Meaning of missing white woman syndrome | Babel Free

Definitions

The disproportionate media coverage of a missing person or similar case involving a young, white, upper-middle-class woman, contrasted with lesser coverage of males, non-white ethnicities, etc.

derogatory, uncountable

Examples

“The Petito case, which is still unfolding (her fiancé, with whom she’d been travelling, is believed to be in hiding) seemed like another instance of what the late journalist Gwen Ifill famously described as “missing white woman syndrome”: a hunger for stories about victims who look like Petito, to the exclusion of all others.”

CEFR level