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"Boys Will Be Boys" and Other Gendered Accounts

An Exploration of Victims' Excuses and Justifications for Unwanted Sexual Contact and Coercion

West Virginia University

An examination of 944 victim narratives from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) finds that one in five women who reveal an incident of sexual victimization to the NCVS excuse or justify their situations, largely by drawing on social vocabularies that suggest male sexual aggression is natural, normal within dating relationships, or the victim's fault. The study's findings substantiate the influence that rape myths and gender stereotypes have on victims' perceptions of their own unwanted sexual situations and demonstrate the ways in which cultural language delimits victims' recognition of sexual victimization as crime and inhibits reporting to the police.

Key Words: excuses • gender stereotypes • justifications • rape myths • sexual victimization

This version was published on July 1, 2009

Violence Against Women, Vol. 15, No. 7, 810-834 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1077801209333611


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