Yasmin Jiwani and Mary Lynn Young, in Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse discuss the “frames” in which news media covers the missing women of the Downtown East Side and shape the way that these women are represented in the media (Jiwani & Young, 902). Framing provides a means for scholars, artists or researchers to search and relay information so that it revolves around a certain set of issues. In addition to frames, counter-frames can occur in different forms of media or art, that reject dominant views of society such as peoples “gender, [race] and class-based understandings” (Jiwani & Young, 903). Thus, in Maggie De Vries’ book Missing Sarah provides a counter-frame of protecting the dignity and identity of Indigenous women of the Downtown East Side and defying society’s dominant frame of these women as drug-addicted sex workers. Therefore, in this blog post, I will be discussing how Missing Sarah developed a counter-frame for society’s dominant frame of Indigenous women in the Downtown East Side.
In Missing Sarah, Maggie De Vries uses counter-frames to represent Sarah, one of the missing women of the Downtown East Side, as a young woman fighting with identity issues rather than simply a drug-addicted sex worker. The use of Sarah’s letters followed by Maggie’s explanations of Sarah’s actions after these letters were sent, displays the struggles that Sarah had faced with finding happiness. In a particular entry on page 58 and 59 of Missing Sarah, Sarah writes to Maggie about her unhappiness, while still expressing love for her family that she was apart from while going to camp in Ontario. For instance, in this letter she writes, “I wish I could tell Mom how unhappy I am” as well as, “I love you” to both Maggie and her mother (Missing Sarah, 58). After this letter, Maggie De Vries is able to frame the meaning of the letter in ways that display how Sarah struggled with finding where she was felt she belonged, mentioning that though Sarah had said that she loved Maggie and her mother, she continued to run away more frequently after this letter was sent. This provided a counter-frame to dominant views of the Downtown East Side because this shows that Maggie De Vries was able to provide reasons such as her struggle to find her happiness that pushed Sarah to constantly run away, end up in sex-work, trying to make a living in a place with people going through similar identity issues as her. This bond with other women working as sex-workers in the Downtown East Side is shown in “Missing Sarah” when Maggie De Vries mentions the organization of PACE (Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education). She describes how this organization operates as a place that sex-workers can go and talk to ex-sex workers who truly understand their experiences. Maggie uses Sarah’s friend, Angela, to address how PACE is helpful to sex workers in the Downtown East Side in finding people to help them that truly understand what they are going through. Maggie De Vries quotes Angela saying, “Academics know book answers but forget all the variables of life, feelings, emotion, pain” (Missing Sarah, 99). In mentioning this organization, and quoting Sarah’s friend Angela, Maggie is able to address that PACE is a source of counseling for all indigenous women from people that they could truly relate to, while the rest of society could never understand their situation and why they initially got into sex-work. Thus, these aspects of Missing Sarah contribute to a counter-frame because they show that Sarah, along with others is struggling with internal issues such as figuring out their identity, that is much larger than their sex work and drug addictions.
In conclusion, Maggie De Vries in Missing Sarah was able to create a counter-frame for Indigenous women that defies their dominant representation in the media as drug-addicted sex workers. Through the use of Sarah’s letters and the mention of the organization of PACE, Maggie is able to show that there are many women struggling to find a place where they feel they belong. Thus, Maggie De Vries is able to highlight a counter frame of the Indigenous women of the Downtown East Side as women who have struggled to find where they feel a sense of belonging and true identity.
Works Cited
Jiwani, Yasmin, and Mary Lynn Young. “Missing and Murdered Women: Reproducing Marginality in News Discourse.” Canadian Journal of Communication, vol. 31, no. 4, 2006, pp. 895–917., search.proquest.com/docview/219564084/fulltextPDF/7BDBD373171E425BPQ/1?accountid=14656.
Vries, Maggie De. Missing Sarah: a Memoir of Loss. Penguin Books Canada, 2008.