Passive Voices By Anna Greer Wo! Magazine June 2007 The passive voice is used far too much in the media when the topic of a story is gender motivated violence and intimidation, writes Anna Greer. One of the first things journalism students learn is to avoid the passive voice. So, you have to wonder why journalists are drawn to using passive voice when the subject of their article is male violence against women. What classically happens is that the actors in these stories are sidelined and we're left with the women who get raped, sexually harassed, or beaten. Passive voice is used to indicate that the subject of a verb is undergoing, not performing, an action or process, and it realigns the importance and agency of the subjects and objects within a sentence. For example, 'the rice is being fried by the cook' is a passive construction; while 'the cook fried the rice' is an active one. In the passive version of this sentence, the object ('the rice') becomes more important and of greater focus than the subject, 'the cook.' For full story, visit: http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/050108WA.shtml