Perceived Motivation for Rape: Gender Differences in Beliefs about Female and Male Rape.
When people hear the word rape, many think of one thing: asex starved? male violently attacking a woman and forcing intercourse upon her. A lot of people would assume this is motivated by a desire for sex, however many feminists see rape as motivated by power. Recently, researchers have been focusing a lot of their attention on rape perception, in which they conduct studies to see whether people blame the victim or perpetrator. Research has shown that people often blame the victim instead of the perpetrator because of numerous factors including: physical attractiveness, what the victim is wearing, previous sexual track records, and level of intoxication of the victim. It has also been shown thata drunk orsexily dressed? woman will be perceived more negatively than a woman who is described as sober and conservatively dressed.? The article I read focuses on the beliefs about the motivation for rape.
There are two explanations for motivation behind rape: the sexual motive and more recent feminist explanations believe it is a power motive. The sexual motive makes excuses for the perpetrator. Rape is always a symptom of some psychological dysfunction? The rapist is, in fact, a person who has serious psychological difficulties which handicap him in his relationships to other people, and which he discharges, when under stress, through sexual acting out? (Groth 1979: 5-6). The power motive explains how violence against woman is a basic part of our society and that rape is an example of how traditionally men dominate women. More recent findings show that the feminist concept of rape is becoming more widespread. Studies have also found gender differences. Men tend to believe that rape is more motivated by sex than power, and women believe the opposite. The article also went on to talk about male rape, telling us that little information exists about this topic.
