Passive language for male violence: I’ve complained

[MotherOfCatBoy]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/03/deaths-of-british-couple-in-france-being-treated-as-murder-suicide-reports-say

This whole article is written in passive language as if somehow this man who killed his wife and then himself was somehow overtaken by a mysterious event that just happened to them. Nowhere does it make him the active subject of a verb which makes it clear that he killed her. It does report local police are treating the incident as murder, but it does not say “he murdered his wife.”

This drives me nuts as it makes partner murder and femicide a passive event, like the weather, almost making him a victim too, and totally occludes the deliberate nature of the violence.

I’ve written and complained. I know I shouldn’t really expect any better of the Guardian who keep showing they don’t give a shit about women, but I keep reading it for the environmental articles. At least I feel as if I’ve done something active by complaining.

Does anyone else feel like this?

I’ve read a couple of articles on this and they all use more or less the same words. I was wondering if it was a legal thing, where they couldn’t say he killed her for some reason.

on first read it’s quite confusing what happened to her.

It was reported on the BBC website with exactly those words so I do wonder if there is a legal background to it.
Not saying I don't agree with you because I think you are spot on with your analysis of the events.

It's always the way with these so called tragedies. A bloke in my city murdered his wife then killed himself and they were buried together ffs. People seem to sympathise with these men, it's utterly grim.

Jackson Katz had a TED talk that is worth your time. It’s about using language to disappear the active actor in men’s violence against women.

I would imagine that there is a legal process of some kind that has to be gone through. An investigation, before a conclusive ruling? Even the dead are innocent until proven guilty.

I doubt they can say he killed her until its been legally confirmed

There may be elements of French law around reporting to consider as that is where it happened and the investigation will be based

^This^

The police do not decide that one person has murdered another. A court must do that. In such a case as this, probably the equivalent of a coroners court. Until that is determined by a court then there is no murder and no murderer. The reports is therefore 100% accurate and correct - the police are treating the incident as X, but they are not in a position to determine that as a fact, because their investigation will be considered by a court who will determine facts.

If it was proven he did it then yes, you have a point, but when it's at this early stage of course they're not going to say anything decisive.

On the general point raised by the OP - I agree that there might be legal reasons for the language used - I was reminded of a campaign in Ireland in the wake of the murder of Clodagh Coll [Hawe] and her three children – Liam, 14, Niall, 11, and Ryan, 6 – who were murdered by Alan Hawe, the husband/father, in Co Cavan in August 2016.

The shocking event was presented as a tragedy - the poor family, that poor man, well known and well respected in the community, what could have driven him to do such a thing, killing his own little boys... and so on.

There was campaign to remind people that a woman, a mother, a wife had been murdered too, it was called 'Her Name Was Clodagh'

The Alan Hawe murders followed a pattern where the perpetrators of familicides like this were treated as victims - I remember a case in 2013 of a man who murdered his 3 year old daughter before killing himself - a radio presenter wondered 'what must have been going through that poor man's mind in the moments before he drowned his daughter'.
In fact he had carefully planned to kill his daughter so her mother wouldn't have custody of her after they divorced.

At his funeral a member of his family asked mourners to remember Martin as a kind, compassionate and helpful neighbour and the coffin was carried shoulder-high through the town to the graveyard.

The mother of the little girl was completely sidelined in reports, and I think there was even some animosity towards her locally, as the murderer's friends defended him as someone who would never hurt a fly...

The little girl was buried with her murderer, and the mother had to fight for years to have her exhumed and reburied near her mother's home.

I think since the Her Name Was Clodagh campaign, there's more balance in reporting now, and I don't think the media here would be so partial towards the perpetrator any more.

That is utterly horrific. Poor Clodagh and her daughter.

Also something I had never noticed before re the situation of burials.

Sorry Pigling I was unclear - these are two separate cases, Clodagh and her children were murdered by Alan Hawe; in the case of the man who murdered his daughter, I didn't give the names - the little girl was Clarissa daughter of Rebecca Saunders.
Sorry for leaving that out., and RIP to all the victims.

@MarieDeGournay Was just thinking of the passive nature of reporting as the verdict of the inquest of Claire Collins was this week, an open verdict although it's clear her husband murdered her. There is such a reluctance to state what happened when the man goes on to kill himself. I remember at the time they were found again a lot of the reporting was about what a "great man" he was with little to say about his victim.

Exactly. You can't simply write "Andrew Searle killed Dawn Kerr" if you don't know for certain that that is the case. In the article it says the deaths "are being treated as a murder followed by a suicide."

I agree that they could have made it plainer by writing "Police believe that Searle killed Kerr before hanging himself." Hopefully there will be an investigation that results in clearer information about what happened.

It's constantly and deliberately lost - men are written out of male violence altogether most of the time. (though I agree in this particular case that it is most likely a legal thing - it looks like he murdered her but it's not yet confirmed).

VAWG
She was raped
She was assaulted
She was strangled
She got herself pregnant

There's a very interesting FOI thing request here where someone asked about the information that is being gathered about men who rape and the answer was basically that they don't bother. There is some data on age of rapists (it starts at about 13, peaks from 25-40, and then starts to decline) but nothing else, so basically we have no idea if rapists share any particular characteristics other than being male. They are, however, recording all sorts of information about women who report that a man has raped them.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/statisticsonvictimsandperpetratorsofrapeintheuk

(If anyone watched Curfew they made a bit of a thing of it)

The language is similarly minimizing when reporting road traffic collisions. (And no, they're not 'accidents' as most involve human error). I remember a mail article stating '2 people per year are killed by a cyclist whilst 3200 lose their lives to a vehicle...'. presumably a driverless vehicle and in any event it must be the victims own fault to carelessly 'lose their lives'. disclaimer - the wording stuck with me as it was so heinous but the numbers might be different. Interesting how an outgroup is made directly responsible whilst the ingroup is completely written out.

No big surprise here as to how this case is progressing. I was puzzled early on by reports of scared locals - a couple with one person murdered and the other hanged, well what's the likely scenario here?

Thanks for all the different inputs. (Had a busy day, just come back to this).
I did wonder if there was something legal … but if it’s to do with defamation, then the dead can’t sue.. but there was a good point above about a court ruling what happened.

I suppose what gets to me is the patterned and consistent nature of this kind of writing, that even when the man/ perpetrator is dead, making it crystal clear logically what happened, they still make it sound passive.
It was very interesting to read about how male perpetrators are treated as victims. Seems like a society-wide DARVO to make it not his fault.

Anyway, will wait to see if the Guardian reply to my complaint; perhaps there is a reason.

I was slightly unfair to them yesterday as I had forgotten that they run the Killed Women coverage every year, prominently, which is a step in the right direction.

Complain about what? Do you really know the legal side of this so know what they are allowed to say or not? If you don't wouldn't it make sense to learn it first?

It will be legalise. He is the 'alleged' murderer until some sort of verdict is reached presumably in this case by the equivalent of a coroner.