Article 4b: Tailhook and the construction of sexual harassment in the media (Kasinsky, 1998)

Question 1

Design of the study

Answer 1

This study looked into the Tailhook incident and the media’s coverage of this incident, using media data of American newspapers.

Question 2

The Tailhook incident

Answer 2

The assault of 83 women conducted by a group of military agents. This incident played a major role in focusing public discourse on sexual harassment in the military and the gendering of violence. Both the actual events and the media’s reporting of incident shaped the story.

Question 3

The media

Answer 3

Has a function to construct a representation of reality that is in accordance with the dominant ideology: with what is socially thinkable.

Question 4

Ideological hegemony

Answer 4

Various means through which those who support the dominant ideology are able to reproduce that ideology in cultural institutions and products (like how journalist convey the dominant ideology by writing about in in a newspaper).

Question 5

The media’s construction of the Tailhook incident

Answer 5

The mainstream media’s social construction of sexual harassment was based on male conceptions of female victimisation. Example: ‘they were provocative’ ‘they wanted this’. The media blamed the victims and portrayed the male officers as victims. Only when the victims actively approached the media themselves, they were able to tell their own story about the incident. This shows a dominant class and gendered relations in society.

“Naval officers called Coughlin (naval female officer) a whore and a tease”

Question 6

Different phases of the Tailhook scandal

Answer 6

1. Business as usual: no media story yet.
2. Victims speak out about sexual harassment in the navy, which created a wall of silence and damage control in the navy.
3. Media and the pentagon try to cover up the sexual harassment. Victim blaming and presenting the perpetrators as victims.
4. Women legislators (wetgevers) challenge the dominant ideology. Criticism of the ‘old boys’ network (covered only 2 years later after the event).

Question 7

The women were victimised in 3 ways

Answer 7

1. In the original accident
2. After the public voicing of the incident
3. In the media’s telling of the story