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Cultural myths and supports for rape (1980)
| Venue: | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology |
| Citations: | 291 - 0 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Burt80culturalmyths,
author = {Martha R. Burt},
title = {Cultural myths and supports for rape},
journal = {Journal of Personality and Social Psychology},
year = {1980},
pages = {217--230}
}
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Abstract
This article describes the "rape myth " and tests hypotheses derived from social psychological and feminist theory that acceptance of rape myths can be pre-dicted from attitudes such as sex role stereotyping, adversarial sexual beliefs, sexual conservatism, and acceptance of interpersonal violence. Personality char-acteristics, background characteristics, and personal exposure to rape, rape victims, and rapists are other factors used in predictions. Results from regression analysis of interview data indicate that the higher the sex role stereotyping, adversarial sexual beliefs, and acceptance of interpersonal violence, the greater a respondent's acceptance of rape myths. In addition, younger and better educated people reveal less stereotypic, adversarial, and proviolence attitudes and less rape myth acceptance. Discussion focuses on the implications of these results for understanding and changing this cultural orientation toward sexual assault. The burgeoning popular literature on rape (e.g., Brownmiller, 1975; Clark & Lewis, 1977) all points to the importance of stereo-types and myths—denned as prejudicial, stereotyped, or false beliefs about rape, rape victims, and rapists—in creating a climate hostile to rape victims. Examples of rape myths are "only bad girls get raped"; "any healthy woman can resist a rapist if she really wants to"; "women ask for it"; "women 'cry rape ' only when they've been jilted or have something to cover up"; "rapists are sex-starved, insane, or both." Recently, researchers have begun to document that rape myths appear in the belief systems of lay people and of professionals who inter-act with rape victims and assailants (e.g.,
Keyphrases
rape myth rape victim cultural myth adversarial sexual belief interpersonal violence sex role stereotyping test hypothesis personal exposure regression analysis feminist theory proviolence attitude interview data false belief belief system cultural orientation sexual assault lay people personality char-acteristics cry rape bad girl popular literature rape myth acceptance healthy woman sexual conservatism climate hostile background characteristic clark lewis
