College Sexual Violence: Cultural Environments and Masculinity
Eric Miller
aug 2020
When one thinks of a sexual predator, the first person that comes to mind for most is still the image of an overtly dangerous, deformed stranger in the shadows: somebody who must be clearly psychopathic or sexually depraved. It is so easy to reproduce an image like this because it is simply an amalgamation of images we have already been given: from amber alerts, from “stranger danger” warnings, and from the television, movies, and tabloid journalism we have consumed. The image of this man is horrific only on the surface level; on closer inspection, it comforts us. Conceptualizing rape and sexual violence as being perpetrated by men like this allows us to “other” sexual violence. It allows us—especially us men—to tell ourselves that sexual violence is something that happens to people we do not know or care about. Equally troublingly, it allows us to tell ourselves that the perpetrators of sexual violence are people we do not know or care about. This image of an almost otherworldly sexual predator helps us relegate sexual violence to the realm of the abstract, to frame it not only as rare but also as entirely unrelated to our actions. All of us believe we are normal, good people, and so, by concluding that sexual violence is distant from our lives, those of us who are not implicated directly as perpetrators or as victims allow ourselves to eliminate the possibility that we are complicit.
Both the national and Washington University-specific 2019 AAU Campus Climate Surveys on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct tell us that sexual violence is not distant, and that this shadowy man is a false image, one which places the blame of sexual violence on a largely fictional figure. Rather, sexual violence is an endemic problem on WashU’s campus and college campuses throughout the country. Scholarly analyses from the fields of sociology, masculinity studies, and gender theory provide several intertwined explanations for the extremely high rates of sexual violence in the AAU report. Using these analyses, I will explore how most sexual violence is primarily an act aimed to reassert power, rather than one rooted in sexual desperation, and how sexual violence is intrinsically linked with the power-centric masculinity that is socialized in our culture. Moreover, I will link sexual violence to both specific and broad cultural contexts, including those of fraternities and athletic organizations. The overarching conclusion is that sexual violence needs to be understood beyond the acts of specific individuals, through the lens of social and cultural environments that are conducive to sexual violence, and through the masculine practices and attitudes that help to create and are perpetuated by those environments.
The Washington University-specific version of the AAU report reveals some damning statistics. The most incriminating of which is that 42.5% of WashU undergraduate women in their fourth year or higher answered yes when asked if they had experienced penetration or sexual touching involving physical force, inability to consent or stop what was happening, or attempted penetration by force while attending the university.¹ This was almost 10% higher than the 33% who answered yes in the 2015 survey.² The language of this question is very specific, but it should be made abundantly clear: the elements of this question match directly onto specific consent violations in WashU’s “Student Code of Conduct.”³ This means that the question is essentially equivalent to asking if the person has experienced rape or attempted rape under the university’s own definition of consent. Beyond this being an increase from the 2015 statistics, WashU now has a rate of reported sexual harassment and sexual assault that is significantly above the national average.⁴ Several women I spoke to were not surprised by these statistics, but to my naive self they seemed improbable: how can rates of sexual assault approach 50% in an era where, on the surface, it seems as though colleges and society as a whole are finally taking significant steps in combatting sexual violence?
I must note here the possibility that these statistics have risen due to an increase in reporting, rather than an actual increase in rates of sexual violence. There are significant reasons to doubt this, however. For one, the AAU survey was completely anonymous and asked questions under narrow criteria. I am inclined to argue that conceptions of sexual violence have not changed so drastically since 2015 that “sexual touching involving physical force,” for example, would now be interpreted very differently by most women. Indeed, the report reveals that this specific language was a very intentional choice, as using terms such as “rape” or “attempted rape” seems to induce, unfortunately, a significant element of interpretation.⁵ Moreover, it is dangerous to assume this reporting-based stance because it would reframe the 2019 AAU report as a positive development. This would undercut the urgency for reform without any conclusive evidence that rates of sexual assault have actually gone down. Until proven otherwise, it is safer to assume the report reflects a real increase in sexual violence. Finally, if we assume that these increases are caused by greater willingness to report, then the 2019 AAU statistics would still reflect a more accurate portrayal than the 2015 statistics. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of the causes of sexual violence is as necessary as it has ever been.
While this data only speaks to the victims, and not the perpetrators, the lenses of masculinity and cultural environments are critical to understanding sexual violence for one important reason: women are usually the victims of sexual violence, and men are largely the perpetrators.⁶ It is unreasonable to believe that sexual violence can be fully understood without examining masculine attitudes and masculine environments, and indeed, there is much troubling evidence that the attitudes of college men are far more rape-supportive than is commonly assumed. While most men do not commit rape, Michael Kimmel—probably the foremost expert in the field of masculine studies—notes that “in several surveys, many men indicated that they would consider it—if the conditions were right and they knew that they would not get caught.”⁷ Kimmel did not have any citations for these claims; however, there is significant evidence supporting them. One study I examined asked college men to rate themselves on a scale of 1 (not likely at all) to 5 (very likely) for their likelihood to rape a woman if they knew they would not be caught. Thirty-seven percent of men gave themselves a likelihood to rape of 2 or higher.⁸
How can one-third of college men express some likelihood to rape? One powerful explanation is a concept that sociologists Tristan Bridges and Tara Leigh Tober invoke from social psychology: “social identity threat.” The theory states that “when a person perceives some elements of their identity that they care about to be called into question...they attempt to over-demonstrate qualities associated with that identity.”⁹ In applying this concept to masculinity, this becomes the “masculine overcompensation thesis”: stating that men tend to overcompensate for attacks on their masculinity.¹⁰ In support, Bridges and Tober quote a study that found “men whose masculinity had been threatened were less likely to identify sexual coercion as sexually coercive and more likely to blame the women victimized in the scenario” and were “more likely to agree with statements about the ‘inherent superiority of males.’”¹¹ Likewise, Kimmel characterizes our conception of “normal” masculinity as fundamentally intertwined with aggressive heterosexuality, noting that there are “norms about masculinity that make every encounter with every woman potentially about sexual conquest.”¹² These norms likely underlie why masculine overcompensation can manifest in attitudes supporting sexual violence. If sexual conquest is entangled with masculinity as we know it, then the masculine overcompensation thesis would expect that one way men could overcompensate for challenges to their masculinity would be by aiming to further demonstrate sexual dominance. In this way, “rape… [is] less a crime of passion than a crime of power...less about love or lust than about conquest and contempt.”¹³ Sexual assault and sexual harassment become ways in which men reassert their masculinity, without regard for the horrific consequences to their victims.
In order to connect these theories to the AAU survey, we must ask ourselves: in what ways are masculinity challenged in WashU and other college environments? If we, like Kimmel, believe that men conceptualize masculinity as being intertwined with maintaining power, then the answers appear everywhere.¹⁴ For one, men may perceive that their intellectual power is challenged at WashU, as many men who were at the top of their class may now be average among their peers—often among women, no less. Even when a man’s intellect is challenged by other men, however, that man may still overcompensate by targeting women for retaliation, as “masculine overcompensation thesis” does not suggest that a man will only overcompensate in the same aspect of his masculine identity that was challenged, or only against the person who challenged him.¹⁵ Indeed, this is reflected in the aforementioned study quoted by Bridges and Tober, which found that threats to men’s masculinity did not have to be sex-related in order to prompt an increase in attitudes supportive of sexual violence.¹⁶ Likewise, power in the form of general life control is also challenged, as college is tumultuous and often overwhelming. A man’s social status, a critical element of power, is unlikely to transfer smoothly from high school to university life. Athletics in most cases become more competitive in college. Men must now contend with a roommate, even as this is a relationship that is not commonly thought of as having a power dynamic. Career considerations, and thus career setbacks, often come strongly into play for the first time. Men and women face these challenges alike, and they are not only difficult in the context of masculine identity. However, the thesis of masculine overcompensation posits that men are likely to react to them in a far more hostile, unproductive way.¹⁷ Bridges and Tober summarize their argument with a quote from Kimmel, who notes that “young, straight, class-advantaged, white men…[now] have to compete with women, people of color, and more” which can produce “aggrieved entitlement,”... a “political psychology” that often leads to “racist and sexist sentiments toward women and racial minorities.”¹⁸ In this way, masculine sexual violence can be both a gendered and racial issue.
Yet, masculinity itself cannot explain the rates of sexual violence as shown in the AAU report. It cannot explain why “only” 13.2% of undergraduate black women and 13% of undergraduate Asian women responded that they had experienced what constitutes rape or attempted rape, far less than the 30.9% of white undergraduate women who answered yes to this question.¹⁹ It cannot explain why “today’s college women are five times more likely than other women to be sexually assaulted,” as while masculinity is heavily challenged in college, many of these challenges continue as men enter real-world environments.²⁰ Moreover, it cannot explain why most research has failed to pin down particular attitudes or beliefs that increase the likelihood that a man will commit rape.²¹ Theorists in the field of masculinity studies have concluded that there are many different forms of masculinity.²² Dr. Stephen Whitehead, for example, draws a distinction between “hegemonic masculinity” and “subordinated or marginalized masculinities.”²³ If these distinctions exist, why does there not seem to be a specific “type” of masculinity that makes a man more prone to be sexually violent? It is likely the case that at least some of these marginalized forms of masculinity are culturally constructed to emphasize power, and thus can be similarly threatened. Still, masculinity alone does little to help us understand why rapes are committed more often in college, and in particular college environments. It is crucial, then, that we also examine these environments themselves.
In support of this emphasis on environments, Professor Patricia Martin of Florida State University argues that “the dynamics of particular social contexts make them more probable sites for sexual assaults, irrespective of individual men’s attitudes or beliefs.”²⁴ It is completely true that fraternity and athletic environments greatly increase the likelihood of rape, but rather than the common assumption that this is attributable solely to sexist attitudes from fraternity boys and athletes, Martin argues that they are more attributable to an “external environment composed of the academic institution” and the “internal environment composed of affluent (fraternity) and/or venerated (athletes) men.”²⁵ This theory of an “external environment” can be applied to WashU and the WashU AAU report, in which only 59.9 percent of respondents indicated that it was “very or extremely likely Washington University administration would take a report of sexual assault or misconduct seriously.”²⁶ If the external environment of WashU is perceived as hostile to reports of sexual violence, then this acts as an enabling force for “internal environments” to exist that are conducive to sexual assault and harassment. The external environment may be considered hostile for many reasons, as there are a plethora of forces that can halt a report of sexual assault or sexual harassment from resulting in a conviction. Martin highlights that “academic institutions have conflicting priorities” regarding sexual violence.²⁷ They overtly wish to prevent sexual violence, but under the surface, there may be hidden pressures on administrations to dismiss sexual assault and sexual harassment cases, which can be from “sports enthusiasts,” “fraternity alumni,” and even “public opinion.”²⁸ The image of a university can be harmed if they are perceived to not be following due process with regards to these cases, yet due to a culture that prioritizes men over women, “due process” is often biased against victims of sexual violence.²⁹ Martin notes that “police officers, district attorneys, and even judges may resist lodging criminal charges against star athletes or fraternity boys.”³⁰ Fraternities are long-standing organizations, and thus “alumni may pressure administrators to excuse a member accused of…sexual assault.”³¹
These outside pressures interact with factors specific to “internal environments” to perpetuate sexual violence.³² Martin cites a meta-analysis that shows “fraternity (and athletic) contexts lead to higher odds of involvement in sexual assault.”³³ She attributes this to several factors. The typical features of fraternity environments: namely, “low lighting,” “loud music,” and “the plying of alcohol” all are used to “enhance the odds of their [women’s] sexual compliance.”³⁴ Here we see the conjunction of masculinity and cultural environments: masculinity prioritizes sexual conquest, while cultural environments are designed to make sexual conquest possible. Fraternity environments are homosocial environments, in that “they discourage members from having girlfriends.”³⁵ They are distinct from other environments in terms of their “in-group loyalty,” “economic affluence,” and perhaps most importantly, their “homogeneity.”³⁶ This last factor may explain why the rates of sexual assault shown in the WashU AAU report are higher for white females than minority females where masculinity alone cannot; as Martin notes, fraternities tend to be low-diversity environments.³⁷ In this way, along with the factor of “economic affluence,” class and race are inseparable from sexual violence.
Given all of this, it is essential to broaden our understanding of the environmental layers that contribute to sexual violence. Whereas Martin includes two layers that interplay to contribute to sexual violence—one of the academic institution itself and one of the internal environments within the institution—her analysis hints at the need for a third layer of understanding. Many elements of our culture that could sensibly influence rates of sexual violence do not begin or end at the gates of a university, and without accounting for them, our understanding of sexual violence on college campuses is necessarily incomplete. This gap reveals the need for an analysis pertaining to the national environment, including that of the immediate social context around a university, such as that of the city or state. As Martin’s analysis indicates, in these layers lie the broadest cultural forces, which are inevitably intertwined with the “internal” and “external environments” that she specifically details. The legal system and legal norms, for example, go far beyond the university’s “external environment,” yet Martin directly states that they affect the way academic institutions handle cases of sexual violence, which then affects the level of impunity perceived by perpetrators of sexual violence in “internal environments.”³⁸ While there certainly has been scrutiny of broader cultural effects on rates of sexual violence, such as in the conceptualization of a national “rape culture,” this scrutiny does not necessarily continue down to the level of academic analyses and university policy, as evidenced by Martin’s decision not to specifically address cultural effects beyond external environments. The omission of this wider layer of analysis obscures the origins of these power-centric masculine attitudes from male college students, and obscures the relationship between internal environments, external environments, and national environments: these cultural attitudes on sexual violence that exist outside of a university context. On the other hand, the inclusion of this new layer of analysis will further our understanding of sexual violence by illustrating how there can be interactions between even the broadest and most specific cultural environments, and revealing how these interactions reinforce cultural and masculine norms to perpetuate high rates of sexual violence.
My analysis, and by extension the analysis of the scholars I draw on, has limitations. It is highly disturbing, for instance, that within the WashU AAU report the rates of male undergraduates who reported that they had experienced rape or attempted rape rose from 7.5% in 2015 to 11.8% in 2019, as this is almost a 150% increase.³⁹ While I wished to address this, the foundation of my analysis is in theories pertaining to sexual violence where men are the perpetrators, and women the victims. I believe it would have been disingenuous to attempt to apply such theories to woman-on-man or man-on-man sexual violence without further research. Another limitation is the restriction of the scope of my analysis to the lenses of cultural environments and masculinity. While this restriction is inherently reductive, as sexual violence is too complicated to be fully understood through these aspects, it allowed me to better emphasize and elaborate on these two areas. Masculinity, as conceptualized by scholars, is fragile, not because men are weak or sensitive, but because the sense of power that is intertwined with masculinity is often fleeting and never total; power can always be challenged, in small and large ways. College campuses, as an environment of great identity upheaval, create a multitude of challenges to masculinity and power, which some men choose to respond to through overcompensation in the form of sexual violence. Moreover, through “internal environments” and “external environments,” along with a third lens of “national environments” that I propose is necessary, college campuses are almost by nature environments conducive to sexual violence, due to a triple effect of layering environments that enable sexual violence. In acknowledging the role of masculinity and these layered environments, we must be diligent not to excuse the actions of individuals. It would be an injustice to argue that the perpetrators of sexual violence are simply at the whim of forces outside of their control, or that masculinity being challenged is the problem itself. Rather, these lenses of cultural environments and masculinity should be used in conjunction with the emphasis we already have on individual offenders and harmful norms, in order to create a complete portrait of sexual violence. It is time to understand that sexual violence will continue to occur unless and until particular norms of masculinity are challenged and deconstructed, with masculine environments challenged and transformed as well.
1,2 Cantor, David, et al. “Washington University in St. Louis Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct.” Association of American Universities, 2019, Web.
3 “University Student Conduct Code.” Washington University in St. Louis. Web.
4,5 Cantor, David, et al. AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct [Executive Summary]. Association of American Universities, 2019. Web.
6 Kimmel, Michael S. “What's Love Got to Do with It?: Rape, Domestic Violence, and the Making of Men.” The Gender of Desire: Essays on Male Sexuality. State University of New York Press, 2005, 187-196, p. 188.
7 Ibid, p. 189.
8 Edwards, Sarah and Kathryn Bradshaw and Verlin Hinsz. “Denying Rape but Endorsing Forceful Intercourse: Exploring Differences Among Responders.” Violence and Gender. 1 (2014). 188-193.
9-11 Bridges, Tristan, and Tara Leigh Tober. "Mass Shootings, Masculinity, and Gun Violence as Feminist Issues." SocArXiv. 14. Dec 2018. p. 502.
12,13 Kimmel, Michael S. “What's Love Got to Do with It?: Rape, Domestic Violence,and the Making of Men.” The Gender of Desire: Essays on Male Sexuality. State University of New York Press, 2005, 187-196, p. 189.
14 Ibid.
15-18 Bridges, Tristan, and Tara LeighTober. "Mass Shootings,
Masculinity, and Gun Violence as Feminist Issues." SocArXiv. 14 Dec 2018. p. 502.
19 Cantor, David,
et al. “Washington University in St. Louis Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct.” Association of American Universities, 2019, Web.
20 Zhang, Naijian and Mary F. Howard-Hamilton. Multicultural and Diversity Issues in Student Affairs Practice: a Professional Competency-Based Approach (Charles C Thomas, Publishers: 2019), p. 123.
21 Martin, Patricia Yancey. “The Rape Prone Culture of Academic Contexts: Fraternities and Athletics.” Gender & Society. 30:1 (February 2016): 30–43.
22,23 Whitehead, Stephen. “Contingent Masculinities: Disruptions to ‘Managerialist Identity.” Practising Identities, Explorations in Sociology. Roseneil S., Seymour J. (eds). Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1999. p. 89-90.
24,25 Martin, Patricia Yancey. “The Rape Prone Culture of Academic Contexts: Fraternities and Athletics.” Gender & Society. 30:1 (February 2016): 30–43. 32-33.
26 Cantor, David, et al. “Washington University in St. Louis Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct.” Association of American Universities, 2019, Web.
27-35 Martin, Patricia Yancey. “The Rape Prone Culture of Academic Contexts: Fraternities and Athletics.” Gender & Society 30:1 (February 2016). 30–43. p. 32-33.
36-38 Martin, Patricia Yancey. “The Rape Prone Culture of Academic Contexts: Fraternities and Athletics.” Gender & Society 30:1 (February 2016): 30–43. p. 32-34.
39 Cantor, David, et al. “Washington University in St. Louis Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault andMisconduct,” Association of American
Universities, 2019, Web.
Works Cited
Bridges, Tristan, and Tara Leigh Tober. “Mass Shootings, Masculinity, and Gun Violence as Feminist Issues.” SocArXiv, 14 Dec. 2018.
Cantor, David, et al. AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct [Executive Summary]. Association of American Universities, 2019. Web.
Cantor, David, et al. “Washington University in St. Louis Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct.” Association of American Universities, 2019. Web.
Edwards, Sarah and Kathryn Bradshaw and Verlin Hinsz. “Denying Rape but Endorsing Forceful Intercourse: Exploring Differences Among Responders.” Violence and Gender (2014). 1. 188-193.
Kimmel, Michael S. “What’s Love Got to Do with It?: Rape, Domestic Violence, and the Making of Men.” The Gender of Desire: Essays on Male Sexuality. State University of New York Press, 2005, 187-196.
Martin, Patricia Yancey. “The Rape Prone Culture of Academic Contexts: Fraternities and Athletics.” Gender & Society 30, no. 1 (February 2016): 30–43.
“University Student Conduct Code.” Washington University in St. Louis. Web.
Whitehead S. “Contingent Masculinities: Disruptions to ‘Man’agerialist Identity.” Practising Identities: Power and Resistance Eds. Sasha Roseneil and Julie Seymour. British Sociological Association Conference Volume Series (Palgrave Macmillan: 1999).
Zhang, Naijian, and Mary F. Howard-Hamilton. Multicultural and Diversity Issues in Student Affairs Practice: a Professional Competency-Based Approach. Charles C Thomas, Publisher, LTD., 2019.