Cultural underpinnings of sex victimology

We live in a society that trains and encourages females to be victims of sexual coercion and males to victimize females. In addition, it has important implications for what must be done to prevent sex victimization in its many forms.
Females are generally socialized to be passive and dependent while males are programmed to be independent and aggressive. This fundamental difference lies at the heart of sex victimization, which is primarily an act of power and control.
Most families are generally given the job of socializing children to fill prescribed gender roles and thus supply the needs of a power society…Ingrained in our present family system is the nucleus of male power and domination, No matter how often we witness the devastatingly harmful effects of this arrangement on women and children, the victims are always asked to uphold the family values and submit to abuse.
The teenage boy is quick to learn that he is expected to be the sexual aggressor. For him, it is acceptable – even “manly” – to use persuasion or trickery to seduce his prey. He is also taught (by our society, if not in his home) that females do not really know what they want, that when they say “no” they mean “maybe” they mean “yes.” He may also have heard a bit of male myths that says – in reference to some unhappy female – “what she needs is a good lay.” Given this background, it’s not surprising that what men see as being an “active, aggressive (and desirable) lover” may quickly be transformed into sexual assault in its various forms.
Most women have been taught as children not only to be passive (nice, polite, lady-like) but also to be seductive and coy. They are usually not trained to deal with physical aggression (unlike boys, whose play activities develop this capacity) but are trained to deal with sexual situations in a way that is shy, modest or reserved.  Thus the female in a situation of sexual coercion is ill prepared to act against sexual aggression. Faced with a physical threat, she often becomes psychologically paralyzed. Faced with unwanted sexual demands, and social expectations, she is likely to question what it is about her manner, dress, or behaviour that produced the attention: she blames herself and feels guilt instead of taking more positive action. This hesitancy is frequently misread, or ignored by the male, who sees it as a sign of weakness and a chance that she will give in. His past experience may prove him right: how many women “give in” in various undesired sexual situations is not known.
There are no perfect solutions that can wipe out sexual coercion, but a significant part of the problem can be addressed in two fundamental ways. First and foremost, as this discussion implies, is to change traditional gender-role socialization that puts females in the position of being vulnerable to sexual abuse. Second, in-depth attention is required to identify the conditions that push men into the “victimizer” role. Only when a clear understanding of the causes and motivations underlying coercive sex is at hand will it be possible to develop effective strategies for dealing with this problem on a large scale basis. 
In an essay titled “Raising Girls for the 21^st Century,” Emilie Buchwald (1993) makes the following suggestions for helping girls learn to know their strengths.

1.      Tell your daughters what helped you to survive growing up.
2.      Give girls your attention and approval.
3.      Teach girls to be independent.
4.      Encourage fathers to be active allies in remaking the culture.
5.      Teach girls at an early age about their bodies and their sexuality; replace sexual ignorance (and gender-linked stereotypes) with sexual knowledge, including specific facts about sexual harassment and other forms of sexual coercion.
6.      Let girls recognize that they can be part of changing our culture, and that cultures can in fact change.
7.      Enlist women mentors and role models.
8.      Find ways for girls to empower themselves through athletics and learning to play together.
9.      Teach girls to be media critical in order to avoid the undercurrent of endorsements of sexual violence in today’s movies and television.
10.  Avoid reinforcing gender stereotypes.
11.  Encourage girls to feel happy with themselves.


Boys can be taught different sexual values and attitudes if we protect them from violent entertainment (or at least help them see how the violence in our media is not an endorsement of what should happen in real life) and teach them, from childhood on, to view themselves as future nurturing, nonviolent responsible fathers.

As long as our culture enforces gender-role stereotypes that train females to be sexual victims and program males to see sexual aggression as “manly,” we will continue to have problems with sexual coercion in its many forms.