This research examines chronological patterns in the social construction of violence against women in the United States and abroad as represented by coverage in the New York Times. It is found that while criminal justice–oriented discourse dominates coverage, the news is less often applying a social problem frame to violence against women occurring in the United States and increasingly linking such violence to culture when it happens in Islamic societies. Thus, coverage contributes to cultural acceptance of an Orientalist binary that juxtaposes “progressive” Western nations with “backward” Eastern ones. Such a finding is consistent with feminist scholarship on Orientalism and discourse surrounding violence against women. This article concludes by considering how such Orientalism serves contemporary neoliberal governmentality.
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