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This study investigated the impact of respondent gender, victim gender, and victim sexual orientation on judgments toward the victim of a depicted stranger rape. Respondents were required to read a scenario in which victim gender and sexual orientation varied between subjects, and to complete measures of behavioral blame, responsibility, and severity of the attack. Results revealed that male respondents made more anti-victim judgments than female respondents did. Male respondents judged gay male victims more negatively than they did other victims. Female respondents' judgments were pro-victim regardless of victim gender and victim sexual orientation. Results are discussed in relation to the feminist analysis of victim blame, and blame toward male rape victims. Implications for support services, particularly of male victims, are also considered.
It is well documented that female victims of rape by men are blamed at least to some extent for their attack. A variety of victim characteristics and behavior have been shown to affect judgments of victim blame (Pollard, 1992). Attacker behavior, such as whether or not the attacker possessed a weapon during the rape, also affects judgments of victim blame (Williams, 1984). Many previous studies have also shown that men hold the victim more responsible for the attack, and blame the attacker less (Pollard, 1992), and tend to more firmly endorse rape myths than women do (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994). Additionally, victims are considered to have suffered less (Check & Malamuth, 1983) and are held more responsible for the rape (Hammock & Richardson, 1997) when the rape occurred in a dating situation than when the rape was carried out by a stranger.
Feminist explanations of victim blame toward female rape victims have focused on the negative gender stereotypes of women, and "rape myths" that are prevalent in society (e.g., Burt, 1980). Feminists emphasize that we live in a "rape culture" where the sexual scripts to which men and women are socialized emphasize men as sexually dominant and possessive, and women as sexually passive (Quackenbush, 1989). According to this script, "respectable" women are not supposed to indicate their sexual interest directly, while men are supposed to persist in their attempts to gain sexual intercourse from women (Abbey, 1982). Such stereotypes, feminists claim, create a climate which is hostile and blaming to female rape...