Three weeks after the disappearance of Nicola Bulley, her body was found in the River Wyre. While we are still waiting for the official cause of her death, public attention continues to scrutinise the way her case was handled by authorities, journalists and social media.
Police communications and media responses dominated headlines as much – if not more so – than the investigation itself and there has been much criticism of the disrespectful and sexist treatment of Nicola. The decision to release her personal information reinforces sexist tropes of women as emotionally unbalanced as well as the stigmatisation of female health and ageing. Additionally, the sheer volume of attention and resources dedicated to Nicola’s disappearance, when compared to other missing women and girls like Mariama Kallon or Owami Davies, highlights the stark disparity between public and professional interest in the welfare of women of colour over that of white women.
These criticisms are not new or unique to Nicola’s disappearance. The Mail Online was recently taken to task for their coverage of the murders of Emma Pattison and her daughter Lettie, specifically their insinuation that her ambition and success ‘drove’ her husband to slaughter his family. Activists like Level Up and David Challen tirelessly call out the harmful and intrusive reporting on women who are abused or murdered by men, yet the misogynistic stereotypes remain deeply ingrained in media and criminal justice communications. These are not oversights or failings, and while it is important to continue to call out misogyny and victim blaming, especially from those in authority – as former-PCC Philip Allott discovered after his comments on Sarah Everard’s murder – there is a danger that we are missing the bigger picture of gender oppression. A deeper look at police and media responses to Nicola’s disappearance illuminate two insidious processes which are deeply woven through societal responses to harm against women yet remain largely unknown, despite their pervasiveness: victimism and responsibilisation.
Victimism is the process of reducing a person to the status of being a victim. More than three decades ago, feminist writer Kathleen Barry described it as an inevitable outcome of the growing acceptance of women’s accounts of men’s violence against them. Tellingly, victim status cannot be claimed but must be given by a suitable authority (such as police or psychiatrist) and it depends on women’s meeting the expectations placed on victims: blameless, morally faultless, socially acceptable. At first, Nicola seemed to meet these criteria as a white, blonde, heterosexual mother and wife who went missing while walking her dog during the daytime in a public area. The photos shared by police and media depicted a pretty, smiling, well-presented woman whose status as a potential victim – as granted by police – justified resources, time and empathy for her and her loved ones. Compare this to reports of missing 13-year-old Mariama, which were simultaneously lacking in coverage and preoccupied with her past behaviour, thus denoting her as less than a ‘perfect’ victim. Thankfully, Mariama was found ‘safe and well’ on 20 February 2023.
In Nicola’s case, a different narrative emerged as the police investigation failed to progress. The once-perfect victim was now a ‘person at risk’ because of ‘specific vulnerabilities’; her impeccable status was now under scrutiny through another misogynistic process, that of responsibilisation. Women are expected to take every possible action to keep themselves safe from harm (including men’s violence) and by referencing her mental health, menopausal symptoms and alcohol issues, police insinuated that Nicola had not done so. An innocent mother who may have been the victim of a violent crime or horrible accident became a drunk, unstable woman who should have managed herself better. It is hard to see how this public fall from grace helped to find Nicola or bring answers to her family; the horrible truth is that it may have made her death seem like less of a public tragedy and therefore not incite as much demand for change.
Sociologist Nikolas Rose identifies responsibilisation as a defining characteristic of neoliberal attitudes which works to protect institutions, authorities and governments from criticism or responsibility over the wellbeing of their citizens. Risk management practices often target the individuals who may be harmed – don’t go out alone, stay sober – far more than those intending to cause harm or the institutions which fail to prevent violence. Focusing on victim vulnerabilities fosters a relentless obsession with why certain women and girls are harmed and fails to address what (or who) harms them and why agencies cannot stop this from happening. As is so often the case, the impetus remains on women to fastidiously protect ourselves or risk being dismissed, blamed and disrespected, even after our deaths.
The degrading processes of victimism and responsibilisation do not occur in isolation but work together. Once a victim has been proven as undeserving, or it is no longer in the best interests of the status quo for her to be seen as a victim (for example, when police are criticised for how they are handling a high-profile case), she is downgraded, responsibilised and criticised for making ‘bad’ choices. Outright victim blaming soon follows and public sympathy wanes. We saw this pattern play out with Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry (they should not have been celebrating a birthday in a public space after dark), Libby Squire (she should not have made herself vulnerable through drinking) and, to some extent, Sarah Everard (she should not have allowed herself to be arrested). These processes – like victim blame and the pathologisation of women’s health – are not bugs in a system but features which actively protect the status quo. If the ongoing disappearance and death of women is not seen as the fault of society, then society does not need to change: women need to be more careful. Nancy Berns introduced the term ‘patriarchal resistance’ to describe the simultaneous degendering of social problems (such as men’s violence to women) and gendering of solutions (women are responsible for preventing men’s violence), which maintain the patriarchal structures underpinning all aspects of society.
While Nicola’s cause of death has yet to be revealed, the police and media responses to her disappearance have shown us some of the different faces of patriarchal resistance. It is not enough to decry overt victim blaming; we must be equally emboldened to call out responsibilising narratives and the toxic catch-22 of reducing women and girls to the rigid, objectifying status of a ‘perfect’ victim or dismissing their experiences completely. To truly challenge the aspects of society which buttress the oppression of women, especially women of colour, we must understand the many insidious ways that patriarchal structures protect themselves, through police, media and public responses, even in the face of such egregious societal failings as the violent deaths of women.
Amy Beddows is a CBT therapist and PhD student at London Metropolitan University researching women’s experiences of victim blame. She has a special interest in the ways that media can reflect, subvert and challenge misogyny and violence against women.
‘Forget TV, it will never show you the experience of the victim’: representations of rape in Mindhunter by Amy Beddows from the Journal of Gender-Based Violence is available on Bristol University Press Digital.
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