CRIM 316 Textbook Content [Test 3]

Ch. 11 Sexual Assault on the College Campus

Definition of sexual assault

• Sexual assault not restricted to forced/attempted intercourse
• Include unwanted sexual acts ranging from nonconsensual kissing, anal, oral, vaginal intercourse
• Weiss (2013) found unwanted sexual touching is an ordinary occurrence, students get used to it, minimize it, and excuse the behaviour
  • Know risks going in, and think they’re worth it
• Revenge porn (image-based-sexual abuse): not only committed by ex-partners, some do it for money, as a joke, or no reason at all
  • I.e. Ohio case in 2012
  • Role of male peer support: attachments to male peers and the resources that these men provide to encourage and legitimate woman abuse - powerful determinant of campus sexual assault
  • No one stopped filming of rape, laughed, analogies/making fun
  • On continuum of sexual violence, abuse, attacking women’s sexual autonomy

The extent of sexual assault on college campuses

• 62% of college women experienced some type of assault - Kanin (1957)
• 20% experienced attempted/rape
• 1 in 4 undergraduate student women victimized by some type of sexual assault
• Majority of perpetrators not strangers - male acquaintances, classmates, friends, hook-up partners, boyfriends, ex-boyfriends
• Focus on heterosexual women neglecting gay, bisexual, transgender students
  • At greater or equal risk
  • Rate of sexual assault exp by gay men nearly equal to heterosexual women

CQLS survey

• LGBTQ respondents twice as likely to report being victimized
• Limitations:
  • Impossible to determine sex/gender identities of perpetrators
  • Impossible to identify factors that influenced offenders
• Members of LGBTQ non-campus populations targeted by homophobic people
• Or may be due to racism
• Living in “double closet” silenced by assaulters and society that refuses to help

Hate crime: predicate/base criminal offence (harrassment/intimidation/assault/arson/murder) and evidence that the perpetrator’s actions are motivated by prejudice against the group represented by the victim

• Study found less than 11% of women in experienced 1 or more of 5 variants of hate-motivated sexual assault bc of their real/perceived race, origin, religion, sex, orientation, physical/mental disability, political orientation

Results should be read with caution; Impossible to identify race, sex, gender identities of perpetrators and precise reason for why respondents were victimized is unknown

• Post-secondary institutions showing trends towards intolerance (escalating rates of racial, ethnic, gender harassment)

Bias incident: conduct, speech, expression that is motivated by bias/prejudice, but does not involve a criminal act

• Hurtful like hate crimes
• Verbal or sexual harassment should be treated as major warning signs

Common responses to campus sexual assault survey data

• False allegations of sexual assault more significant problems than true ones
• But less than 2% of campus rapes reported are false
• Stranger rape seen by many as real rape while acquaintance rape is dismissed
• Institutions of higher learning continue to be fertile breeding grounds of sexual assault and patriarchal male peer support
• Rape-supportive culture - sexual assault is common, norms, attitudes, and beliefs encourage and justify this crime
  • Alcohol-fueled miscommunication and “regretted sex” is widely accepted
  • “Gonzo pornography”: profitable, (1) females characterized as subs, main role is provision of sex to men; (2) depicts hardcore, body-punishing sex, demeaning

Male peer support and sexual assault on campus - 2 models

1. Social support (specifically male peers) is a major component

• Many men experience stress in dating - sexual problems, challenges to perceived male authority
• Some men deal with problems privately, some turn to male friends for advice, social support
• The resources provided by peers may encourage and justify woman abuse under certain conditions
• May even influence men to victimize their dating partners regardless of stress
• Having male friends who physically, sexually, and psychologically victimize their dating partners strongly related to abusive acts by men who experience high levels of dating stress (i.e. challenges to patriarchal authority)
• If friends with other men who abuse women, they will choose to abuse their own
• Sociological assertion promoted by differential association and social learning theorists: victimization of women is behaviour that is socially learned from interaction with others
• Informed by feminist thought

1. 4 important factors added

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  1. Ideologies of familial and courtship patriarchy: describes domestic/intimate situations; who makes decisions, drives, pays for dinner, when to have sex
  • Recognizes the how broader social patriarchy acts as an ideology that justifies not only to men but to many women why male superiority should reign in many fields

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  2. Alcohol consumption
  • Related to much campus sexual assault

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  3. Membership in social groups (frats, sports teams)
  • Same stressful situations but includes sports teams, single-sex dorms, etc.
  • These organizations objectify and exploit women through songs, newsletters, group showings of porn, “no means yes”, culture of “scoring” and sexual entitlement, shaming if date says no

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  4. Absence of deterrence
  • Few men ever punished for assaults, if they are, punishments are mild
  • Few local prosecutors will push such cases, especially against athletes

• Considers social forces important in feminist theory

• Although society gives many messages that feminists often term a rape-supportive-culture, those who have friends that reinforce such messages are the ones most likely to become predators

Shortcomings of model 2

• Tested empirically, but limited tests of entire model (adding a measure from Gottfredson’s low self-control theory gave the model more explanatory power and significant)
• Rapidly growing number of assaults, absence of theoretical work on topic
• Much of criminology in current era dominated by measurement and statistical analysis

Preventing and responding to campus sexual assault: the contribution of bystander intervention training

• U.S. federal requirements to implement “bystander intervention programs” as part of sexual assault prevention strategy
• Attempt to increase campus community’s knowledge of sexual assault, change students’ acceptance of sexual assault and other types of violence, decrease rape myth acceptance - ultimately reduce amount
• Green Dot: training program effective of increasing bystander intervention
  • Interactive training to become active bystanders
  • Asks students to visualize a map with green dots spreading across map of U.S., each one representing an individual action
  • Each green dot could be: pulling a friend out of a high-risk situation, donating to local service provider, displaying awareness poster in room/office, individual choice to make world safer
• Limitations:
  • Shortage of research on long-term effects
  • For bystander intervention to work during a sexual assault, a bystander is needed (those victimized in private contexts will not receive intervention)
  • Extremely heteronormative (sexual minorities)
  • Violence against LGBTQ community
• U.S. Department of Education
  • Command to reveal names of sexual assault survivors to campus administrators worrisome
  • LGBTQ survivors have to confront trauma of revealing victimization, fear of further discrimination, viewed as deviant and unhealthy
  • Heterosexual survivors will not reveal experiences fro fear of humiliating investigation

Key Points

• Sexual assault on campus not new problem, decades of research show that it still plagues institutions of higher learning
• Not restricted to forced/attempted penetration
• At least 25% of female undergrads experience some type of sexual assault
• Rate of sexual assault on members of LGBTQ campus community is higher than among heterosexual students
• Clear majority of sexual assault perpetrators are either acquaintances, classmates, friends, hook up partners, romantic partners
• Male peer support most powerful determinant of sexual assault on campus
• More theoretical development and theory testing needed
• Bystander intervention training most widely used prevention and intervention initiatives