Leah E. Adams-Curtis

College Women’s Experiences of Sexual Coercion A Review of Cultural, Perpetrator, Victim, and Situational Variables

The literature on college women’s experiences with sexual coercion is reviewed, with an emphasis on work published since 1990. Sexual coercion is defined as any situation in which one person uses verbal or physical means (including the administration of drugs or alcohol, with or without the other person’s consent) to obtain sexual activity against consent. We argue that coercive sexual behavior among college students can best be understood within the context of other sexual behaviors and values on college campuses. Significant definitional and methodological problems are identified and discussed. Important victim, perpetrator, and situational variables are identified and discussed. These include attitudes toward women, beliefs about sexual behavior (including rape-supporting beliefs and values), communication problems, coercion-supporting peer groups (including fraternities and athletics), concepts of masculinity and femininity, sexual promiscuity, and alcohol.

First- and Second-Generation Measures of Sexism, Rape Myths and Related Beliefs, and Hostility Toward Women Their Interrelationships and Association with College Students’ Experiences with Dating Aggression and Sexual Coercion

Sexist attitudes and rape-supporting beliefs have long been linked to relationship aggression and sexual coercion. This study investigates how recent developments in the conceptualization and measurement of these variables are related to each other and how they are related to aggressive and coercive behaviors. Second-generation measures of sexism and rape-supporting beliefs were found to be related to each other and to aggressive and sexually coercive behaviors. Relationships between attitude measures appeared to be based primarily on shared belief systems, whereas relationships between attitude measures and aggressive behavior appeared to be based primarily on generalized hostility toward women.

Experiences With Sexual Coercion in College Males and Females Role of Family Conflict, Sexist Attitudes, Acceptance of Rape Myths, Self-Esteem, and the Big-Five Personality Factors

The contributions of aggression in family of origin, acceptance of rape myths, sexist attitudes, the Big-Five personality factors, and self-esteem to the experience of sexual coercion or aggression were studied in a homogenous sample of young college students. Significant relationships were found between aggression in the family of origin and experience with sexual coercion for both males and females. Stepwise multiple regression indicated that personality and attitude measures, including acceptance of rape myths, were not related to sexual aggression in males. A similar analysis for females found small relationships between extroversion and childhood selfesteem and experience with sexual aggression. The implications of these results are discussed.

Dating Aggression, Sexual Coercion, and Aggression-Supporting Attitudes Among College Men as a Function of Participation in Aggressive High School Sports

Aggressive male sports have been criticized as bastions of sexism and training grounds for aggression against women, but there have been few empirical demonstrations of these alleged relationships. The authors studied self-reported dating aggression and sexual coercion in 147 college men. Men who had participated in aggressive high school sports, as compared with other men, engaged in more psychological aggression, physical aggression, and sexual coercion toward their dating partners, caused their partners more physical injury, were more accepting of violence, had more sexist attitudes and hostility toward women, were more accepting of rape myths, and were less tolerant of homosexuality. Results indicate that participation in aggressive high school sports is one of the multiple developmental pathways leading to relationship violence.

Body Dissatisfaction in Women and Men: The Role of Gender-Typing and Self-Esteem.

Body dissatisfaction was studied in 589 predominately middle class, European American, college students, classified as masculine-typed, feminine-typed, androgynous, or undifferentiated using the Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Body dissatisfaction was defined as the discrepancy between a drawing selected as describing the individuals body and their selection of drawings representing: (1) their ideal body; (2) the body they believed members of their sex preferred; and (3) the body they believed members of the opposite sex preferred. Two separate studies found that women classified as feminine-typed or undifferentiated were more dissatisfied with their bodies than were women classified as masculine-typed or androgynous. Similar results were found for men. Both studies also found that women, regardless of gender-type, had thin ideals and greatly overestimated male preferences for slender female bodies. The theoretical implications of these results for gender schema theory and two other theories of gender typing were discussed. It was concluded that it is unnecessary to appeal to complex theories of gender-mediated socialization in order to explain differences in body dissatisfaction in women or men. Instead, these differences are most parsimoniously understood as the consequences of differences in global self-esteem.

Perceptions of the woman who breastfeeds: The role of erotophobia, sexism, and attitudinal variables

Perceptions of breastfeeding women were studied in a sample of 201 predominately European American college students. Both men and women had very positive perceptions of breastfeeding women as compared to bottlefeeding women. As predicted, erotophobic women and men had less favorable impressions of the breastfeeding woman than did erotophilic individuals. Men, but not women, who scored high on Glick and Fiskes Benevolent Sexism or Hostile Sexism scales (Glick & Fiske, 1996) had more favorable impressions of the breastfeeding woman than did those with low scores. As predicted, this effect was larger for Benevolent Sexism than for Hostile Sexism. No relationships were found between impressions of breastfeeding women and the Hostility Toward Women Scale (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995) or the Trait Guilt and Moral Standards scales (Jones, Schratter, & Kugler, 2000). The results supported hypotheses that sexualization of the breast, discomfort with sexual stimuli, and sexist attitudes are related to perceptions of the breastfeeding woman.

The Role of Hostile and Benevolent Sexism in Women's and Men's Perceptions of the Menstruating Woman.

Perceptions of menstruating women were studied in a sample of 244, predominantly European American, college freshmen. Both women and men rated the menstruating woman, as compared with the average woman, as higher on the Neuroticism factor from Lippas (1991) measure of the Big Five personality factors. Men also rated her as lower on the Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness factors, and women rated her lower on the Extraversion factor. Women rated her as perceiving herself as less masculine and more feminine. Both women and men rated her as less “energized” and “sexy,” but more “irritable,” “sad,” and “angry.” In addition, men rated her as less “clean and fresh,” “nurturing,” and “reasonable,” and more “spacey” and “annoying.” Significant relationships were found between negative impressions of the menstruating woman and the Hostile Sexism Scale (Glick & Fiske, 1996). Although most ratings by men and women were negative, women perceived the menstruating woman as more “maternal,” “strong,” and “trustworthy.”

Perceptions of Married Women and Married Men with Hyphenated Surnames

A predominately European American sample of 197 middle-class college students rated married women and men with hyphenated surnames on the Big Five personality factors (R. Lippa, 1991), the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1978), the adjectives “masculine” and “feminine,” and 12 adjective phrases reflecting different aspects of marriage. Both men and women perceived women and men with hyphenated last names as different from other married people. In comparison with the average married woman, the woman with a hyphenated name was perceived as more friendly, good-natured, industrious, and intellectually curious. She was also perceived as well educated and as more likely to have a career. Men with hyphenated surnames were also perceived as accommodating and good-natured, and viewed as being both nurturing and committed to their marriage. Women and men with hyphenated names were generally perceived as having higher levels of both instrumental and expressive traits than other married people. Women appear to have more positive perceptions than men, particularly of the man with a hyphenated name. The results suggest that college students have generally positive perceptions of married people with hyphenated names.

Environmental challenges in groups of capuchins

We are interested in the behaviour of socially housed capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) in captivity, particularly in their instrumental behaviour and the social context in which it occurs. We have found it useful to incorporate novel objects and tasks in our programme to provide environmental change.

Gender role typing and attachment to parents and peers.

HAIGLER, DAY, AND MARSHALL (1995) studied the effects of sex and gender role typing on attachment to parents and peers, as measured by the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment-Revised (Annsden & Greenberg, 1987), among a sample of students attending a community college in the United States. As predicted, they found that overall attachment to mothers was higher than attachment to fathers, but they found no difference between male and female participants in overall level of attachment to parents. The highest level of attachment was among persons classified as androgynous or as feminine on a double median split of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1981a). The lowest levels of attachment were among persons classified as masculine or as androgynous. The results for the androgynous and undifferentiated groups were predicted, but the results for the feminineand masculine-typed groups were not. Haigler et al. found that the female participants had higher peer attachment than did the male participants, but they found no evidence of differences in peer attachment as a function of gender type. We attempted a replication and extension of the Haigler et al. (1995) study among 395 students (220 female, 175 male; mean ages = 17.89 years [SD = .49] and 17.93 years [SD = .48], respectively) attending a required seminar for freshman students at Millikin University. We determined sex typing by using a double median split (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1975) of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence & Helmreich, 1978). We measured degree of attachment by asking the participants to indicate, on a 7-point scale, how close they had been to their parents in childhood. They indicated on a similar scale how many close childhood friends they had had. As in the findings of Haigler et al. (1995), the men, r(174) = 4.63, p < .001,