Talk:Missing white woman syndrome/Archive 5

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Cited instances?

I don't see the point of this section. I'm giving it a try to remove it, and we'll see what happens. There are several things that are wrong with it.

Foremost it's screaming cherry picking for unknown reason. Any similar media case where the missing person wasn't a young white woman, cannot be included in that list. Then how does those cases say anything about the "syndrome" when the same media coverage happens for non-"young white women"? What is the sections value? Why are those cases important, why include them in the wiki? You could do an identical list for missing young black women, or for missing children or missing elders. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.89.33.120 (talk) 17:56, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm totally clear on what your dispute is with or what exactly you're proposing. Those specific women were listed because there has been news coverage documenting the high level of media coverage of their cases and dubbing the extensive coverage of those women "Missing white women syndrome". How would doing an identical list for missing black women improve the article? Bali88 (talk) 18:15, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the MWWS. "researchers and journalists found that these instances garnered a disproportionate level of media coverage relative to contemporary cases involving missing girls/women of non-white ethnicities". Citation needed to begin with, there are no relevant research papers cited anywhere in the article that supports the claim that "researchers [..] found [..]". The cases themselves are uninterested in an article about the term MWWS since similar articles and coverage has been done for all ages, races, sexual orientations and genders. They say nothing about MWWS specifically, they are irrelevant. They are yet another extensive missing person coverage and aren't significant other than that the missing persons happens to be white and young. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.89.33.120 (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

As I replied in one of the above sections, you should alter the phrasing if you believe it is making an unsubstantiated claim. As for the actual cases themselves, they are not a list of missing people they are a list of cases that have been cited by commentators on the phenomenon. All cited instances should be attributable to sources that explicitly discuss media coverage of missing person cases in relation to race and gender. Also, adding a completely new section detailing your own views and observations is WP:Original research and WP:EDITORIALIZING and prohibited by Wikipedia's policies so I have removed it. Betty Logan (talk) 19:15, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Add section on criticism

The article basically accuses white newspaper editors of over-representing missing white women versus missing black women. However, there are valid criticisms why racism may not be involved. We should therefore add a section 'Criticism'. I will name a few criticisms:

1. In the USA blacks represent 12% of the total population, versus 72% for non-hispanic whites. These facts explain why missing white women are reported at least 6 times (72 / 12) more often. There can only be a case of disproportionate coverage if the coverage exceeds the factor 6:1 for white:black women. At about factor 6 the difference in coverage is normal. Below factor 6 media is actually biased towards black women, not white! In which case there would be a 'missing black woman syndrome'.
2. Missing white woman syndrome is a US-American phenomenon absent in the rest of the world. Europeans, as far as I know, call it 'missing pretty girl syndrome' but that includes girls of non-white races. For example, consider China. The fact that asians are by far a majority in China does not make Chinese media biased. If missing white women are under-reported in China, it is because there hardly are any white women who go missing in China, and if they do, it is logically not of the greatest interest for mainstream Chinese media. That has nothing to do with racism.
3. We should rename the article title to 'Missing Special Person Syndrome'. Because the phenomenon exists also for people who are neither white nor woman. A non-woman example: when Polish president Lech Kazinsky's plane crashed, his story was over-reported, because he was Prime Minister of Poland. Media seems to disproportionally report on the rich, famous, beautiful and powerful. 'Missing white woman syndrome' may therefore be a case of class, not race (because in USA more middle class women are white). The 'white' argument loses strength.
4. In reverse cultural circumstances, for example the country of Nigeria which has a majority black population, the story of Natalee Holloway, who disappeared on Aruba in 2005, was not reported in Nigerian mainstream media. Why would they? The story is irrelevant to Nigerian society. This has nothing to do with racism, Nigerians are doing fine, thank you.
5. If the bias is true, still other causes than race can explain the difference. For example, most mainstream media agencies are based in the Northern American states, whereas 90% of US black people live in the Southern states. Another possible explanation: white people more often call newspapers to report their story, whereas blacks do not seek media attention for their case. In this case the media bias would be caused by blacks' lacking need for media-attention. Bias could also be caused by class differences or geographic differences (smalltown-black versus city-white).
6. The phrase 'missing white woman syndrome' is an unproven, unresearched, thus racist accusation. Even if the bias is true, the difference may not necessarily be caused by race (see point 5 for examples).

You using those examples of chinese and nigerian media is completely ridiculous. It is understandable for those countries to not care about foreign nationals disappearing in their country. But by you using these as examples, you sound like one of those rednecks who believe only 'whites' are considered Americans, while blacks, asians, and hispanic americans who go missing every year are the 'africans, chinese, and mexicans' that no one should care about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.248.131.69 (talk) 05:34, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The lead claims it is recognized by sociologists. Who???

The whole article reads like an episode of True TV. There is a couple of fleeting mentions of some criminologist's comments but nothing links to any sociological research. So the opening claim is unsubstantiated and the article is built upon a bunch of press release related to missing persons. The article reads like another wiki hoax supported by links that do not support the initial claim. The article needs to include some of the supposed sociologists who identify this so called phenomenon or it is just unsupported fringe claims. 172.56.27.146 (talk) 21:05, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

MWWS is frequently discussed by social scientists of various branches. All it takes is a Google search. Right-wing, white supremacist bible-thumpers seem to have a lot of issues with scientific fact. Evolution, climate change, now white privilege... The list just keeps growing. Esnertofidel (talk) 03:20, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Questionable activity by Betty Logan

If you look at the history of this article you'll see one user sticking out, Betty Logan, which main activity is to simply remove the contributions of others. "Betty" gives no one the right to edit the page but is conducting an edit-war. Doesn't that make this article highly Betty-subjective? It's clear that Betty has their own opinions about the article (considering that she's deleting a lot of contributions), but what gives them the right to alone fully define and describe an already ill-defined phenomenon? To my understanding, they doesn't know much about the subject since they haven't contributed anything to it.

For example, they've (Betty) before removed read-more-links about, mentions or references to the sexistic aspects of it while allowing references to things such as "institutional racism" and "discrimination" which isn't exactly an obvious connection to draw in my opinion. Because that makes the article seem to be more about some kind of global conspiracy (doesn't tell much about the bigger picture) than referencing relevant aspects of this phenomenon; institutional racism and media coverage? But that's just how I analyze things. Either way, my point here is that the opinions about this article are many and how it should be done right regardless of personal feelings about the matter (be it mine, yours or anybody else). Because that's what I'm beginning to suspect after reading the discussion and edit history, that the article is being degraded by emotions. It's not surprising though considered the subject. Continue reading.

Here's my main problem with what I'm talking about here. Betty are defending their deletions by saying that the matters need to be discussed before applied in the article. Most revertions are not defended at all, even not explained. Yet, I see plenty of reasonable consensus in the talk page about certain matters that still can't make their way into the article. One persons voice dominates the rest as if the rest had no clue or saying. Many of the revertions are a big question mark. Multiple users have done about the same changes independently (over a long period of time) which Betty simple just have reverted. I do not find her changes intelligent, even remotely academic or useful. Saying that, to be fair, I do pretty good researching for a living (don't mind my English, it's not my first language).

I'm not saying that the article should be a sandbox or that all contributions are good, but the article needlessly stays the same and never improves due to Bettys activities as if they knew it all, as if they are waiting for the article to grow in their perfect direction as their opinions are being written in stone. What is going on? Are we trying to row a pancake? Because that makes no sense at all. So much wasted effort. Betty makes good contributions about Hollywood movies and such. But I'm considering this being griefing and a form of dubvious unconsidered irresponsibility.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.89.33.120 (talk) 05:38, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Erm, if you look at the article history it is clear that the majority of "questionable" edits are coming from you, and are not just opposed by me. Let's review some of them:

1. [1]. In this edit you claim to be doing a PhD and assert that the term "missing white woman syndrome" is not a phenomenon acknowledged by social scientists. Well, I urge you to consult the peer reviewed articles documented in refs 1-3, which clearly say otherwise. I do not hold out much hope for your PhD.
2. [2]. How is this edit not WP:Original research? Are you aware that editors are not permitted to add their own opinions to articles, even if they are experts in the area (and we have already established in the previous point you are an inferior PhD candidate).
3. [3]. Per MOS:SEEALSO, links are supposed to be "relevant" and "should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic". Since you did not provide edit summaries would you care to explain how Matriarchy is relevant to this article? And to say there is a link between MWWS and Misandry seems to be a bold claim i.e. the media obsession with young women can easily stem from their marketability rather than any obvious dislike of men. It is rather telling that neither of those article link to this article, and the Matriarchy article is far better developed than this one.
4. [4] More original research. Adding a load of original research with "citation needed" tags is a big no-no on Wikipedia. Apart from the sheer laziness on your part you are required to add sources per WP:Verifiability. That is a policy; you are required to follow it.
5. [5]. Removing a huge chunk of sourced content is highly disruptive. This should have been discussed on the talk page first, and at the very least you could have provided an explanation.

All the above edits were deeply problematic, not only in form but also in how they were undertaken. All the above edits were reverted, but NOT BY ME!. They were reverted by Bali88, and I believe Bali was completely correct in doing so. You made two further edits (at least under your current IP) to the best of my knowledge, which were subsequently reverted by me:

1. [6]. This edit restored original research which you had previously added and was removed by Bali above. By doing this you were WP:EDITWARRING. Moreover, I was quite justified to revert your edit since under WP:BURDEN you should not have restored contentious unsourced claims!
2. [7]. "Postulated" in this context is a WP:WEASELWORD. You added the word to purposefully undermine the validity of the phenomenon. If you want to use a word that casts doubt on the conclusions of social scientists then produce sources that challenge the legitimacy of the phenomenon. That's why I reverted your edit and I doubt you will find another editor well versed in Wikipedia policy who will disagree with me.

Moreover, unlike you I actually have a PhD—albeit not in the social sciences—and I find your lack of knowledge about your own field incredulous at best. Also, your inability to provide adequate sourcing for what amounts to very dubious and subjective claims is not acceptable by Wikipedia standards and it doesn't bode well for your PhD. I suggest you do more reading in your subject area and concentrate on your own scholarly endeavors rather than compromising this article. Betty Logan (talk) 15:25, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry you're having a difficult time, but the fact that this is such a contentious topic necessitates discussing any major changes prior to adding them to the article. I don't see any major issues with the edits of Betty Logan. Bali88 (talk) 01:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Both of the users you mention, Betty Logan and Bali88, have an extensive history of entering into conflict with other editors within this article. The main grievances that various people have been articulating over time is that these users treat no edits within the article as good-faith, that they instigate edit wars with editors who attempted to add salient new content to the article, and that they systematically block the inclusion of new content even when it is well-sourced. Their observed modus operandi involves acting as a "tag team", where they cover each other's edits when repeatedly reverting content, blocking out the most recent revision without either breaching the three-revert rule. This is typically followed by a "ganging up" on the _targeted editor on this talk page, where they use the unconditional support of the other in the dispute to generate the mirage that consensus could not be established over the introduction of this new content.

Both the methods and the mentality involved represent a case study in how users sometimes manage to succeed in gaming the system here on Wikipedia.

Consequently, it's been posited by numerous editors that there are ulterior motives at play, which run contrary to Wikipedia's aims as an encyclopedia. Considering that this article covers a topic that deals with a serious contemporary social issue related to racial discrimination and white privilege, and specifically to upper-middle class white female privilege, such disruptive behavior is to be expected. What concerns me more is the lack of response by Wikipedia moderators. Esnertofidel (talk) 18:43, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

We have an extensive history of conflict with POV pushers. As the edit history shows, we rarely contest the addition of accurately summarized and sourced content, including your sole edit to the article with your present account. I have provided an extensive breakdown of the problematic edits above with full reasons as to why they were reverted, so perhaps you would care to elaborate on why you think those edits were consistent with Wikipedia policy and why the subsequent reverts were unjustified? If not, I think we can assume you are just spitting the dummy out and are not very invested in discussing content. I think it is rather telling that after providing very specific reasons why the edits were not appropriate nobody has actually contested them. Betty Logan (talk) 19:57, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Betty Logan and I do seem to agree on the general direction of this article, but there is no attempt to shut down outside opinion. I have suggested on more than one occasion that if there are unresolved disputes involving content, that we take the dispute to conflict resolution to get additional feedback on the article. I have done this because I want the article to be both neutral and the result of consensus. The edits we have reverted have been either unsourced, highly POV, or unencyclopedic. There is no conspiracy here, but if we need further clarification, again, we can take this to dispute resolution. Bali88 (talk) 21:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:ROWN offers some compelling insights into the situation. Most editors are not as bellicose as Betty Logan. Her conduct causes them to forfeit their case out of despondence or intimidation. I've observed your edits for some time, and have closely examined the commentary that has been left on this talk page. Betty Logan and yourself appear to work towards the negative outcomes being described in WP:ROWN. This can be substantiated: Every editor _targeted by the two of you has given up making contributions to the article. Without exception, their departure has been permanent. As a result of your actions, the article has remained frozen in a stub-like status for over a year now, with no new content having been added over that period. Perpetual stagnation is an odd vision of what direction an article ought to proceed in--especially when two editors not only seem to share but also enact that vision in unison over prolonged periods of time.

Regardless of whether it is intentional, your conduct is clearly detrimental to this article's further development. Several separate individuals have been raising serious concerns about your editing here. That criticism reflects the lack of progress for this article over this last year. Ergo, I suspect more outcries will inevitably follow.

As has been noted, it logically follows that the beneficiaries of (racist) privileges in our society should go to great lengths to maintain those privileges. Attempting to keep public awareness about such privileges, and the discrimination and the inequality that they cause, to a bare minimum would certainly be a first step that one so inclined might take. It may be advisable that the both of you begin to adhere strictly to the Zero revert rule for a while. Esnertofidel (talk) 21:53, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Since you are an inexperienced editor with a very limited editing history it is probably more advisable you read the various policies I have linked to in my explanations above. Also, please be aware that making edits to an article or contributing to a discussion both with a registered account and while logged out leaves you open to accusations of WP:Sock puppetry, even if it is not your intention to mislead other editors into believing you are a different editor. Betty Logan (talk) 22:10, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

This user isn't a recent addition to Wikipedia. An administrator is encouraged to cross-reference the IP who created this thread with that of my account. Your comment implies preliminary steps of Wikihounding. The belligerent and abrasive nature of your interactions describes a recurring pattern between yourself and numerous editors in this article, and they speak to the issue at hand: Editors depart this article; new ones are locked in constant dispute; no content has been added to this article in what appears to be over a year. Esnertofidel (talk) 00:03, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Since you keep evading the issue, I will ask one more time: how are the edits I have linkd to above a "positive" development for the article? Betty Logan (talk) 00:46, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Okay, let me ask you this. What specific edits would you like to see happen on the article. We'll start there. Expecting us to allow unencyclopedic, unsourced, and biased edits without questioning whether they're right for or even allowed on wikipedia is pretty silly and it's not going to happen. But let's discuss what specifically what is currently wrong with the article and if we need to, we can even ask for outside opinions from the discrimination wikiproject or the teahouse. Bali88 (talk) 01:52, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Original research, term not in the article

The term "missing white woman syndrome" or a similar variation is not in many of the cited references. Wikipedia:No original research. Waters.Justin (talk) 00:46, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

References

Reference 1 is to a course schedule. This is surely not acceptable. Presumably buried in the course material is the source and hopefully it is a RS but I would not consider lecture notes alone a RS and a course outline is surely not. Jgm74 (talk) 03:25, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Public perception

The media publish what will interest the public. Middle-class women (usually white) are the group most likely to be living satisfactory, well-ordered lives and least likely to be involved with dubious elements. Therefore unexplained disappearances from that group are considered the most newsworthy. Valetude (talk) 22:19, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Note that the article specifies the "upper middle class", which usually comes with higher levels of social status and wealth. Whether they have their own skeletons in the closet may be another matter entirely. Remember the Disappearance of Dorothy Arnold? She was a member and potential heiress of a particularly wealthy family which was listed in the Social Register, a sister-in-law of Rufus Wheeler Peckham (an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States), a college graduate herself, and an aspiring professional writer (though she never managed to publish anything of importance). Her disappearance caused a media sensation, active investigation and rumors lasted for about twenty years, and her case is still considered a notable, open mystery more than a century after it happened. Do you think there would be a similar reaction if she happened to be a factory worker from a non-notable family?

I would, however, agree that the media publishes whatever may attract the attention of a larger audience. They are supposed to be bringing profit to whatever news resource employs them, not to be contacting sociological research on the actual number of disappearances among a wider population. Dimadick (talk) 07:04, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

But you’re simply confirming my point. You ask Do you think there would be a similar reaction if she happened to be a factory worker...? Of course not. It is the status of the upper-middle class woman that makes her disappearance newsworthy. Valetude (talk) 09:17, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I am not arguing about your point of what makes it newsworthy. I am noting the difference between the upper middle class and the rest of the middle class. Elevated social status, wealth, and connections. The emphasis is probably less on ethnicity and more on the woman (or for that matter man or child) being already relatively prominent before the disappearance act. Dimadick (talk) 06:24, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

How come there aren't similar pages on the tendency of Japan to report on Japanese victims of crime?

It appears that Japan has Asian privilege! Or maybe it could be as stated in opposition to this disease, that reporting on white people going missing is more profitable for news papers therefore these types of disappearance are covered more. How is this page relevant? Hasn't this syndrome been shown false millions of times? Fuck me, wikipedia is a leftist mouthpiece nowadays.--82.19.19.125 (talk) 23:37, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Japanese society is ethnically homogeneous. By contrast, Western society is diverse & multicultural. When one particular ethnic group is consistently given preferential treatment at the expense of other ethnic groups in the West, this behavior constitutes discrimination & ethnocentrism; in this case white nationalism & white supremacy. It will therefore be addressed accordingly by sociologists. Secondly, MWWS has been extensively studied by the social, political, and communication sciences. All it would take is a quick Google search. Right-wing, white supremacist bible-thumpers seem to have a lot of issues with scientific fact. Evolution, climate change, white privilege... The list just keeps growing. Esnertofidel (talk) 09:10, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

POV pushing by IP editor

An editor has initiated edits to redefine MWWS as a primarily racist phenomenon, and marginalising the sexist characteristics. It is in fact both, and it is simply not accurate to describe as one or the other. This is how Eugene Robinson for The Washing Post defines it:

A damsel must be white. This requirement is nonnegotiable. It helps if her frame is of dimensions that breathless cable television reporters can credibly describe as "petite," and it also helps if she's the kind of woman who wouldn't really mind being called "petite," a woman with a good deal of princess in her personality. She must be attractive -- also nonnegotiable. Her economic status should be middle class or higher, but an exception can be made in the case of wartime (see: Lynch). Put all this together, and you get 24-7 coverage. The disappearance of a man, or of a woman of color, can generate a brief flurry, but never the full damsel treatment.

As you can see, it is not just a racist phenonomen, but a phenomenon that touches on race, sex, class, age and even perceived beauty i.e. the phenomenon intersects several social demographics, not just one. The IP has altered the text so that men of higher social classes are excluded from the definition. This clearly misrepresents the source which does not discuss the race or class of the man. The IP has also removed "Female privilege" from the list of "See also" links. This is inappropriate because it is a sexist phenomenon as much as it is racist phenomenon so the link is no less deserving of inclusion as the relevant race links. The most comprehensive study of the phenomenon was undertaken by Zach Sommers, a sociology researcher, who analyzed the phenomenon in terms of both race and gender and found that both blacks and men were under-represented in media coverage. Wikipedia must be WP:NEUTRAL and the edits misrepresent the sources used by the article. Betty Logan (talk) 17:35, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

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Deletion of source in the lead

Twice now, Individualopinionsarenotfacts has deleted this source from the lead, on the basis it is sourcing an "opinion" and not a "fact". This much is true, but WP:YESPOV does not prohibit the inclusion of opinion, but only that opinion should not be presented as fact. Since the contents of the CNN article are not being presented in a factual context then I do not understand the problem here. MWWS is social science theory and is not a factual occurrence, so the only way to understand it is through the opinions and viewpoints of qualified people. I am certainly open to re-wording parts of the article where this is deemed necessary, but the bottom line here is that if we remove individual opinions from this article then all we will be left with is the bare facts of the disappearances, and nothing of the nature of the coverage. Betty Logan (talk) 16:12, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Betty Logan here. It is notable opinions that we should cover here, not raw data ("facts"). Particularly since the "syndrome" is itself an analysis of supposed bias in news coverage. Dimadick (talk) 19:45, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

MWWS speaks to much more than a supposed media bias. It is the method through which social science documents & investigates what forms institutional racism and white supremacy are taking in the 21st century. With far-right, xenophobic political parties in Europe increasingly coming under the leadership of upper-middle class white women and a majority of American white women having voted for Donald Trump during the 2016 election, this far-right strategy appears to be paying dividends; with far-reaching consequences for an increasingly divided Western society. 2A02:1810:520:DD00:E8A1:1F1C:31EB:B561 (talk) 20:29, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The research on MWWS that was conducted by Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, and published in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, does illustrate how contemporary White Supremacy politics differ between white males and white females. Specifically, racist white men were generally working class while racist white women were typically found to be upper middle class. A resulting key divergence is that white male racists advocate for a racial supremacy to be attained through violence (i.e.: fascism), while racist white females focus on maintaining a racial hierarchy in the cultural imagery of the West. This phenomenon is mostly visible in neoliberal media outlets, where upper middle class white women introduced the "Europeanized" appearance as a "standard" to be emulated by women of color; with WoC that comply being given preferential treatment or perceptions of higher social status over WoC who do not. The approach seems to be derived from South Africa's Apartheid era during its White Nationalist rule, which featured a policy of granting preferential treatment and perceptions of greater status to people of color who showed lighter skin tones or more European appearances—with the specific intent of keeping its PoC populations divided among themselves through their degrees of "whiteness".

Missing White Woman Syndrome indeed appears to be a relevant case study in how such policies of racial hierarchy are normalized and enforced within Western media outlets in the 21st century, as white women are consistently presented as being of higher worth, or as more worthy of protection and rescue, than women of color are. With MWWS, too, it is being observed that WoC with lighter skin tones or more "Europeanized" appearances are put higher on this "worthiness" scale, while WoC of darker skin tones and non-European appearances are systematically kept lower. Consequently, the "syndrome" fully qualifies as a modern manifestation of White Supremacy politics or of institutional racism. Esnertofidel (talk) 11:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Worth mentioning here that white women disenfranchising minority women isn't a modern trend. Black women were getting locked out of the suffrage movement in the 1920s by Southern white females. See this: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/womens-suffrage-leaders-left-out-black-women AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 00:57, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

There's more where that came from. The historical racism by white females is well documented for something that isn't a factual occurrence I got to say. MWWS is just the latest round of something that has never stopped. 1) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/suffrage-movement-racism-black-women.html 2) https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/celebrate-womens-suffrage-dont-whitewash-movements-racism 3) https://suffragistmemorial.org/african-american-women-leaders-in-the-suffrage-movement/ AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 01:25, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Good quote from Brent Staples' NYT article. "Its worst offenses may be that it rendered nearly invisible the black women who labored in the suffragist vineyard and that it looked away from the racism that tightened its grip on the fight for the women’s vote in the years after the Civil War." Hm. Minority women rendered nearly invisible to the benefit of white women. Sound familiar somehow? AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 01:39, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not qualified to assess how germane the furor over Harry and Meghan Markle is to the broader MWWS subject and its underlying causes, but Owen Jones published an illuminating article in The Guardian about "whitelash". It describes the phenomenon of white women who feel culturally imperiled by a rapidly growing presence of women of color in their dating/marriage spaces and professional spaces, and how far-right/populist actors in the Western media play into this reactionary sentiment. Someone referenced sociological research that details how sustained discriminatory behavior from native Western women arises among upper-middle class white women in particular; with MWWS exemplifying how that demographic group leverages social and cultural capital to keep women of color bound to lower social status. With Meghan Markle emerging as a high profile example of a woman of color who broke through into spaces historically reserved for white women in spite of these efforts, have the sociologists or journalists cited in the MWWS article performed any in-depth analysis of whitelash and how it pertains to MWWS? If so, that information would be well worth adding to the article. 2A02:1810:520:DD00:4DF3:6670:656C:EA9F (talk) 15:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a link for the Guardian article? Gandydancer (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

This phenomenon is mostly visible in neoliberal media outlets, where upper middle class white women introduced the "Europeanized" appearance as a "standard" to be emulated by women of color"

Are you refering to specific media outlets? If so, which ones? Neoliberalism carries on the torch of ideas concerning economic liberalism, and related policies focus more on economic measures, trade, and the pursuit of profit than anything particularly specific in the field of Social engineering. Dimadick (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Deletion of source in the lead

Twice now, Individualopinionsarenotfacts has deleted this source from the lead, on the basis it is sourcing an "opinion" and not a "fact". This much is true, but WP:YESPOV does not prohibit the inclusion of opinion, but only that opinion should not be presented as fact. Since the contents of the CNN article are not being presented in a factual context then I do not understand the problem here. MWWS is social science theory and is not a factual occurrence, so the only way to understand it is through the opinions and viewpoints of qualified people. I am certainly open to re-wording parts of the article where this is deemed necessary, but the bottom line here is that if we remove individual opinions from this article then all we will be left with is the bare facts of the disappearances, and nothing of the nature of the coverage. Betty Logan (talk) 16:12, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Betty Logan here. It is notable opinions that we should cover here, not raw data ("facts"). Particularly since the "syndrome" is itself an analysis of supposed bias in news coverage. Dimadick (talk) 19:45, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

MWWS speaks to much more than a supposed media bias. It is the method through which social science documents & investigates what forms institutional racism and white supremacy are taking in the 21st century. With far-right, xenophobic political parties in Europe increasingly coming under the leadership of upper-middle class white women and a majority of American white women having voted for Donald Trump during the 2016 election, this far-right strategy appears to be paying dividends; with far-reaching consequences for an increasingly divided Western society. 2A02:1810:520:DD00:E8A1:1F1C:31EB:B561 (talk) 20:29, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The research on MWWS that was conducted by Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, and published in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, does illustrate how contemporary White Supremacy politics differ between white males and white females. Specifically, racist white men were generally working class while racist white women were typically found to be upper middle class. A resulting key divergence is that white male racists advocate for a racial supremacy to be attained through violence (i.e.: fascism), while racist white females focus on maintaining a racial hierarchy in the cultural imagery of the West. This phenomenon is mostly visible in neoliberal media outlets, where upper middle class white women introduced the "Europeanized" appearance as a "standard" to be emulated by women of color; with WoC that comply being given preferential treatment or perceptions of higher social status over WoC who do not. The approach seems to be derived from South Africa's Apartheid era during its White Nationalist rule, which featured a policy of granting preferential treatment and perceptions of greater status to people of color who showed lighter skin tones or more European appearances—with the specific intent of keeping its PoC populations divided among themselves through their degrees of "whiteness".

Missing White Woman Syndrome indeed appears to be a relevant case study in how such policies of racial hierarchy are normalized and enforced within Western media outlets in the 21st century, as white women are consistently presented as being of higher worth, or as more worthy of protection and rescue, than women of color are. With MWWS, too, it is being observed that WoC with lighter skin tones or more "Europeanized" appearances are put higher on this "worthiness" scale, while WoC of darker skin tones and non-European appearances are systematically kept lower. Consequently, the "syndrome" fully qualifies as a modern manifestation of White Supremacy politics or of institutional racism. Esnertofidel (talk) 11:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Worth mentioning here that white women disenfranchising minority women isn't a modern trend. Black women were getting locked out of the suffrage movement in the 1920s by Southern white females. See this: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/womens-suffrage-leaders-left-out-black-women AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 00:57, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

There's more where that came from. The historical racism by white females is well documented for something that isn't a factual occurrence I got to say. MWWS is just the latest round of something that has never stopped. 1) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/suffrage-movement-racism-black-women.html 2) https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/celebrate-womens-suffrage-dont-whitewash-movements-racism 3) https://suffragistmemorial.org/african-american-women-leaders-in-the-suffrage-movement/ AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 01:25, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Good quote from Brent Staples' NYT article. "Its worst offenses may be that it rendered nearly invisible the black women who labored in the suffragist vineyard and that it looked away from the racism that tightened its grip on the fight for the women’s vote in the years after the Civil War." Hm. Minority women rendered nearly invisible to the benefit of white women. Sound familiar somehow? AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 01:39, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not qualified to assess how germane the furor over Harry and Meghan Markle is to the broader MWWS subject and its underlying causes, but Owen Jones published an illuminating article in The Guardian about "whitelash". It describes the phenomenon of white women who feel culturally imperiled by a rapidly growing presence of women of color in their dating/marriage spaces and professional spaces, and how far-right/populist actors in the Western media play into this reactionary sentiment. Someone referenced sociological research that details how sustained discriminatory behavior from native Western women arises among upper-middle class white women in particular; with MWWS exemplifying how that demographic group leverages social and cultural capital to keep women of color bound to lower social status. With Meghan Markle emerging as a high profile example of a woman of color who broke through into spaces historically reserved for white women in spite of these efforts, have the sociologists or journalists cited in the MWWS article performed any in-depth analysis of whitelash and how it pertains to MWWS? If so, that information would be well worth adding to the article. 2A02:1810:520:DD00:4DF3:6670:656C:EA9F (talk) 15:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a link for the Guardian article? Gandydancer (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

This phenomenon is mostly visible in neoliberal media outlets, where upper middle class white women introduced the "Europeanized" appearance as a "standard" to be emulated by women of color"

Are you refering to specific media outlets? If so, which ones? Neoliberalism carries on the torch of ideas concerning economic liberalism, and related policies focus more on economic measures, trade, and the pursuit of profit than anything particularly specific in the field of Social engineering. Dimadick (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Syndrome?

I've never heard of this syndrome - and the article is pretty US-centric, perhaps this is a US phenomenon? Here in Canada we've had a wave of high profile missing young men, and aboriginal women. We have had issues with reporting of missing women and race/occupation/socio economic status, but this term has not been used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.180.199.227 (talk) 23:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

"According to a study published in The Law and Society Association, aboriginal women who go missing in Canada receive 27 times less news coverage than white women; they also receive "dispassionate and less-detailed, headlines, articles, and images." - [8] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Esnertofidel (talk • contribs) 03:23, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Deletion of source in the lead

Twice now, Individualopinionsarenotfacts has deleted this source from the lead, on the basis it is sourcing an "opinion" and not a "fact". This much is true, but WP:YESPOV does not prohibit the inclusion of opinion, but only that opinion should not be presented as fact. Since the contents of the CNN article are not being presented in a factual context then I do not understand the problem here. MWWS is social science theory and is not a factual occurrence, so the only way to understand it is through the opinions and viewpoints of qualified people. I am certainly open to re-wording parts of the article where this is deemed necessary, but the bottom line here is that if we remove individual opinions from this article then all we will be left with is the bare facts of the disappearances, and nothing of the nature of the coverage. Betty Logan (talk) 16:12, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Betty Logan here. It is notable opinions that we should cover here, not raw data ("facts"). Particularly since the "syndrome" is itself an analysis of supposed bias in news coverage. Dimadick (talk) 19:45, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

MWWS speaks to much more than a supposed media bias. It is the method through which social science documents & investigates what forms institutional racism and white supremacy are taking in the 21st century. With far-right, xenophobic political parties in Europe increasingly coming under the leadership of upper-middle class white women and a majority of American white women having voted for Donald Trump during the 2016 election, this far-right strategy appears to be paying dividends; with far-reaching consequences for an increasingly divided Western society. 2A02:1810:520:DD00:E8A1:1F1C:31EB:B561 (talk) 20:29, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The research on MWWS that was conducted by Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, and published in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, does illustrate how contemporary White Supremacy politics differ between white males and white females. Specifically, racist white men were generally working class while racist white women were typically found to be upper middle class. A resulting key divergence is that white male racists advocate for a racial supremacy to be attained through violence (i.e.: fascism), while racist white females focus on maintaining a racial hierarchy in the cultural imagery of the West. This phenomenon is mostly visible in neoliberal media outlets, where upper middle class white women introduced the "Europeanized" appearance as a "standard" to be emulated by women of color; with WoC that comply being given preferential treatment or perceptions of higher social status over WoC who do not. The approach seems to be derived from South Africa's Apartheid era during its White Nationalist rule, which featured a policy of granting preferential treatment and perceptions of greater status to people of color who showed lighter skin tones or more European appearances—with the specific intent of keeping its PoC populations divided among themselves through their degrees of "whiteness".

Missing White Woman Syndrome indeed appears to be a relevant case study in how such policies of racial hierarchy are normalized and enforced within Western media outlets in the 21st century, as white women are consistently presented as being of higher worth, or as more worthy of protection and rescue, than women of color are. With MWWS, too, it is being observed that WoC with lighter skin tones or more "Europeanized" appearances are put higher on this "worthiness" scale, while WoC of darker skin tones and non-European appearances are systematically kept lower. Consequently, the "syndrome" fully qualifies as a modern manifestation of White Supremacy politics or of institutional racism. Esnertofidel (talk) 11:51, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Worth mentioning here that white women disenfranchising minority women isn't a modern trend. Black women were getting locked out of the suffrage movement in the 1920s by Southern white females. See this: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/womens-suffrage-leaders-left-out-black-women AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 00:57, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

There's more where that came from. The historical racism by white females is well documented for something that isn't a factual occurrence I got to say. MWWS is just the latest round of something that has never stopped. 1) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/suffrage-movement-racism-black-women.html 2) https://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/celebrate-womens-suffrage-dont-whitewash-movements-racism 3) https://suffragistmemorial.org/african-american-women-leaders-in-the-suffrage-movement/ AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 01:25, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Good quote from Brent Staples' NYT article. "Its worst offenses may be that it rendered nearly invisible the black women who labored in the suffragist vineyard and that it looked away from the racism that tightened its grip on the fight for the women’s vote in the years after the Civil War." Hm. Minority women rendered nearly invisible to the benefit of white women. Sound familiar somehow? AChildOfTwoCultures (talk) 01:39, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not qualified to assess how germane the furor over Harry and Meghan Markle is to the broader MWWS subject and its underlying causes, but Owen Jones published an illuminating article in The Guardian about "whitelash". It describes the phenomenon of white women who feel culturally imperiled by a rapidly growing presence of women of color in their dating/marriage spaces and professional spaces, and how far-right/populist actors in the Western media play into this reactionary sentiment. Someone referenced sociological research that details how sustained discriminatory behavior from native Western women arises among upper-middle class white women in particular; with MWWS exemplifying how that demographic group leverages social and cultural capital to keep women of color bound to lower social status. With Meghan Markle emerging as a high profile example of a woman of color who broke through into spaces historically reserved for white women in spite of these efforts, have the sociologists or journalists cited in the MWWS article performed any in-depth analysis of whitelash and how it pertains to MWWS? If so, that information would be well worth adding to the article. 2A02:1810:520:DD00:4DF3:6670:656C:EA9F (talk) 15:17, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a link for the Guardian article? Gandydancer (talk) 18:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

This phenomenon is mostly visible in neoliberal media outlets, where upper middle class white women introduced the "Europeanized" appearance as a "standard" to be emulated by women of color"

Are you refering to specific media outlets? If so, which ones? Neoliberalism carries on the torch of ideas concerning economic liberalism, and related policies focus more on economic measures, trade, and the pursuit of profit than anything particularly specific in the field of Social engineering. Dimadick (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Edits 2 May 2020

The short paragraph added at the beginning of the ’United States’ section refers to the study by Zach Sommers, which is covered in the later, longer paragraph. By adding the short paragraph, the impression is given that these are 2 different studies. This is misleading, so I am reversing the changes. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:43, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

South Africa

While I acknowledge that it is clearly presented as an opinion, Zanele Khumalo was not a very well known person and this is clearly the reason for the disparity in media attention. As you can see, there isn't even a Wikipedia page for her. Moreover to cite the opinion on racial bias of a state sociologist in a country that legally discriminates against people based on races seems absurd to me. Not to mention that his argument is extremely difficult to substantiate. You would have to explain why a country of almost exclusively black people have an anti-black racial bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 102.65.7.158 (talk) 17:24, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

The disparity between the coverage of the two cases not only was publicly made mention of by Sandile Memela, the chief director for social cohesion at South Africa's Department of Arts and Culture, but it also prompted South Africa's SABC3 news network to produce an investigative report on the Missing White Woman Syndrome, in which the cases of Khumalo and Steenkamp were directly juxtaposed. The relevancy of the South African entry into the MWWS article is not in doubt. In addition, you appear to be uninformed about South Africa's racial hierarchy policies during Apartheid, when the country was being led by a White Nationalist government. The legacy of these racial hierarchy policies lingers to this day, with Missing White Woman Syndrome being but a single example of how such systems of social stratification, and therefore social predominance of whites, continue to manifest in various ways.2A02:1810:520:DD00:A9D6:7916:4B96:486 (talk) 15:31, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Like in the farm murders? Steenkamp got a LOT more coverage than the white women being raped, murdered, and having babies cut out of them. Apartheid SA is gone, Black Revenge SA is a lot worse.

Western media only?

The term is used to describe the Western media's disproportionate focus on upper-middle-class white women who disappear...

Is there any evidence that the world's media in general are any less selective? Valetude (talk) 17:01, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if it didn't happen in other ethnically white regions (Eastern Europe for example) but this process of self-reflection only seems to be occurring in the Anglosphere and Western Europe, so the phenomenon has only been defined within those parameters. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody sees it that doesn't mean it didn't fall, but Wikipedia can only document what is recorded. Betty Logan (talk) 00:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

No. I concur with Valetude.

It is similar to skin whitening. Death/murder/opinions of a White person/institutions is also more covered in 2 and 3 world countries, for a number of reasons. Let us dig such sources.

Table entry for Lena Zhang Harrap ?

Not sure that the entry for Lena Zhang Harrap should be in the article. First, the source is marginal: a web site https://www.stuff.co.nz/ Second, the missing person was found dead the same day she went missing. The web site raises the question why there is not more outrage about her death. My impression is that this article is focusing on person that were missing for awhile, and the media attention discrepancy while missing had to be anomalous (granted, after a body is discovered, the media-attention discrepancy may still remain). Thoughts? Noleander (talk) 13:34, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

There will always be marginal cases, but the examples here exist to support the prose. In other words they should be good, clear example that highlight the issue the article is exploring. Poor examples—and that is not to be unsympathetic to the families of the missing or deceased—are not helpful and undermine the encyclopedic vaue of the article if they conflate other issue. Secondly, inclusion should always be supported by top-drawer, serious sourcing. If there is doubt that a case is a good fit with the article then I support removing those examples. Betty Logan (talk) 15:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Alright, I'll remove that particular table entry, pending better sources. Noleander (talk) 20:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

consider lock?

given the current attention this topic is receiving as a result of the Gabby Petito case, and the egregious edit already corrected moments ago, perhaps temporarily locking is in order? Ekgrey (talk) 06:15, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Guess the talk page is locked too. Jacob805 (talk) 17:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Disappearance of Gabrielle Petito

This is another instance, "Gabby Petito" an ordinary white woman is receiving so much attention nationwide whereas other women of color do not receive equally as much resources/attention.

Consider adding Native American missing cases in Wyoming to contrast this case. Alternatively, Lauren Cho of Yucca Valley, CA is also an example. She's an Asian-American woman who disappeared in late June and hasn't been found yet.

Gabby's case isn't being viewed more because she is white, nor is she "ordinary". She is a woman who went missing while on a trip in the West with her boyfriend, who came back without her. That seems pretty unordinary to me. EytanMelech (talk) 20:10, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like a personal opinion. It's what reliable sources say that matters. 46.97.170.112 (talk) 13:00, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Add Emily Sotelo?

Emily Sotelo, a white college student from Massachusetts, went missing on Mount Lafayette a few days before what would have been her twentieth birthday on Wednesday, November 23 of this year. Her remains were found that day, I believe. There was copious media attention and eighteen teams went into the White Moutains to search for her. How long should we wait before adding her to the list? WMUR WMUR New York Post has one error, she was 19, not 20. Tennessean (she went to Vanderbilt U). Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:10, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Mayerling incident

The fuck has the Mayerling incident to do with this? It was mostly famous because it included the suicide of the Austrian crown-prince; the media coverage would have been the same without Vetsera. 77.180.118.220 (talk) 14:22, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Counter Examples?

With increased sensitivity to this issue, more and more people of color and minorities who go missing are getting coverage. Are there objections to have a section on counter examples give the large section on examples? It would show progress. Here are a few:

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2021/12/02/missing-indiana-woman-oakland-november/

https://www.audacy.com/wwjnewsradio/news/local/man-charged-after-body-found-idd-as-missing-woman

https://www.wfla.com/news/pasco-county/pasco-deputies-investigating-home-where-missing-new-port-richey-woman-was-last-seen/

Perhaps I should be bold and simply add the section? I though it'd be polite to bring it on the Talk page first however. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.99.105 (talk) 00:46, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Another counter example:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/07/us/florida-kathleen-moore-missing-collin-knapp-arrested/index.html

A black person being reported missing is not a counter-example. Most people who go missing are reported somewhere. It would need to be accompanied by commentary of a missing white person who received less media coverage. Betty Logan (talk) 00:46, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the number of People Of Color missing and reported in main stream media is increasing. Another example:

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/oakland-police-request-help-in-search-for-missing-at-risk-woman/2751691/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.99.105 (talk) 03:17, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

There are fewer barriers to reporting missing people now. Social media and digital media probably means far more people of any color, any sex and and any age will be reported if they go missing. That is very different to saturation coverage in newsprint and on prime TV. The sort of examples that would be interesting from this perspective would be wall-to-wall coverage of a missing black persona and comparatively little coverage of a missing white woman at the same time, and it would also require commentary to pick up on the disparity. Betty Logan (talk) 06:37, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

The article is losing accuracy and needs to show trends. Another example:

https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/clay-county/missing-teens-sisters-reported-missing-middleburg-hours-apart-each-other/EJCB2SW3NJGP5EY7DZMETE2PK4/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.99.105 (talk) 20:01, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

As has already been explained to you, none of these sources you have brought up here address the issue of disparity in the coverage of such cases. You bring up an article about a missing black woman; I could easily to dredge up 100 articles about a missing white woman. Betty Logan (talk) 08:24, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Another one: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/police-looking-for-at-risk-runaway-in-oakland/2758952/

Any other opinons? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.99.105 (talk) 05:19, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

This article is no longer relevant and is pretty disgustingly biased. I agree with the OP. Corambiz (talk) 00:45, 15 January 2023 (UTC)