Thank goodness she got her looks back

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald is an article from the Telegraph in London, by Bruno Waterfield: Girl’s face grows back after three years:

A SWEDISH teenager has grown her face back after an allergic reaction to a single paracetamol pill caused the skin to turn black and peel off.

Eva Uhlin, 19, has recovered her looks after suffering an allergic reaction to the common painkiller, bought over the counter.

What purpose does the second sentence serve, other than to say she “got her looks back”? Her name and age could have been given in any number of the following sentences.

I’m probably a sucker, but I give journos the benefit of the doubt when it comes to language, because so much of journalese is tired and tied to cliches: The Greens have slammed the Government; Victim has spoken out about her ordeal; Tiger’s mistress has broken her silence; Thailand’s restive south…

It’s unlikely that Bruno Waterfield was saying “Phew, she’s pretty again” or that without her looks a young woman is worthless, but that’s what his words mean.

Blaming the victim #2

Caroline Norma has a great piece in today’s Online Opinion about the phrases we use to get men out of trouble. By asking “why didn’t she just leave?” when talking about a woman who is bashed by a man, we’re saying that the woman is somehow to blame for what happened. Indeed, why do we always ask “why do women stay with men who’ve hit them?” instead of “why do men hit women?”.

I love her Four Corners strategy: “because footballers must put up with being bashed around on the footy field, the sport inevitably attracts men with ‘risk taker’ personalities. This means they can’t be held responsible for bashing and raping women”.

On the surface it does seem plausible. But why aren’t boxers constantly in the news for bashing women? Or rugby union players? (Man Friend says it’s because union players tend to have a life outside sport, be it uni or work, whereas league players are paid so much they don’t need jobs and therefore don’t have any perspective.)

Whenever another league player is in the news because he doesn’t know how to control himself, how many times do you hear people say “there are predatory women out there who throw themselves at these players”. Again, it’s saying it’s our fault that men rape. And what does that say about Australian culture that we raise men who can’t tell the difference between someone who wants to have sex with them and someone who does not?

I’m going to end with a chilling warning from Caroline Norma: “Going on past experience, their bashing or raping by rich superstar sportsmen will cause barely a ripple in Australian society”.

Here we go again

Sigh. When will AAP learn? Another story beginning “The scorned former lover“.

You can’t tell from this particular article, but previous reporting implied she dumped him when she found photos of him with strippers. (For more info on this court story, check out my previous post, scorned and jilted.) But even if he had dumped her, do we really need the word “scorned”? It’s such an emotionally-charged word. Look up scorn in the dictionary. It means “an object of contempt”. In the interests of impartial reporting, it should just be “former lover”.

Scorned and jilted

A court story in The Australian begins “A scorned lover of Perth millionaire playboy Tim Roberts”, yet nowhere in the article does it say the woman was dumped. What it does say is that Laurel Cetinic-Doral was in shock over photos of Roberts cavorting with strippers and that their six-year relationship had ended. Later, she is called the “jilted woman”. Now, jilt is one of those gender-specific words, as in a woman who jilts a lover. Ever heard of a cuckolded wife? Both terms are ugly and do we really need to still use them?