Outskirts online journal

Jay Daniel Thompson and Rebecca Louise

Further information

About the authors

Jay Daniel Thompson is Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. He works in research administration at the Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University. 

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Rebecca Louise is an independent researcher and curator, and the author of The Monkey’s Mask: Film, Poetry and the Female Voice (ATOM, 2012).

[email protected]


Publication details

Volume 31, November 2014

 

Sexed Violence and its (Dis)appearances: Media Coverage Surrounding the Murders of Jill Meagher and Johanna Martin

On 22 September 2012, Jill Meagher, an employee of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), went missing after a night spent with friends in a bar on Sydney Road, Brunswick, in Melbourne’s inner north. The bar was located a short proximity from the apartment that Meagher shared with her husband, Tom. Her disappearance received media coverage across Australia. On 28 September 2012, Meagher’s corpse was discovered buried in a shallow grave in the semi-rural district of Gisborne South. She had been raped and murdered. Adrian Ernest Bayley was charged with her murder. He pleaded guilty in March 2013. In June 2013, Bayley was sentenced to life imprisonment.

As Jon Faine pointed out, in a tribute to Meagher on his radio program, Meagher’s murder had ‘sent ripples’ across Australia. Women’s safety in public spaces became the topic of public discussion in the months following this crime, as did the related issue of violence against women. For example, on her blog, media commentator Catherine Deveny (2012) related her own experience of harassment by a man who fitted the description of Meagher’s killer. The ‘ripples’ caused by Meagher’s death could also be witnessed on Sydney Road, Brunswick. Floral wreaths were placed on the location where Meagher was last seen alive in security camera footage. In 2012, Sydney Road also played host to a number of well-attended and well-publicised marches opposing violence against women. These included the annual ‘Reclaim the Night’ march.

The public response to Johanna Martin’s murder differed considerably from the response to Meagher’s murder. Martin had achieved a minor public profile in Melbourne by working as a stripper and offering sex work services under the moniker ‘Jazzy O’. In October 2011, Martin was beaten and strangled to death. Her corpse was discovered ‘wrapped in a blanket and dumped in bushes in Port Melbourne’, a suburb in Melbourne’s inner-south (McMahon, 2011). In November 2011, Steve Constantinou (who had been an acquaintance of the deceased) was charged with Martin’s murder. In August 2013, Constantinou was found guilty of Martin’s murder and was sentenced to jail for twenty-four years, with a twenty-year non-parole period (Russell, 2013, ‘Johanna’).

In an insightful article published on the Daily Life website in 2013, Clementine Ford argues that the Australian media did not ‘pay the same kind of attention’ to Johanna Martin’s death as was paid to Jill Meagher’s. Ford suggests that, one reason for this is that Martin is assumed to be ‘not like us’ because she was a sex worker. In reference to a previous article in which she had discussed Jill Meagher’s murder (Ford, 2012), Ford writes:

To my shame, I did not mention Martin, that other woman whose body was desecrated and discarded without thought. Because I didn’t know. Because the media, which includes me, perhaps doesn’t care enough about the murders, rapes and violations of women not like us to pay it the same kind of attention. (2013; emphasis in original)

Ford raises a significant point in regards to the differences between the media representation of the two women. We agree that because Martin is unable to be so readily categorised as an ‘ideal victim’ in the way that Meagher could, she has been less readily embraced by the media. The old and familiar ‘virgin’ and ‘vamp’ archetypes still, it seems, have some currency in the early twenty-first century (Benedict, 1992).

However, we suggest that Ford overlooks an important similarity between both cases: the murders, and the corpses that are left behind, are seen as providing proof as to the women Meagher and Martin really ‘were’ during their lives. One key argument is that the media’s drive to provide a clear-cut narrative about both women’s perceived sense of character—and particularly their perceived sexuality— effectively overwrites both women’s lives and deaths; and, ultimately, deemphasises the gender dynamics that underpin sexed violence against women. These dynamics have certainly been foregrounded within the media coverage surrounding the two murders. Yet these gender dynamics are, we argue, ultimately glossed over in this same coverage. We use the term ‘(dis)appears’ to describe what happens to the broader societal sexism, to the power discrepancy between men and women, in this media coverage.

This article aims firstly to contribute to existing studies of how sexed violence has been represented in the media. The term ‘sexed violence’ is a variation on the term ‘sexed crime’. According to feminist legal theorist Adrian Howe: ‘Sexed crime covers all crimes and all forms of violence in which the gender or sexed status of the offender and victim is relevant to the criminal or violent act’ (1998, 6). The term ‘sexed crime’ is useful for the following reason:

… reading a violent act as a sexed crime means questioning the implicit messages about masculinity, femininity and sexuality which are contained in the act itself, in its reporting and in the way in which the judicial system deals with it. (Ibid)

Thus, the term ‘sexed crime’ goes some way towards suggesting how these crimes help construct and reify traditional gender roles (as opposed to being manifestations of pre-existing genders, or—alternately—completely unrelated to gender).

Media representations of sexed violence are important for several reasons. These representations provide ‘the most frequent sources of contact by individuals with legal ideas’, including ideas about gender (Bumiller, 1998, 37). Also, as Karen Morgan argues: ‘Produced in public, yet consumed in private, newspapers’—and other media forums —‘enable public events to become available to a wide audience for private consumption’ (2006, 489). Sexed violence has traditionally been framed as a ‘private’ issue (Horeck, 2004; Serisier, 2005, 124-125). This is in keeping with the way that issues which overwhelmingly affect women and girls have traditionally been relegated to the private— and namely, the domestic— sphere (Landes, 1999). Framing sexed violence as ‘private’ makes this violence seem unimportant and certainly not prevalent; an issue which affects certain individuals, and which (while tragic) is unconnected with gender inequality. The media has offered one avenue through which sexed violence has become a ‘public’ issue, an issue that can be identified as prevalent, and which needs to be addressed on a broad scale (Horeck, 2004).

Though, of course, media representations of sexed violence are not inherently transgressive. Scholars such as Morgan, Helen Benedict (1992) and Tanya Serisier (2005) have explored the ways in which some victims of sexed violence have been portrayed as less deserving of their abuse and/or more pitiable than others. Men are still ‘responsible for most forms of serious violence …’ (Howe, 2008, 2). Yet this fact is obscured when journalists focus on the female victim’s character (for example, whether she was a virgin). The woman’s victimisation becomes centred on the question of whether she provoked it, about what the crime can supposedly tell us about her character and about the life she has lived.

The second aim of this article is to contribute to the broad field of ‘death studies’. This field is premised around the contention that the ‘representation of death renders death meaningful to the living, by inscribing meaning or purpose’ (Buchanan et al, 2011, 7). Accordingly, we aim to ascertain some of the ‘meanings’ that are attached to, and generated by the media representations of Meagher and Martin’s deaths. Particularly useful to our analysis is Jane O’Sullivan’s study of the female corpse in Hollywood detective narratives. According to O’Sullivan, the detective must alleviate the sense of ‘discomfort’ caused by the sight of the corpse, by means that include fetishising the dead woman; and also ‘deciphering [her] meaning’ (1996, 232 and 239; and see also Bronfen, 1992). In this scenario, the female corpse becomes a source of evidence as to who the woman was while she was alive. The woman’s life narrative is muted by the detective, who seeks to overwrite it with a unified and coherent narrative extrapolated from the study of her corpse. As O’Sullivan points out, the detective then risks silencing the woman’s real story, which may be complex and resistant to the straightforward narrative that the detective seeks in his drive to close the case.

In what follows, we look at how the corpses of Meagher and Martin are invoked within media coverage of their deaths. We also address the stories that these corpses tell (or supposedly tell) about how these women lived and died. Relatedly, we consider the ways in which the deaths of both women have been framed as ‘grievable’ (or not) within the Australian media. We ask, how is this grievability linked to the gendered public/private distinction discussed earlier? How have media representations of Martin’s death been influenced by common, negative understandings of sex work? And have some of these understandings been themselves shaped by the public/private divide?

Representing an ‘Ideal Victim’

There is one key similarity between Meagher and Martin, and that is they had both worked for the media. Meagher was employed with the ABC. In 2009, Martin received minor media exposure when a television news program alleged that she performed for players prior to an ‘amateur football game.’ This news item was itself a topic of discussion on the popular ABC program Media Watch. Martin also worked as an ‘extra in television shows’ such as Neighbours (Russell, 2012).  To this extent, then, both women actively participated in a key institution of contemporary public spheres.

Also, and as mentioned earlier, in media coverage of their deaths, the ‘true character’ of both women’s lives has been understood to reside in their perceived sexuality and the corpses they left behind. Yet both women have quite different ‘true characters’. A useful place to start our analysis is with Jill Meagher’s death, which is arguably the better-known of the two cases under discussion. We argue that in terms of her media construction, Meagher is not just any woman. Nor is she just any victim of sexed violence. Instead, Meagher has been framed as what Karen Morgan calls an ‘ideal victim’ (2006, 489). This is the kind of victim who clearly and unambiguously does not deserve to be violated. The ideal victim is not sexually-active, or at least (in Meagher’s case) not sexually-active outside a monogamous relationship. Nor does this ideal victim express herself in a sexualised manner in public places. The ideal victim is one who does not know her assailant. There is even a sense that this ideal victim of sexed violence is the only ‘real’ victim. Her abuse is transformed by the media into a rare and horrific outburst of brutality in a culture where women and men otherwise coexist in relative harmony (and see Serisier, 2006). To paraphrase one headline that followed Meagher’s death: ‘Bad things happen to good women, but they are rare’ (Gardiner, 2012).

The stereotype of the ‘ideal victim’ is problematic for a number of reasons. This stereotype perpetuates the idea that some victims are more important than others. This stereotype also individualises violence against women. This violence becomes something that happens to certain, clearly undeserving women, and is unrelated to a broader sexism that impacts on all women (and men). Finally, the ‘ideal victim’ stereotype glosses over the prevalence of men’s violence against women. There was an ‘11.8 per cent increase’ in the reporting of rapes between 2010 and 2011 (Stephens, 2012). And, as Meagher’s husband, Tom Meagher (2014) recently pointed out, the majority of sexed violence acts ‘are perpetrated by somebody known to the victim … friends, acquaintances, husbands, lovers, brothers and fathers.’

In considering how exactly Meagher is represented as an ‘ideal victim’, we turn first to an article published on the News.com.au website shortly after her corpse was discovered. In this article, Meagher is described in almost beatific terms. Reporters Andrew Rule and Charles Miranda (2012) describe Meagher as a ‘cheery, chirpy soul’ who was adored by— and who adored— her husband:

The people in the apartments beside the Meagher’s never heard a cross word between the beautiful young Irish woman and her gentle husband, Tom. Just that lovely, lilting voice, before or after work and at weekends.

At work, Meagher was loved by her ‘ABC family’. That is the term used by Jon Faine in his radio tribute. At least one reporter has described the ‘pain’ felt by Meagher’s biological family over her death (Levy, 2013).

Similarly, witness the photographs of Meagher that have circulated in the media. Many of these are also beatific in nature. Perhaps the best-known shot of Meagher is the one that was circulated immediately following her disappearance, on Brunswick billboards requesting information on her whereabouts. The photograph in question is a head-shot of Meagher. She is smiling. Her eyes cast out dreamily into the distance. Behind Meagher is what appears to be a domestic setting. There is a bookcase and a Scrabble board, as well as a sofa. A bright orange light flickers. The white walls match the colour of Meagher’s blouse. This shot has featured in numerous media articles about the case (e.g. Russell, 2013, ‘Bayley’). A digitally-altered version of this photograph circulated on Facebook throughout 2013, depicting Meagher’s smiling face framed by flowers.

In two other shots, Meagher is posed with Tom. In one of these shots, Meagher’s face is almost concealed by that of her husband as she kisses his cheek (see Dowsley and Flower, 2012). The backdrop is a blue sky. In another shot, husband and wife are seated on a bench, holding hands (see Anderson, 2013, ‘Rolling coverage’). Both are dressed in vibrant colours: Tom in a blue work shirt and multi-coloured tie, Jill in a multi-coloured blouse. The couple are surrounded by flowers.

When the above images and quotes are considered together, a familiar and conservative narrative of femininity emerges. This is an image of a devoted wife and family member (devoted to both her own family and her adopted ‘family’ at the ABC). The Meagher we encounter here holds down a steady job in a tightly-knit workplace, but is also associated with a safe, respectable, middle-class domesticity. Indeed, Meagher’s death seems all the more horrific because she was so closely linked to home and hearth, brightness and love. She was actually walking home when she was killed. Meagher was denied the opportunity to reach her home by Adrian Ernest Bayley. Meagher’s body allegedly remained in a public (albeit relatively secluded) place (a laneway) for several hours before her killer returned to the crime scene and collected it for the initial burial in Gisborne South (Anderson, 2013, ‘Rolling coverage’).

Thus, Meagher’s death is easily grievable. This grievability, in turn, suggests the perceived importance of the life she led. As Judith Butler argues: ‘… grievability is a presupposition for the life that matters’ (2009, 14). Butler goes on to write: ‘Without grievability, there is no life, or rather, there is something living that is other than life’ (Ibid). There is a sense that the grief surrounding Meagher’s death has been played out not only across Australia, but also across the world. Rule and Miranda (2012) write that Meagher’s ‘fate has galvanised emotions in two countries: the one she adopted and the one of her birth.’ The headline of their article is ‘Hearts break across the world for Jill Meagher’. This is a reference to the grief felt by Meagher’s relatives in Ireland, but it also creates the impression of a transnational wave of grief, not unlike that which has surrounded the deaths of well-known public figures such as Diana Spencer (Re:Publica, 1997).

We do not wish to dispute the horrific nature of Meagher’s death. Nor do we wish to criticise the public grief that followed her death. The issue of grievability is hugely significant, as Judith Butler (2009) has so persuasively argued. Memorialisation is also important, as sociologist Margaret Gibson points out in the following passage:

Memorials serve an important remembering function not because they restore living memory, but because they symbolically articulate and engage with the fragility and temporality of living memory’s mortality. (2011, 150)

The Meagher memorials have included the Sydney Road marches and Facebook pages such as ‘RIP Jill Meagher’. They have included the flowers placed outside the location in which she was last seen alive, a short-lived stone memorial that was placed on the Gisborne South burial site, and a graffiti memorial (also short-lived) in a laneway situated in Melbourne’s central business district. These memorials serve as acknowledgments that public spaces can be the site of issues that have been deemed private, and these include death (Ibid, 149-150). The Jill Meagher memorials call attention to another issue that has traditionally been framed as ‘private’, and that is sexed violence. As Tanya Serisier argues, commemorations of sexed violence (namely rape) can help preserve ‘stories that have been forgotten or erased from the historical record’ (2005, 125). This is significant, given that ‘what a culture remembers, and what it chooses to forget, is intimately connected to questions of power and hegemony, as is the question of who determines what is remembered, and how’ (Ibid).

Our aim is to illustrate how some female victims of sexed violence are represented in very different ways to others. This becomes evident in the media coverage of Johanna Martin’s death. Some of this coverage has been reasonably sympathetic. In an article that was published in Melbourne’s Age newspaper shortly after the death, reporter Neil McMahon (2011) writes: ‘The murder of Johanna Martin devastated her family.’ McMahon also acknowledges that, while there was no mention of her sex work in her funeral service, this was a moot point: ‘… sex industry workers shared their grieving with siblings who had just lost their mother.’

Yet, Clementine Ford (2013) is correct when she argues that Martin’s death has not been grieved in the same way that Meagher’s death was; Martin has not been framed as an ‘ideal victim’. The sheer magnitude of public grief surrounding Meagher’s death was not mirrored in the grief surrounding Martin’s death. The tone of Facebook commemorations of Martin is also important here. One Facebook page is entitled ‘The Search for the Next Jazzy O’. The tagline for this page reads thus: ‘As everyone knows, we have lost an entertainer who can never be replaced … or can she????’ [sic] Another page is entitled ‘Jazzy O Appreciation Thread’. Followers of this page (most of whom appear to be men) responded to her death with comments such as ‘Rip jazzy [sic], no girl will ever swallow a witches hat the way do did’ ‘and ‘best 18th birthday present anyone could ask for. rip jazzy [sic].’ The tone of both pages is more sexualised, and less mournful, than the Facebook pages dedicated to Jill Meagher. The assumption at the heart of ‘The Search for the Next Jazzy O’ is that Martin—or at least her sex worker persona—could be replaced, like a broken commodity. There is no sense that Martin’s life is grievable, much less significant.

Moreover, in media coverage of her death, Martin is depicted as being mysterious and contradictory. These contradictions are most explicitly invoked in the headline of Neil McMahon’s Age article: ‘Mother, nana, stripper: who was Jazzy O?’ Readers are invited to speculate on how Martin could have reconciled apparently quite different feminine roles. Martin’s apparent contradictions are further suggested through the use of photographs. In McMahon’s article, the line that reads ‘The murder of Johanna Martin has devastated her family’ is sandwiched between two shots of Martin. In both shots, she is apparently performing onstage (her audience remains outside the frame), smiling lasciviously and wearing scanty red outfits. In another article, reporter Mark Russell (2012) quotes an unnamed sex worker describing Martin: ‘Her life was a real contradiction, when you compare the extreme nature of her shows with the actual person she was.’ Readers are advised that Martin ‘did not drink or take drugs, and drank cups of tea from a real cup and saucer, “lady style”.’

In the above coverage, readers and viewers are positioned as investigators. They/we are encouraged to ask: how did— indeed, how could— Martin have performed such polarised feminine roles concurrently? Martin becomes a source of ‘discomfort’, to use Jane O’Sullivan’s term. She ‘is subjected to the investigative probings of the forensic detective, who seeks … to map the woman killed’ (O’Sullivan, 1996, 232). These kinds of ‘probings’ were never encouraged in media coverage of Jill Meagher’s death.

In considering why Martin has been depicted as contradictory and mysterious, whereas Meagher has not, it is useful to look at how sex work has commonly been understood in contemporary culture. Some understandings clearly reflect the gendered nature of the public/private distinction mentioned earlier. In very simple terms, the sex worker has been understood to embody a sexuality that is not relegated to the private/domestic sphere, and which is not geared solely towards reproduction and monogamy. The sex worker’s sexuality is not hidden or repressed, but rather is tied up with their professional identity. Yet, paradoxically, there is intense societal pressure placed on sex workers to remain out of the public eye. British sociologist Phil Hubbard makes this point when he writes:

… in many cities prostitutes are forced to work out of sight, off-street in brothels, massage parlours or private flats where their sexuality can be commodified with apparent impunity. The ability of these prostitutes to leave these spaces of confinement and enter the public realm as sex workers remains highly restricted, with the sight of the sexed body of the prostitute in the city disturbing assumptions that ‘feminine’ sexuality should be domesticized. (2001, 58)

In a 2005 article, Australian sex worker activist Elena Jeffreys writes ‘Individual sex workers in Australia have an incentive to stay out of the public eye. Sex workers who are known for their choice of profession may experience discrimination and vilification’ (113). For example, sex workers have been declared ‘unfit’ mothers, evicted from their homes and refused bank loans simply on account of their occupation (Ibid).

Notably, Johanna Martin refused to remain outside the public eye. She refused to conceal her sex work; indeed, she seems to have gained a degree of notoriety from this work.  Witness her appearance on Neighbours, or the media reports of her strip shows. Some media outlets have described these strip shows —and, indeed, Martin herself— as being ‘extreme’ (McMahon, 2011; Russell, 2012; Anderson, 2013, ‘Extreme stripper’). The ‘extreme’ Martin, who expressed herself in a sexualised manner in public places, and who has even appeared on television, does not neatly fit into the stereotype of the ‘ideal victim’.

Furthermore, sex work has frequently been linked with violence. Sometimes this link has been drawn in an obviously anti-feminist fashion. We refer here to the myths that ‘prostitutes are unrapable’ and ‘prostitutes deserve to be raped’ (Cotton et al, 2002). Witness, too, the discourses of feminists who have opposed sex work on the grounds that it always and only constitutes violence against women. In a 2013 blog post, for example, academic and activist Caroline Norma criticises an Age article written by Wendy Squires. In this article, Squires acknowledges that the murder of Tracy Connelly (another Melbourne sex worker) did not generate the ‘public outcry’ that Meagher’s death did. Squires (2013) reports that she lives in St Kilda (where Tracy worked, and was killed) and remarks: ‘I could have been Tracy, just as I could have been Jill Meagher.’ Squires’ uncritical identification with Connelly and Meagher could well be subject to scrutiny. However, this identification is not what Norma finds problematic, as she makes clear in the following passage:

… Tracy could not have been Wendy or Jill, but she could have been any other woman in prostitution. All people in prostitution—whether in brothels, ‘escort’ agencies or on the street—risk the same unacceptable fate as Tracy. Those of us who downplay or deny the risks of prostitution seal this fate for generations of abused people who will be preyed upon by the pimps and traffickers of the sex industry.

According to the terms of Norma’s argument, sex workers are always ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’; violence is an unavoidable occupational hazard. Jill Meagher’s death might have been ‘horrible’, and she ‘might have faced hardships in her life.’ Yet these ‘hardships’ did not involve being purchased for sexual purposes by men—the latter being (for Norma) the most significant form of hardship faced by women everywhere (and see also Cotton et al, 2002; Jeffreys, 2008). In sum, there is a sense that sexed violence committed against sex workers is inevitable, and certainly not noteworthy in the way that acts of sexed violence committed against non-sex workers such as Meagher are noteworthy.

Tellingly, there has been only fleeting acknowledgment of the fact that prior to Meagher’s death, ‘Bayley [had been] found guilty of raping five sex workers’ (Ford, 2013; Gearin, 2013). In his article, Neil McMahon briefly mentions that some women have left the sex industry ‘out of fear’ for their lives following Johanna Martin’s death. Tom Meagher (2014) has written:

It would be tragic if we did not recognise that Bayley's previous crimes were against prostitutes, and that the social normalisation of violence against women of a certain profession and our inability to deal with or talk about these issues socially and legally, resulted in untold horror for those victims, and led to the brutal murder of my wife.

Yet it would take the murder of another sex worker (Tracy Connelly) for the Australian media to acknowledge—and then only fleetingly— that a sex worker’s death can be grievable. Examples of this acknowledgment include Squires’ article, and a 2014 episode of the ABC’s Australian Story which focused on the grief expressed by a number of St Kilda residents (including actress Rachel Griffiths, who hosted the episode) about Connelly’s death.  Tom Meagher has been one of the few voices in the Australian media to explicitly acknowledge that violence against female sex workers has been ‘normalised’, at least to some extent, and that this ‘normalisation’ has ramifications for all women.

Building on the above observations, then, we could suggest that an ‘answer’ of sorts to the supposed ‘mystery’ posed by Martin’s character lies in the circumstances surrounding her murder. She might have been a wife, mother and grandmother. Martin’s death might have been grieved by her family members and colleagues. Nevertheless, according to her media construction, Martin was also ‘extreme’—and this extremity was apparently her most significant attribute. Martin gained notoriety (especially in Melbourne) for her ‘extreme’ sexuality. This was sexuality that was played out in public (for example, through her strip shows and her sex work). Her murder, and the subsequent dumping of her body in an outdoors location, seems perversely in keeping with (and symptomatic of) this woman’s ‘extreme’ and ‘public’ life.

In the above ‘answer’ to Martin’s ‘mystery’, the whole issue of gender inequality is effectively concealed. So, too, is the fact that Martin—as with many women who are subject to sexed violence—was violated by a man who was known to her. She was not violated by a stranger (as happened to Jill Meagher). According to the media coverage described above, the issue of violence against sex workers appears to be unrelated to sexism, or to the violence that is perpetrated against women who do not work in the sex industry.

We have argued that the media coverage surrounding the murders of Jill Meagher and Johanna Martin is significant because of how the gender dynamics that underpin sexed violence (dis)appear. A quick glance at this coverage might suggest that the gendered nature of sexed violence has indeed been foregrounded, but a closer inspection indicates otherwise. In Melbourne’s inner-city, two female corpses have been laid out in a highly ‘public’ fashion. These corpses tell stories about a beloved wife who never made it back to a cosy domestic sphere (Meagher) or a woman who somehow (how did she do it?) managed to be a wife, mother, grandmother and an ‘extreme’ sex worker (Martin). Both women are grieved, but (as we have demonstrated) they are grieved in quite different ways: Meagher’s death is grieved publicly and (it seems) internationally, by her family and by strangers, while Martin’s death is grieved only by her loved ones. The misogyny of sexed violence is emphasised by the media at the very moment that it is glossed over. Sexed violence is problematic, but only when it is perpetrated against some kinds of women, some of the time.


  


Works Cited

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Lucas, Clay. ‘Fear buttons pushed as women contemplate the lonely walk home’. The Age. Posted 29 September 2012. Viewed 17 August 2013. https://www.theage.com.au/victoria/fear-buttons-pushed-as-women-contemplate-the-lonely-walk-home-20120928-26r3k.html 

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Rule, Andrew and Charles Miranda. ‘Hearts break across the world for Jill Meagher—the girl who liked to sing’. News.com.au. Posted 30 September 2012. Viewed 2 December 2012. https://www.news.com.au/national/hearts-break-across-the-globe-for-jill-meagher-the-girl-who-liked-to-sing/story-fncynjr2-1226484250547 

Russell, Mark. ‘Love of fine things lured Jazzy O into strip world’. The Age. Posted 24 September 2012. Viewed 4 November 2012. https://www.theage.com.au/victoria/love-of-fine-things-lured-jazzy-o-into-strip-world-20120923-26f7r.html 

— ‘Bayley argued with girlfriend before raping, strangling Jill, court told’. The Age.  Posted 12 March 2013. Viewed 3 August 2013.  https://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bayley-argued-with-girlfriend-before-raping-strangling-jill-court-told-20130313-2fzhq.html 

— ‘Johanna ‘Jazzy O’ Martin’s killer jailed for 24 years’. The Age. Posted 23 August 2013. Viewed 20 November 2013. https://www.theage.com.au/victoria/johanna-jazzy-o-martins-killer-jailed-for-24-years-20130823-2sfr1.html 

Serisier, Tanya. ‘‘Remembering Anita’: Rape and the Politics of Commemoration’. Australian Feminist Law Journal 23 (2005): 121-145.

— ‘The Bankstown Gang Rapes: Rape and the Construction of a Horrible Event’. Antithesis 16 (2006): 74-89.

Squires, Wendy. 2013. ‘An innocent woman slain: where’s the public outcry?’ The Age. Posted 27 July 2013. Viewed 3 August 2013. https://www.theage.com.au/national/an-innocent-woman-slain-wheres-the-public-outcry-20130726-2qpw7.html 

Stephens, Julie. 2012. ‘RIP Jill Meagher: But let’s not forget the other female victims of violence’. The Conversation. Posted 6 October 2012. Viewed 1 November 2012. https://theconversation.edu.au/rip-jill-meagher-but-lets-not-forget-the-other-female-victims-of-violence-9977

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