Yesterday, I wrote about the Washington Examiner‘s characterization of Miss D.C. 2009 Jen Corey‘s sexual assault as a “bar fight.” Actually, a man sexually assaulted Corey, and she defended herself physically in order to protect herself from further attack.

Today, Amanda Marcotte filed a helpful post identifying how media outlets routinely describe assaults against women in collaborative terms, as “fights” or “altercations” between people. She writes:

Do not be fooled, people! In the mainstream media, “fights”, “conflicts”, or “altercations” between men and women they’ve had relationships with are rarely fights, conflicts, or altercations. If you read down, you find that this woman was no more engaged in an “altercation” than Wile E. Coyote is with the piano that squishes him.

Marcotte points to press coverage of an assault that David Vitter aide Brent Furer allegedly committed against his ex-girlfriend. Reporters characterized the assault as a “knife-wielding altercation.” Here’s the actual story: “Furer was accused of holding his ex-girlfriend against her will for 90 minutes, threatening to kill her, placing his hand over her mouth, and cutting her in the hand and neck.”

In Corey’s case, the Washington Examiner not only characterized her assault in terms of a collaborative “bar fight,” but went on to focuse most of its attention on Corey as the aggressor. In one story, the paper described Corey’s self-defense as “slam[ming] a man (if provoked),” and referred to her choice to defend herself as a “controversial decision.” The nature of the “provocation”—-sexual assault—-does not warrant a mention in the story. When a man kidnaps a woman at knife-point, that’s an “altercation”; when a woman fights back against an assault, it’s a “controversial decision.”