
United Kingdom
Total
219
123
342
Analytical Plan
Percent
64.0
36.0
100.0
In order to test H
1,
H
2
, and H
5
, that gender of the victim and offender play a role in how these crimes are described in newspapers and by officials, bivariate crosstabs with chi-square tests will be run. Substantive significance will be evaluated using Cramer’s V and Phi correlation coefficients. .
Multivariate crosstabs analysis however, will be used to test H
3 and H
6
. This was necessary because it involves three different variables. First is the independent variable of the gender of the writer. The second variable, a dependent variable, is the use innocuous language. The gender of the sexual offender is a control variable.
Cross tabulation will be used to test H
5.
For hypothesis H
5,
the sentencing variable was coded into a binary variable of whether the sex offender was sentenced to a prison term or not.
25
Chapter 4
RESULTS
To test H
1
, the dependent variable was “predatory term” with the independent variable being “gender of the offender.” At first it may seem that for H
1
we would fail to reject the null hypothesis. This is due to a Chi Square of χ 2
(1, N =342) = 3.118, p >.05
(an alpha level of .05 was used for this and all further statistical test) showing there is no correlation between the use of predatory terms and the gender of the offender.
However, controlling for the gender of the victim in the article changes the results
(see Table 9). Once the gender of the victim is included, the results for female sexual offenders is χ 2
(1, N =342) = .223, p> .05. Comparatively, when you include the gender of the victims, male sexual offenders Chi-Square is χ
2
(1, N =342) = 7.776, p< .05 with a Phi of .-223. We reject the null hypothesis and state there is a significant connection between the gender of the offender and the use of “predatory terms.”
26
Table 9: H
1
Use of Predatory Terms
Gender of Educator Count of predatory
Female
Gender of Victim terms
% within
Gender of
Offender
Male 9 8.0%
Female
Male
1 5.0%
Gender of Victim a.
p < .05
Male 11
Female 18
24.4%
10.9%
Pearson
Chi-Square
.676
7.776
Phi
-.223
Crosstab analysis was used to test H
2
, which stated that female students who were sexually abused would be labeled as a victim more often compared to male students.
With the dependent variable being victim label and the gender of victim being the independent variable, there was only a 5% difference in the amount of times males and females were labeled victims. This is why it is we fail to reject the null hypothesis due to
χ 2
(1, N =342) = .187, p>.05. Even when controlling for the offender’s gender with the use of the term “victim” there is no gender bias due to males students having a χ
2
(1, N
=342) = .360, p >.05 and female students χ
2
(1, N =342) = .107, p >.05.
Hypothesis H
3 also required multivariate crosstabs to determine whether female authors use innocuous terms more often than male authors do. For this hypothesis several dummy variables were created from “innocuous term” variables: (H
3a
)
“affairs”, (H
3b
)
27
“consensual,” (H
3c)
“relationship,” (H
3d)
“groomed,” and (H
3e)
“tryst.” The independent variable for this was analysis was gender of the author of the article. The first part of this hypothesis was to test for the presence of any “innocuous terms” within the article in connection to the gender of the author and the gender of the offender. In total, when male authors wrote their articles the results for this was χ
2
(7, N =342) = 7.834, p >.05, compared to a female author which resulted in was χ 2
(10, N =342) = 13.301 p >.05. The
Chi-square show there is no correlations between the author’s use of innocuous terms and the gender of the offender (see Table 10).
The first word that was tested individually was the word “affair” (see Table 10).
Out of 342 articles, 7.2 percent of them contain the word “affair.” Even with this being the case, the results for male writer’s articles is χ 2
(1, N =342) = 2.174, p >.05 and female writer’s articles χ 2 (1, N =342) = 1.783, p >.05. With this result, we fail to reject the null hypothesis of a gender difference with the term “affair.”
The termed (H
3b
)
“groomed” returned with the results of χ 2
(1, N =342) = .334, p
>.05 for male authors and χ
2
(1, N =342) = 1.080, p >.05 leads to only on conclusion of failing to rejecting the null hypothesis.
Another of the words tested was “consensual” (H
3c
).
When this was tested using a multivariate crosstab analysis the results for male authors was χ 2
(1, N =342) = .641, p
>.05. There wasn’t much different when examining the writings female authors either with the results of χ 2
(1, N =342) = 1.363, p >.05.
The next variable tested was “relationship” (H
3d
)
.
Altogether there were 61 articles that used the term “relationship.” When testing significance of this term, the result is χ 2 (1, N =342) = .777, p >.05 for male and for female writers a of χ 2
(1, N =342)
28
=.225, p >.05 leads to one conclusion: that for the word “relationship” we fail to reject the null hypothesis.
The last variable was the analysis of the word “tryst” (H
3e
)
.
The results for male authors using the word “tryst” toward a female educator resulted in χ 2 (1, N =342) = .040, p >.05. This is in comparison to female writers using the word “tryst” toward female educators resulted in χ 2
(1, N =342) = 4.154, p < .05 and Phi = .181 for the word “tryst.”
Table 10: H
3
Innocuous Terms Based on Author’s Gender
Male Author
Variable Percent Chi-Square Phi
Innocuous Terms
No
Male Offender
Female Offender
Yes
Male
Female
Affair
No
Male Offender
Female Offender
Yes
Male Offender
Female
Consensual
No
Offender
Male Offender
Female Offender
Yes
Male Offender
Female
Groomed
No
Offender
Male Offender
Female Offender
Yes
Male Offender
Female
Relationship Offender
No
Male Offender
Female Offender
Yes
Male Offender
Female
Tryst
No
Offender
Male Offender
Female Offender
Yes
Male Offender
Female
Offender
* p<.05
66.7%
33.3%
52.6%
47.4%
63.1%
36.9%
42.9%
57.1%
60.8%
39.2%
100%
0%
60.7%
39.3%
75.0%
25.0%
63.1%
36.9%
54.5%
45.5%
61.1%
38.9%
61.1%
38.9%
2.854
.334
.777
.040
.641
2.174
Female Author
Percent Chi-Square Phi
1.767
62%
38%
50%
50%
58.5%
1.783
41.5%
25.0%
75.0%
57.9%
42.1%
1.363
0%
100%
1.080
56.6%
43.4%
80.0%
20.0%
.225
58.6%
41.4%
53.6%
46.4%
4.154
* .181
68.6%
31.4%
.0%
100.0
%
29
30
Hypothesis H
4
tests the terms used to describe teacher-student relationship and the gender of the victim, controlling for the offender’s gender. For this hypothesis, all of the same terms that were tested in H
3
are used in H
4
(except the author’s gender). The test for a correlation between the use of any innocuous term to describe the relationship and offender’s gender, controlling for the victim’s gender, resulted in male offenders χ
2
(11,
N =342) = 19.767, p <.05 with a Phi of .355. However female offenders resulted in χ
2
(9,
N =342) = 19.463, p <.05 with a Phi of .324. This Chi Square means we reject the null hypothesis. Subsequent analysis was done with each of the five major innocuous terms.
The term “affair” when tested in H
3 showed no support for a correlation (H
4a
). In contrast, when analyzing “affair” with the offender’s gender, controlling for victim’s gender, produces χ 2
(1, N =342) = 1.819, p>.05 for male offenders. However female offenders resulted in χ 2 (1, N =342) = 8.588, p < .05, with a Phi =.215, shows that we reject the null hypothesis concerning the word affair for female offenders.
The next term that was examined was “consensual” (H
4b
). “Consensual” for male offenders resulted in χ 2
(1, N =342) = .404, p >.05 compared to female offenders which
χ 2
(1, N =342) = .122, p >.05. Because of the Chi-Square value, we fail to reject the null hypothesis.
The above results are echoed when the word “groomed” was analyzed as well
(H
4c
). For male offenders the results were χ
2
(1, N =342) =2.160, p >.05 and female offenders wasn’t much different with χ 2
(1, N =342) = .007, p >.05. Again we fail to reject the null hypothesis.
The next term is the word “relationship” (H
4d
). For female offenders the results
31 were χ 2 (1, N =342) = 2.993, p >.05. We fail to reject the null hypothesis. Inversely, it is male offenders who received a χ
2
(1, N =342) = 9.385, p< .05 with a Phi .244. We fail to reject null hypothesis of no correlation between the use of the word “relationship” and the gender of the offender when the victim is female. The data suggests there is a correlation, however, between the use of the term “relationship” and victim gender when the offender is male.
The last variable tested was the word “tryst” (H
4e
). The result for male offenders was χ 2
(1, N =342) = .027, p >.05, with female educators receiving virtual the same results at χ 2
(1, N =342) = 1.604, p >.05. This means that for the word “tryst” we fail to reject the null hypothesis that there is a correlation between the use of the word “tryst” and the offender’s gender, controlling for the victim’s gender (see Table 11).
32
Table 11: H
4
Innocuous Terms Based on Teacher’s Gender
Variable Percent
Male Offender Female Offender
Chi-Square Phi Percent Chi-Square Phi
19.676* .355 19.463
*
.32
Innocuous Terms
No
Male Victim
Female Victim
Yes
Male Victim
Female Victim
Affair
No
Yes
Male Victim
Female Victim
Male Victim
Female Victim
Consensual
No
Yes
Male Victim
Female Victim
Male Victim
Female Victim
Groomed
No
Yes
Male Victim
Female Victim
Male Victim
Female Victim
Relationship
No
Male Victim
Female Victim
Yes
Male Victim
Female Victim
Tryst
No
Yes
Male Victim
Female Victim
Male Victim
Female Victim
p < .05
27.7%
72.3%
8.7%
91.3%
22.1%
77.9%
9.1%
90.9%
21.5
78.5
.0
100.0
21.6
78.4
18.2
81.8
25.6
74.4
2.6
97.4
21.3
78.7
33.3
66.7
1.819
.404
2.160
9.385
.027
*
.244
94.4%
5.6%
73.3%
26.7%
87.3%
12.7%
64.3%
35.7%
84.7
15.3
100.0
.0
85.4
14.6
50.0
50.0
87.9
12.1
75.8
24.2
75.0
25.0
75.0
25.0
.007
2.993
1.604
.122
8.588
*
.21
5
4
33
Hypothesis H
5
tests whether male sexual offenders who are educators will receive longer incarceration time than female educators. Out of the 342 articles examined, only
123 articles mentioned any type of jail time received. With the independent variable of gender of educator and the dependent variable of “time received,” leads to the results of
χ 2
(1, N =132) = .272, p >.05, allowing us to fail to reject the null hypothesis (see Table
12).
Hypothesis H
6 states that Newspaper articles will label female educators as being
“mentally ill” more frequently than male sexual offenders are (see Table 12). Using the crosstab analysis of the variables “mentally ill” from the description of educators and the gender of offender resulted in χ
2
(1, N =342) = 20.110, p < .001. The strength of the relationship for H
6
based upon Phi is .242.
Hypothesis H
7
states that female educators will be labeled as being less responsible for their actions because the victim was to blame for the sexual assault (see
Table 12). Using the crosstab analysis of the variable “victim to blame” from the description of educator and the gender of offender resulted in χ
2
(1, N =342) = 3.670, p
>.05.
Table 12: H
6
and H
7
Perception of Offenders
Variable Count Percent
Mentally Sick
No
Male offender
Female offender
Yes
Male offender
Female offender
Blame Victim
No
Male offender
Female offender
Yes
Male Victim
Female Victim
203
109
7
23
209
128
1
4
*p < .001
96.7%
82.6%
3.3%
17.4%
99.5%
97.0%
.5%
3.0%
Chi-Square
20.110
*
3.670
.242
Phi
The next set of hypotheses, unlike the previous seven, will focus on the regional
34 differences between the articles written in the United Kingdom and the United States (see
Table 13). H
8
was created because of the United Kingdom’s Sex Offender Act of 2003, which stated that both genders are to be prosecuted equally under the law when a teacher sexually offended a child. This means the more egalitarian view would be consider a recent addition to their laws and subsequently to the United Kingdom’s culture. For this reason, H
8
states innocuous terms will be used more frequently in articles about female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders, controlling for country. This is shown with the variables of “innocuous terms,” “gender of offender,” and “country origin,” we find that for articles written about sexual offenders in the United Kingdom
the result is χ
2
(9, N =342) =18.592, p < .05 with a Phi=.389. In comparison with
American articles which had a result of χ 2 (10, N =342) = 11.236, p >.05.
Hypothesis H
9
states the use of predatory terms will be more frequent in articles about female sexual offenders compared to male sexual offenders, controlling for country. The result of this test for British articles was χ
2
(1, N =342) .669, p >.05. In comparison the results of the American articles resulted in χ 2
(1, N =342) 5.001, p < .05 with a Phi of .151. This is seen in Table 13.
35
When testing H
10, the regional difference is observed. Hypothesis H
10
states that articles written in the United Kingdom will use more innocuous terms than articles written in the United States, controlling for offender’s gender. Articles from the United
Kingdom for males sexual offenders had a result of χ
2
(9, N =342) =32.504, p < .05 with a Cramer’s V=.393. The results for British articles about female sexual offenders had the result of χ
2
(11, N =342) = 27.104, p<.05 with a Cramer’s V of .453.
Hypothesis H
11
states that articles from American will have more frequent use of predatory terms than articles from the United Kingdom, controlling for offender’s gender.
The result of this test for American articles about female educators was χ 2
(1, N =342)
.103, p >.05. The results are echoed for male educators as well with χ 2 (1, N =342) .414, p
>.05. This is seen in table 14.
Table 13: H
8
and H
9
Regional Differences of Innocuous and Predatory Terms
Variable
Innocuous Term
United States
Count Percent Chi-Square Cramer’s V
11.236
United Kingdom
Count Percent Chi-Square Cramer’s V
18.592
* .383
Male Offender
No Innocuous terms
Innocuous terms
Female Offender
96 63.3%
33 50.0%
No Innocuous terms
Innocuous terms
57
33
63.3%
36.7%
Predatory
Terms
Male Offender
No Predatory terms 108 83.7%
5.001
* .151
Predatory terms 21 16.3%
Female
Offender
No Predatory terms 64 71.1%
Predatory terms 26 28.9%
* p < .05
31
11
55.6% 45
36
15
27
44.4%
35.7%
64.3%
65 80.2%
16 28.9%
73.8%
26.2%
.669 .
36
Table 14: H
10
and H
11
Regional Differences of Innocuous and Predatory Terms
Variable
Innocuous Term
Male Teacher
Count Percent Chi-Square Cramer’s V
32.504* .393
Female Teacher
Count Percent Chi-Square Cramer’s V
27.104* .453
United States
No Innocuous terms
Innocuous terms
United Kingdom
96 74.4%
33 25.6%
No Innocuous terms
Innocuous terms
45
33
55.6%
44.4%
Predatory
Terms
United States
No Predatory terms 108 83.7%
.414
*
Predatory terms
United Kingdom
21 16.3%
No Predatory terms
Predatory terms
* p < .05
65 80.2%
16 19.8%
31
11
63.3% 57
33
15
27
36.7%
35.7%
64.3%
64 71.1%
26 28.9%
73.8%
26.2%
.103 .
37
38
In summary, five of the main hypotheses were supported by the data when tested.
H
1 showed there were more predatory terms used toward male sexual offenders than their female counterparts (primarily the word “tryst”). The next hypothesis that was supported was H
4, which tested the use of innocuous terms in describing teacher-student relationship. H
6
showed that when the term “mentally ill” was used more often in reference toward a female sexual offender. The data supported hypothesis H
8
that showed that the use of innocuous terms are more frequently used toward female sexual offenders than male sexual offenders even when controlling for the country of origin of the story.
However, when controlling for region it is evident that articles from the United Kingdom contain more innocuous language than American articles. In tandem to this, H
9
shows that there is a correlation in the use of frequent predatory terms from articles written about male and female sexual offenders when controlling for the country of the news article. H
10
data supported that articles from the United Kingdom contained more terms that are innocuous even we controlling for gender of the offender. Table 15 summarizes which hypotheses were supported.
Table 15: Hypotheses Results
Research Hypothesis
H
4
H
4 a
H
4 b
H
4 c
H
4 d
H
4 e
H
5
H
6
H
1
H
2
H
3
H
3 a
H
3 b
H
3 c
H
3 d
H
3 e
H
7
H
8
H
9
H
10
H
11
Conclusion
Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Supported
Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Supported
Supported
Not Supported
39
40
Chapter 5
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This study purpose was to test whether there is a gender bias in how media report sexual offenders who were educators. Altogether, there were nine main hypotheses that were tested, of which six of them were supported by the data, as well as one subhypothesis.
Hypothesis H
1 stated that male offenders will be described in more predatory terms than their female counterparts. The data showed this to be supported. In fact, 14% of the articles about male offenders contained predatory terms. This is in comparison to
8% of articles involving female sexual offenders. These results are reflected in a previous study by Chiotti, who noted 80% of the males in her study were described using predatory terms (2009). This is in comparison to her finding that females were only referred to negatively around 20% of time. This shows that two separate studies came to the same conclusion: the use of predatory depends not on the crime but upon the gender of the offender
Even though hypothesis H
3
was not supported by the data in general, hypothesis
H
3e there was one innocuous term that was found in the data: “tryst.” The data showed that the word tryst itself only appears 7 times, six of the times it is used by female authors describing female educators. The disturbing part of this is that the word tryst, according to Webster’s dictionary “is meeting during a love affair.” This means that the use of this word homogenizes the sexual offense.
41
The next hypothesis that was supported by the data was H
4
, which stated that female offenders would be described in more innocuous terms than their male counterparts would. Why is this important? The term innocuous has been defined as “not likely to give offense or to arouse strong feelings or hostility.” This means that when female sex offenders are described in newspapers, they are described in words that do not denote the seriousness of their offense. In addition to this, H
4a
showed that the use of the word “affair” was statistically significantly different between offenders. This term relegates the sexual offense perpetrated by the female educator as nothing more than an
“affair.” This innocuous term implies that both parties are of consenting age and responsibility, even though the first party is a teacher and the second party is a student and a minor. These findings are echoed also in Chiotti’s study that noted 58% of the media stories about female sex offenders used more positive/less hostile terms (2009).
Both of these findings support the “chivalry theory” notions that women should be treated more gently and leniently than their male counterparts (Smart 1979). The danger of this hypothesis being supported is that the use of innocuous terms lessens the severity of the crime, which lessens the danger these female offenders represent, while at the same time disregards the traumatic experience of the victim.
Just focusing on the fact that H
1
and H
4
is supported by the data shows that there is a clear and obvious bias in how sexual offenders are reported upon. This means that when the media choose to use predatory and innocuous terms they frame the sexual assault in their articles, not based on the severity of their crimes, but upon the gender of
42 the offender and the author. This implies that the media’s choice of words perpetuates the sexual script that females are passive sexually, and less responsible for their sexual encounter, whiles males are sexual predators (Byers and O’Sullivan 1998).
The third hypothesis that the data support was hypothesis H
6,
which posits there is a correlation of being referred to as mentally ill and being a female sexual offender.
Chiotti’s study supports this with her results that 21% of the media reported the female educators who sexually assaulted their student’s possessed some type of mental disease at the time of their crime. The oddity is that in the American society, the label of being mentally ill is usually seen as an unwanted stigma (Corrigan, Markvwitz, and Watson
2004). Yet, questioning the mental health of female sexual offenders isn’t limited to the newspaper articles, but is also used as a defense in actual court cases as a reason why the female sexual offender offended (Grimaldi 2004). As mentioned, earlier the use of labeling a female offender as mentally ill is a way of explaining why a female would break from sexual script norms and become an offender of minor (Comack and Furnham
1998; Hird 2002.; Garvey 1992).
In the same way that H
1
and H
4
are related, so are H
8
and H
9
. The data supports the hypothesis that the region where the crime happened and is reported on influences what type of terms would be used. This idea is not new since other studies have shown
American articles frame terrorist attacks and terrorists with more demonstratively negative terms and tones compared to British articles (Papachariss and Oliveir 2008;
Nacos and Torres-Reyna 2003; Schaefer 2003). However , this may be the first study that
shows that this also applies to sexual assault crimes as well. The date from H
8
and H
10
43 supports the fact that British articles frequently use innocuous terms when reporting teachers who sexual assault their students. One of the reason why this may be the case is because the United Kingdom did not posses laws that protected both genders equally nor prosecuted both genders equally. Instead, the United Kingdom adhered to both sexual script theory and chivalry theory that males are always sexually aggressive while females are sexually passive and less culpable for their actions. And even though this changed with the Sexual Offences Act of 2003, instituted in the United Kingdom, that created more egalitarian gender-neutral laws toward statutory rape and rapist, the data shows that this is not reflected in the reporting of the sexual assault crimes against children.
In contrast, the data for H
9
supported that American newspapers use more predatory terms in how they describe the crime of sexual offense against children when the offender is a male educator compared to female educators than articles written in the
United Kingdom. The importance of this finding is that this is another example of
American newspaper using more demonstratively negative terms and tones compared to
British articles. In this way American newspapers’ mission of reporting the news and gaining the public’s trust, are belied by the fact that they are also perpetuating social norms, expectations, and in this case the sexual script of males as being more sexually aggressive and predatory (Whittier and Melendez 2007; Ward 2000).
There were five main hypotheses however, that were not supported by the data.
Hypothesis H
2
showed the media do not label one gender a “victim” more than another.
As mentioned earlier, H3 was not supported in general outside of H3e. This means that
44 the gender of the author does not affect what terms are used toward the sexual offender.
This is contrary to the study done by Denvo (2004) that showed females and males view female sexual offenders differently. One of the reasons why this hypothesis was not supported is because 71 of the reporters were listed as anonymous. Another reason why this hypothesis was not supported could be because of the sample size used in this study.
This is also could be the reason why H
5
and H
7
were not supported by the data. Also with
H
5
there was a lack of data available about jail time received within newspapers. This is not just due to the limited sample size but also because newspapers sometimes contain only the preliminary information in a case and do not include follow up details like bail, probation, and jail time received. The last hypothesis that was not supported by the data was H
11
. The data for H
11
did not support that American newspapers uses more predatory terms in how they describe the crime of sexual offense against children compared to articles written in the United Kingdom controlling for the gender of the sexual offender.
Limitations and Conclusions
There are several key limitations to this study. To begin with is the sample size of this study. As mentioned earlier there are over 1400 newspapers printed in America alone and Proquest database covers only 721 newspapers in the US throughout all of the 50 states. Additionally, the other issue is that it is estimated that only half of all child molestations cases are reported upon in newspapers (Cheit 2003). The other limitation is that newspaper articles may report only the preliminary information about the sexual
assault and may not contain the more in depth information that may be available with follow up articles.
Overall, the data support the six of the hypotheses showing there is a real and serious gender inconsistency in how the news is framed. With the growing reporting of
45 these crimes by the victim and coverage by the newspaper, it can only be expected that these results will continue to be found true (Shakeshaft 2003).
This study showed the discongruity framed by the media is that males are sexual predators when they commit sexual offenses but, more importantly, that female sexual offenders are scripted as being sexually passive and seen as less responsible for their crimes. It seems that notion of chivalry theory that “men hate to accuse women and thus indirectly to send them to their punishment, police officers dislike to arrest them, district attorneys to prosecute them, judges and juries to find them guilty,” applies not just to the criminal justice system but also to the media as well (Pollack 1961). Future studies will have to include a much broad database of newspapers to see if these findings are found on broader geographic areas.
While doing this study the other questions that arose were whether the female educators who received a reduced prison sentence, charges, and bail were more attractive than the females who receive longer criminal sentence. In addition to this, another question is whether the social class and lifestyle was a determining factor to how the female educators are reported upon. In addition, whether there is a difference between in
how the story is reported upon when the abuse is heterosexual in nature compared to homosexual is also a topic for future research.
46
47
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