An overview discusses feminist analyses of oppression, attitudes toward rape victims, and previously studied predictors of individuals’ attitudes toward rape victims. To better understand such ...attitudes, this meta-analysis examines the moderating influences of various rape victim, perpetrator, and crime characteristics’ rape myth consistency on gender differences in individuals’ perceptions of rape victims (i.e., victim responsibility and blame attributions and rape minimizing attitudes). Consistent with feminist theoretical predictions, results indicated that, overall, men perceived rape victims more negatively than women did. However, this sex difference was moderated by the rape myth consistency within the rape vignettes. Implications for research are discussed.
Aftermath Brison, Susan J; Brison, Susan J
2002., 20111128, 2011, 2001, 2003, 2011-11-28
eBook
On July 4, 1990, while on a morning walk in southern France, Susan Brison was attacked from behind, severely beaten, sexually assaulted, strangled to unconsciousness, and left for dead. She survived, ...but her world was destroyed. Her training as a philosopher could not help her make sense of things, and many of her fundamental assumptions about the nature of the self and the world it inhabits were shattered.
Abstract Purpose The purpose of this study was to document the point and cumulative prevalence of incapacitated rape (IR) and forcible rape (FR) among first-year college women. Methods Female ...students (N = 483) completed a health questionnaire (1) on arrival on campus; (2) at the end of the fall semester; (3) at the end of the spring semester; and (4) at the end of the summer following their first year of college. Results Before entering college, 18% reported IR (attempted and/or completed), and 15% reported FR (attempted and/or completed). During the first year of college, 15% reported IR (attempted or completed) and 9% reported FR (attempted or completed). By the start of the second year (lifetime prevalence), 26% and 22% had experienced IR and FR (attempted or completed), respectively. Conclusions Both incapacitated and forcible sexual assaults and rape have reached epidemic levels among college women. Interventions to address sexual violence on campus are urgently needed.
Spanning a period of four tumultuous decades from the mid-1930s through the mid-1970s, this study reassesses the ways in which Chicagoans negotiated the extraordinary challenges of rape, as either ...victims or accused perpetrators. Drawing on extensive trial testimony, government reports, and media coverage, Dawn Rae Flood examines how individual men and women, particularly African Americans, understood and challenged rape myths and claimed their right to be protected as American citizens--protected by the State against violence, and protected from the State's prejudicial investigations and interrogations. _x000B__x000B_During the crises of the Great Depression and World War II, already-taboo problems such as sexual violence were further downplayed in favor of dealing with national issues. For cases that did go forward to conviction, trial narratives focused on protecting the female victim, protection that even extended to African American women. Amid the social reform of the 1960s and 1970s, prosecutors added more corroborative evidence to victims' claims, thereby assuming less faith in their testimonies and allowing defense attorneys and judges to interrogate women's sexual histories. The 1970s intensified the corroborative elements of rape trials, even as a vocal feminist movement sought to improve the treatment of rape victims both inside and outside courtrooms. Flood shows how defense strategies, evolving in concert with changes in the broader cultural and legal environment, challenged assumptions about black criminality while continuing to deploy racist and sexist stereotypes against the victims. _x000B__x000B_Thoughtfully combining legal studies, medical history, and personal accounts, Flood pays special attention to how medical evidence was considered in rape cases and how victim-patients were treated by hospital personnel. She also analyzes medical testimony in modern rape trials, tracing the evolution of contemporary "rape kit" procedures as shaped by legal requirements, trial strategies, feminist reform efforts, and women's experiences.
The meaning of race in the antebellum southern United States was anchored in the racial exclusivity of slavery (coded as black) and full citizenship (coded as white as well as male). These ...traditional definitions of race were radically disrupted after emancipation, when citizenship was granted to all persons born in the United States and suffrage was extended to all men. Hannah Rosen persuasively argues that in this critical moment of Reconstruction, contests over the future meaning of race were often fought on the terrain of gender.Sexual violence--specifically, white-on-black rape--emerged as a critical arena in postemancipation struggles over African American citizenship. Analyzing the testimony of rape survivors, Rosen finds that white men often staged elaborate attacks meant to enact prior racial hierarchy. Through their testimony, black women defiantly rejected such hierarchy and claimed their new and equal rights. Rosen explains how heated debates over interracial marriage were also attempts by whites to undermine African American men's demands for suffrage and a voice in public affairs. By connecting histories of rape and discourses of "social equality" with struggles over citizenship, Rosen shows how gendered violence and gendered rhetorics of race together produced a climate of terror for black men and women seeking to exercise their new rights as citizens. Linking political events at the city, state, and regional levels, Rosen places gender and sexual violence at the heart of understanding the reconsolidation of race and racism in the postemancipation United States.
Among rape perception studies, common types of male rape remain understudied. Using a randomized vignette design, I sampled 622 college students from a large Southwestern university to examine how ...victim gender and victim resistance influence blame attributions in party rape and date rape. Results revealed important interactions between victim gender, victim resistance, and rape type. Among other effects, resistance only affected victim blame in date rapes involving male victims. Results indicated that how respondents perceive victim and perpetrator responsibility, and which factors influence these perceptions, vary across rape type and victim gender. Implications for the rape perception literature are discussed.
PDF
