Prostitute Found Dead Prostitute. I wonder why the press always emphasize that particular profession ? Two girls who work as prostitutes have been found dead this week. Another woman was killed this week as she returned home from work, I don't know what her profession was as the media have mainly referred to her as "mother of 2." Were either of the other girls mothers ? We are not told.* The emphasizing of the women's method of earning a living acts to place a prejudice in our minds, were two young university students to be murdered there would be an uproar and furore in the press. Two prostitutes though ensures that the story can be quickly relegated from the front pages and lead news bulletins. There seems to have been much more media coverage of the murdered "mother of 2" than there has of the other two poor girls killed. Is this an extension of NIMBYism ? We are shocked by the killing of a "normal" woman returning to her average home because she is you and me. The prostitutes though, dirty girls selling themselves, streetwalkers, they are beneath us, lower both in social class and in morality, and so we pay less attention to their passing. It is highly unlikely that either of the two young women chose to become prostitutes. No schoolgirl when asked "and what would you like to do when you grow up ?" responds that she would like to spend her nights on the streets, in all weather, offering herself to each and every man that happens along for a few quid. Suffering the problems, shame and indignity of arrest and a criminal record, probably paying a large chunk of her meagre earnings to her boyfriend / pimp. Many of these girls have turned to prostitution to fund a drug habit, and many will have a history of an unhappy or abusive childhood, fractured family life or a succession of care homes. If one of the young girls had a child to support, I bet the press would not report her murder as "Young mother found dead." There might be many other things that would change our perception of her, maybe she was a keen athlete at school, perhaps she loved cats, enjoyed gardening or was exceptionally kind to her granny, but these things do not matter to the media if you descend into prostitution. *Now, things have moved on in this case since I wrote this article on Saturday (busy weekend so didn't get round to writing it up for the blog until this evening). Three girls have been found dead, and two more are missing, and it would appear that there is a serial killer in Ipswich. The media are stirring themselves into a regular frenzy, it won't be too long until someone puts up a banner headline "The Suffolk Ripper", because every killer of prostitutes has to be called Ripper. The BBC is reading an uneasy line, it doesn't seem to know whether it should refer to these girls as prostitutes, or the slightly more genteel sounding "sex workers", often using both in the same article, sometimes in the same sentence. As the case has exploded into the media with the news of another death and more feared it is obvious that this case isn't going to recede into the inner pages rapidly, and so my original article doesn't hold up as well. These girls live a dangerous life though, they are easy targets for the dangerous individuals in our society, and the next time one of these women is killed, do you think it will be "Prostitute killed" or "Young woman murdered" ?