Missing white woman syndrome (MWWS) is the disproportionate degree of coverage in television, radio, newspaper and magazine reporting of an adversity, most often a missing person case, involving a young, white, upper-middle class (frequently blonde) woman or girl. This degree of coverage is usually contrasted with cases concerning a missing male, or missing females of other ethnicities, socioeconomic classes or physical attractiveness.
Read more about Missing White Woman Syndrome: Cited Instances, In The Iraq War
Famous quotes containing the words missing, white, woman and/or syndrome:
“In Vietnam, some of us lost control of our lives. I want my life back. I almost feel like I’ve been missing in action for twenty-two years.”
—Wanda Sparks, U.S. nurse. As quoted in the New York Times Magazine, p. 72 (November 7, 1993)
“The flame o’ th’ taper
Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids,
To see th’ enclosed lights, now canopied
Under these windows, white and azure laced
With blue of heaven’s own tinct.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It takes that je ne sais quoi which we call sophistication for a woman to be magnificent in a drawing-room when her faculties have departed but she herself has not yet gone home.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“Women are taught that their main goal in life is to serve others—first men, and later, children. This prescription leads to enormous problems, for it is supposed to be carried out as if women did not have needs of their own, as if one could serve others without simultaneously attending to one’s own interests and desires. Carried to its “perfection,” it produces the martyr syndrome or the smothering wife and mother.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)