Victim Blaming
One of the more common social and system responses to sexual violence is to blame the victim for their victimization. A large body of research supports that victims of sexual violence are often blamed for their own victimization. The level of blaming is often correlated to how similar the victim is to the observer and may also be related to the observer’s perception of their own potential victimization. This behavior is called the Defensive Attribution Hypothesis (Grubb & Turner, 2012). Another victim-blaming behavior is called the Just world theory. It explains unforgivable, random acts as being the fault of the victim (they deserved the act), and therefore there is justice in the world. Victim blaming impacts the victims, and it affects how society and the CJS interact with the victims (Grubb & Turner, 2012).
Rape myths are stereotypes that societies have about rape victims. Significant research shows that rape myths impact victims, namely their willingness to report and how they are treated by society and the CJS (Grubb & Turner, 2012). The most common myths, according to Grubb and Turner (2012), are the following:
• Blame the victim for their rape (she asked for it/ wanted it/ liked it). • Express a disbelief in claims of rape (it wasn’t really rape; rape is a trivial event).
• Exonerate the perpetrator (he didn’t mean to, the signals were not clear, they were both drunk, etc.).
• Allude that only certain types of women are raped (she was a loose or promiscuous).
These myths are even more strongly applied to those who had consumed alcohol or drugs before their victimization, or if they had a sexual history (Grubb & Turner, 2012). For instance, sex workers are much more likely to be blamed for their rape compared to other victims (Sprankle, Bloomquist, Butcher, Gleason, & Schaefer, 2017).
We see these victim blaming and myths about victims in media reports (vanRyne, 2015) as well as on social media when there is discussion of high-profile cases (Stubbs-Richardson, Rader, & Cosby, 2018). These attitudes impact male victims as well as female victims. Male victims are seen as weak, and thus they are treated with less respect because they are perceived as violating cultural norms around the male gender. According to Javaid (2016), male victims get poor treatment from law enforcement, their victimizations are less likely to be believed, and they may be thought to be falsely accusing their perpetrator.