Silencing the other: Gendered representations of co-accused women offenders

Abstract

This article explores the silencing process of female offender's voices in newspaper articles. It establishes the ways in which silencing, muting, and distortion, occurred in four case studies of co-accused women who appeared in court between 2003 and 2013. In doing so, the article falls into three parts. The first part presents an analysis of what is known about the silencing of female offenders. The second part presents the findings of the empirical investigation, which explores the direct and hidden silencing techniques utilised by journalists to mute female offenders’ perspectives. In light of this analysis, the final section considers the potential consequence of this silencing and the ways in which such techniques serve to frame women as ‘unexplainable others’ and deny agency.