Hypermasculinity And Sexual Violence With Partners And Children
When it comes to sexual violence, offenses have almost always been viewed as an act nearly exclusively committed by males. This has lead researchers to look into the relationship of men committing sex related crimes and their enforced role in society. It is no secret that men and women are held to standards heavily enforced by society and that that influences their perspectives and morals, but it seems to affect men differently than it does women. This concept of hypermasculinity has a prevalent presence in today’s talk of our mostly patriarchal societies and is often viewed as the sole reason men commit sexual offenses against women. The definition of hypermasculinity in this report will be as stated in ‘It was good to learn how to show affection’: Central American men who reject hypermasculinity by Anita Schrader McMillan and Moli Paul, which says that “hypermasculinity involves the extreme valorisation of ‘male’ power (and consequent rejection of ‘feminine’ qualities and attributes) and the use of violence, if necessary, to maintain hegemony [dominance] over others. ”Desi Alonzo Vasquez Guerrero also describes hypermasculinity to be “a man's tendency to adhere to a rigid gender role script. ”These will be the definitions by which we understand the role of hypermasculinity in sexual violence.
The first article I came across in my search was Hypermasculinity, intimate partner violence, sexual aggression, social support, and child maltreatment risk in urban, heterosexual fathers taking parenting classes by Desi Alonzo Vasquez Guerrero. This article examines the effects of hypermasculinity on domestic violence, sexual violence, child maltreatment risk, and social support among straight fathers taking parenting courses. The author attempted to find direct correlations between hypermasculinity and violence with partners and children. This study was a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods because there were surveys and questionnaires involved, as well as inventories and scales used to measure mathematical reliability scores. The data collection methods specified in the article were a demographic questionnaire, brief child abuse potential (BCAP) inventory, the conflict tactics scale, hypermasculinity inventory, and sexual experience survey (Guerrero et al. , 2009. )The sample group consisted of 55 men who participated in community parenting classes. There does not seem to be a specified geographic area where the study was conducted, the only information given relating to location was America.
They found that there was no meaningful relationship between domestic violence and child maltreatment; income, alcohol and education were also not meaningful predictors of the dependent variables (Guerrero et al. , 2009. )However, hypermasculinity did show a significant relationship to several different types of domestic violence (physical, sexual and verbal) against partners and proved to be applicable outside of college environments. Some of the findings did match the authors expectations because they were proven before in different studies, but some of the findings actually differed from other studies or previous assumptions. The second article I came across was Justifying sexual assault: Anonymous perpetrators speak out online by Tracy N. Hipp et al. , which felt relevant to my research because it was a direct perspective of the perpetrators. Having a direct perspective allows a different type of analysis of the situation when the other party attempts to justify their actions, which can also be something attributed to hypermasculinity (feeling that they have a legitimate reason to commit a wrong because of entitlement or exaggerated self worth based on gender. )This article examines the online responses of sexual assaulters to questions posed by a user such as whether they regret the action and what their motivations were during this time.
Due to prior research and knowledge, the author(s) were expecting popular responses that have previously been recorded by men who have commited these actions (such as the women deserve it, they felt entitled, or sexual familiarity granted them access because if they engaged in sexual acts once, they automatically want to do it again, etc. )This study uses qualitative data and all of the responses are written by the perceived perpetrator on Reddit in an attempt to justify or explain their actions. The sample were people who identified as sexual offenders, although there is no specific information about this particular population because they come from anonymous online personas, but there is reason to believe they may represent the general population. After narrowing down the comments, 68 responses were left and used in the current study. A geographic area cannot be specified either because these accounts were anonymous as previously mentioned. The authors found that there were six popular defenses amongst this sample. These were “sexual scripts, victim blame, hostile sexism, biological essentialism, objectification, and sociosexuality” (Hipp et al. , 2017. )The findings matched their expectations as some of these responses were fairly common in other studies, but there was a connection made to all the defenses when looked at objectively. It seems that all the excuses perpetrators came up with stem from the same, if not incredibly similar, issues.
One issue leads to another and then there is an array subcategories of outcomes because people perceive and act on things differently, but it can almost all be traced back to the same theme. The third article is Masculinity and Sexual Violence: Assessing the State of the Field by Anjuli Fahlberg and Mollie Pepper which specifically seeks to understand why men commit most sexual crimes. This article is interested in the factors that mold the men to act this way and what continues to fuel the behavior and focuses on the relationship between masculinity and sexual violence. This is an article that doesn’t consist of an actual study, but more encompasses a combination of literatures to theorize the importance that masculinity plays in sexual offenses, the way that race can come into play, possible reasons behind assault in conjunction with masculinity and linking two ideas that are related by other significant factors. The insight from this reading is extremely vital to my research because it provides an outlook on this relationship different from those that conduct studies. It realizes the importance of explaining in detail specifics regarding meanings that can be applied to these types of situations, the links between the two and even the production of masculinity, as well as the production of the actual masculine state (Falhberg & Pepper, 2016. )
Lastly, The Role of Hypermasculinity, Token Resistance, Rape Myth, and Assertive Sexual Consent Communication Among College Men by Autumn Shafer et al. , questions and analyses the role of hypermasculinity, token resistance (no actually means yes), rape myth acceptance in terms of sexual consent communication. The authors expected to find a combination of all these factors playing a role in the way college men interpret, understand and accept consent. These factors, individually, have lead research to indicate that lack of respect/acceptance for consent are associated, but the author is testing all of these factors together to attempt to understand consent communication. The authors conducted a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, using both surveys and scores. A majority of the measures were conducted using five point scales (such as to indicate whether you strongly agree, strongly disagree and options in between- Shafer et al. , 2018) and were given through survey format. The sample consisted of 370 male college students attending a public institution.
The study was conducted in the southwestern region of the United States (Shafer et al. , 2018. )The authors found that sexual communication assertiveness showed a positive association, while token resistance and rape myth acceptance showed a negative correlation. This particular study determined that in these cases, hypermasculinity was not a substantial enough factor to assume significance in consent communication. It seems as though sexual communication assertiveness was the most influential factor out of the rest to show a positive relationship, and the rest either showed a negative relationship or one of little to no significance to draw a conclusion out of. All together, these articles help piece together a better understanding of hypermasculinity and its relationship to sexual violence. There is a clear correlation between masculinity and its effect on how men portray sexual actions and expectations.
The traits of hypermasculinity in themselves create a type of man that sees others, especially women, as below them and inferior. With this mindset, it seems that those with hypermasculinity seem to believe that certain rules do not apply to them because of what they feel is their status in society and more explicitly their place in the occurrence of events and they feel the need to take control. Since there is relationship between hypermasculinity and sexual crime, perhaps society needs to think about how to move forward with not pushing masculinity on men and instead start teaching them ways to cope and understand the feelings of others and help them feel secure in themselves so they don’t have to prey on others for reassurance that they truly are the “man” society wants them to be.
