Co-occurrence of Rape Myth Acceptance, Sexism, Racism, Homophobia, Ageism, Classism, and Religious Intolerance

Abstract

Rape myth acceptance has been extensively studied. Little research is available, however, on the relationship of this variable to other oppressive belief systems. A sample of 492 male and 506 female college students completed the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale, the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (short form), the Neosexism Scale, the Modern and Old Fashioned Racism Scale, the Modern Homophobia Scale, a modified version of the Economic Belief Scale, the Fraboni Scale of Ageism, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (short form). Because there were no existing measures of intolerance toward multiple religions, the Religious Intolerance Scale was developed for this study (using relevant items from the Godfrey Richman Isms Scale). Findings here suggested that greater racism (both modern and old fashioned), sexism (both modern and old fashioned), homophobia (toward both gay men and lesbians), ageism, classism, and religious intolerance were each associated with greater rape myth acceptance. Moreover, each belief system collectively added to the prediction of rape myth acceptance, although sexism has the highest overlap with rape myth acceptance. Although gender did not moderate the relationship between oppressive belief systems and rape myth acceptance, results, across analyses, did indicate that men reported greater rape myth acceptance than women did. Results point to the interrelatedness of rape myth acceptance, racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, ageism, and religious intolerance.

The Prevalence of Rape Myths among Middle School Students across Gender and Socioeconomic Background

“…Several gender differences remain on the post items, even following the intervention. Overall, females still hold less sexual violence myths than males on the post-test, which is consistent with prior research (Aosved & Long, 2006;Burt & Albin, 1981;Edmonds, Cahoon, & Shipman, 1991;Krahe, 1988;Sawyer, 2002). One implication of this finding is that there must be more focus on programming for males in order to promote further decreases in sexual assault myths and bring them further in line with females on some of the myths.…”

“…Lonsway and Fitzgerald (1994) define rape myths as "attitudes and beliefs that are generally false but are widely and persistently held, and that serve to deny and justify male sexual aggression against women" (p. 134). It has been shown that men endorse higher levels of rape myths than do women (Aosved & Long, 2006;Burt & Albin, 1981;Edmonds, Cahoon, & Shipman, 1991;Krahe, 1988;Sawyer, 2002). Race was also shown to be a significant predictor of the acceptance of rape myths in several studies (Dull & Giacopassi, 1987;Fischer, 1987;Giacopassi & Dull, 1986;Williams & Holmes, 1981) although one study found that race did not affect rape myths (Gilmartin-Zena, 1987).…”

Rape Crimes Reviewed: The Role of Observer Variables in Female Victim Blaming

“…Similarly, men express a greater acceptance of rape myths, identify less with the victim and more with the rapist (Vrij & Firmin, 2001), subscribe to rape-supportive attitudes (McQuiller Williams, Porter, & Smith, 2015), and have more sexist beliefs than women (Aosved & Long, 2006). These studies provide invaluable information on the influence of gender on victim blaming, but they have some methodological limitations, in that they are often based on convenience samples of undergraduate students, making it difficult to generalize the results to other populations; these should include not only the general population but also professionals working in the field (e.g., criminal justice professionals or health carers).…”

“…Some authors explored the relationship between ambivalent sexism and rape myth acceptance, reporting that benevolent and hostile sexism are positively related to rape myth acceptance (e.g., Abrams et al, 2003;Aosved & Long, 2006;Chapleau, Oswald, & Russell, 2007;Sakallı-Uğurlu et al, 2007;Viki & Abrams, 2002;Yamawaki, 2007). Masser and colleagues (2010) added that rape myth acceptance is a form of benevolent sexism, in that it is closely related to gender role ideologies, suggesting that only "bad girls" get raped.…”

Judge me, judge me not: The role of eye size and observer gender on acquaintance rape

“…They express less certainty about the perpetrator's guilt (Deitz et al, 1984) and have more sexist beliefs than women (Aosved & Long, 2006). So, it is important to consider the role of gender when studying the social perception of rape.…”