Beyond rape myths: A more complex view of perceptions of rape victims (1).
Amy M. Buddie (2)
This research examined personal beliefs and perceptions of cultural stereotypes surrounding rape victims. Students (ages 18-21) at a primarily Caucasian University listed either their personal beliefs or their perceptions of cultural stereotypes surrounding rape victims and rated a specific rape victim either according to their personal beliefs or their perceptions of cultural stereotypes. Personal beliefs about rape victims tended to focus more on perceptions of victim reactions to the rape (e.g., depression, anxiety, etc.) rather than on rape myths (e.g., she asked for it, was promiscuous, etc.). Perceptions of cultural stereotypes, however, comprised rape myths rather than the victim reactions to rape. We propose that perceptions of rape victims are more multifaceted than has previously been suggested.
INTRODUCTION
Somewhere in America, a woman is raped approximately every 2 min. However, less than one third of these rapes and sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement officials (U.S. Department of Justice, 1997). In addition, many women who are raped do not identify themselves as rape victims (Kahn, Mathie, & Torgler, 1994; Koss, 1985). One reason that women do not report rape and do not acknowledge being raped might be based in societal stereotypes surrounding sexual violence. Stereotypes about rape victims include the notions that she "asked" to be raped, secretly enjoyed the experience, or lied about it. Rape victims who feel that these stereotypes will be applied to them may be unwilling to report the rape.
Given the importance of these stereotypes in terms of the victim's experience, a number of studies have examined their impact. Specifically, researchers have been interested in factors that influence victim blaming (see Pollard, 1992, for a review). For instance, a victim of rape is blamed more for her victimization when she has had previous sexual experiences (L'Armand & Pepitone, 1982), which seems related to the stereotype that certain types of women "ask for it" by being promiscuous. Rape victims are blamed more when they resist the attack later in the rape encounter rather than earlier (Kopper, 1996), which seems to suggest the stereotype that these women are engaging in token resistance (Malamuth & Brown, 1994; Muehlenhard & Rogers, 1998) or leading the man on because they have gone along with the sexual experience thus far. Finally, rape victims are blamed more when they are raped by an acquaintance or a date rather than by a stranger (e.g., Bell, Kuriloff, & Lottes, 1994; Bridges, 1991; Bridges & McGr ail, 1989; Check & Malamuth, 1983; Kanekar, Shaherwalla, Franco, Kunju, & Pinto, 1991; L'Armand & Pepitone, 1982; Tetreault & Barnett, 1987), which seems to evoke the stereotype that victims really want to have sex because they know their attacker and perhaps even went out on a date with him. The underlying message of this research seems to be that when certain stereotypical elements of rape are in place, rape victims are prone to being blamed.
Stereotypical Beliefs: Rape Myths
Stereotypes about rape victims are often subsumed under what are called rape myths. Burt (1980) defines rape myths as "prejudicial, stereotyped, or false beliefs about rape, rape victims, and rapists" (p.217). Lonsway and Fitzgerald (1994) define rape myths as "attitudes and beliefs that are generally false but are widely and persistently held, and that serve to deny and justify male sexual aggression against women" (p. 134). Koss et al. (1994) have argued that rape myths can be subsumed under three themes: victim masochism (e.g., they enjoy/want it), victim precipitation (e.g., they ask for/deserve it, it only happens to certain types of women), and victim fabrication (e.g., they tell lies/exaggerate). Belief in such myths may allow men to justify male sexual violence and women to deny personal vulnerability to rape (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995).
Rape myth acceptance has generally been thought to be widespread, with various personality (e.g., adversarial sexual beliefs, acceptance of interpersonal violence) and demographic (e.g., gender, race, age) factors predicting the degree to which individuals will accept rape myths (Burt, 1980; Giacopassi & Dull, 1986; Gilmartin-Zena, 1988; Hinck & Thomas, 1999; Johnson, Kuck, & Schander, 1997). For example, one consistent finding in the literature is that males are more accepting of rape myths than are females. This result may reflect defensive attributions, or the idea that individuals tend to blame victims who are dissimilar to themselves (Shaver, 1970). Because most rape victims are women, men feel different from this particular group of victims and are thus more likely to endorse rape myths than are women (Giacopassi & Dull, 1986; Gilmartin-Zena, 1988).
Evidence from legal verdicts also suggests that rape myths may be widespread (Heise, Pitanguy, & Germain, 1993). For example, most countries outside North America do not legally recognize the possibility of rape occurring within marriage (Koss, Heise, & Russo, 1994). Even within the United States, eight states do not have marital rape laws (Russell, 1998). In the United States, the conviction rate for rape is well below that of other violent crimes (Frazier & Haney, 1996; Williams, 1981). Most rape cases never go to court; they are often dismissed by police (Campbell & Johnson, 1997) or dropped by prosecutors (Frohmann, 1991). It has been suggested (e.g., LaFree, 1989; Sinclair & Bourne, 1998) that rape myth acceptance may play a role in these laws and verdicts that do not validate the victim's experience.
It is clear that rape myths are present in many individuals (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994). It is probable that rape myth acceptance is even higher than has been assessed to date, because of the negative attitudes being below individuals' level of awareness (Bargh, 1996; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995) or to self-censorship of politically incorrect views (Jones & Sigall, 1971). It is also probable that even though individuals may not express high levels of rape myth acceptance, their actual behavior towards rape victims might suggest otherwise (Wicker, 1969).
Beliefs Other Than Rape Myths?
Clearly, then, many people adhere to rape myths. However, it is less clear what other sorts of beliefs about rape victims might be prevalent. Perhaps some individuals are empathetic toward rape victims or understand that rape is a traumatic event. Empathy has typically been measured using the Rape Empathy Scale (RES; Dietz, Blackwell, Daley, & Bentley, 1982), which consists of 20 paired statements that represent empathy with either the rape victim or the rapist. Participants are asked to circle the statement that corresponds to their preference. Research has found that men who report some proclivity to rape are lower in rape empathy than are men who report no such tendency (Osland, Fitch, & Willis, 1996). Rape empathy has also been shown to be a reliable predictor of mock jurors' verdicts (Deitz et al., 1982; Deitz & Byrnes, 1981; Deitz, Littman, & Bentley, 1984; Weir & Wrightsman, 1990).
The RES, however, is still essentially a rape myth acceptance scale. The majority of the paired statements consist of a rape myth and the negation of that myth (e.g., "I believe that all women secretly want to be raped," versus "I don't believe that any women secretly want to be raped"). The former indicates empathy with rapists; the latter indicates empathy with rape victims. Rape myth acceptance scales typically state a rape myth or state a negation of a rape myth (which will later be reverse-scored), and participants indicate their agreement with each statement on a Likert scale. Taken as a whole, then, the RES still seems to measure individuals' rape myth acceptance.
There are, however, some paired statements that do seem to move beyond traditional rape myths. Specifically, a few items focus explicitly on the trauma of rape (e.g., "After the rape has occurred, I think the man [woman] would suffer more emotional torment in dealing with the police than the woman [man] would"). It is difficult, however, to know how these items uniquely contribute to perceptions of rape victims because all items are combined into one scale (Dietz et al., 1982). It is still relatively unclear how victims' reactions to rape are perceived by others.
Research suggests that rape is very emotionally damaging to the victims (Burgess & Holmstrom, 1976; Calhoun, Atkeson, & Resick, 1982; Nadelson, Notman, Zackson, & Gornick, 1982). Individuals who have been raped are more depressed and anxious than nonvictimized women (Kilpatrick, Resick, & Veronen, 1981). They often intrusively recall the assault and blame themselves, which can lead to poor adjustment following the rape (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). Posttraumatic stress disorder is extremely common among individuals who have been raped (Koss, Dinero, Seibel, & Cox, 1988). We were interested in …
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