A few thoughts on the gendered coverage of the Raoul Moat story

I’m not going to write in huge detail about this story because frankly I could write for pages and pages.

I do want to draw attention to a few things, though: first of all, the idea that Samantha Stobbart was at all to blame for any of the saga. This particularly garbled little blog (which I wasn’t sure was a genuine opinion, but it doesn’t seem to be a spoof) is an example of this viewpoint. Indeed, Moat’s “friend” (and self-confessed woman-beater) Paul Gascoigne seemed to support this apologetic stance on Moat’s actions when he declared in his barely-coherent interview, “Someone must have wound him up.” (Presumably just like Gascoigne’s wife Sheryl wound HIM up.)

His self-pitying epitaph, “Nobody cares about me. I haven’t got a dad,” is of course sad, but you know who else hasn’t got a dad now? Raoul Moat’s children. And his child with Samantha Stobbart wouldn’t have a mother either if his attack on her had succeeded.

Nobody is responsible for Moat’s actions but himself. And to say otherwise is egregious victim-blaming.