Round - III - Alok

Read previous round here. Table of Contents here.

Let me take the specific research question: does victim dress influence attribution of victim responsibility in rape cases? The answer appears to be "yes". Actual causal role of dress is not relevant because even in that case, the onus of rape has to be on the criminal.

You may like to go through some research papers: -

1.  Whatley, M. A. (1996). Victim characteristics influencing attributions of responsibility to rape victims: A meta-analysis. Agression and Violent Behavior, 1(2), 81-95
2. Workman, J. E. & Freeburg, E. W. (1999). An examination of date rape, victim dress, and perceiver variables within the context of attribution theory. Sex Roles, 41(3/4), 261-277. 
3. Whatley, M. A. (2005). The effect of participant sex, victim dress, and traditional attitudes on causal judgements for marital rape victims. Journal of Family Violence, 20(3), 191-200.

The issue of objectification. Depersonalization is an important mechanism that turns different individuals into prototypes of a category (as per social identity and self-categorization theories). The moment one talks about "men are like that"...depersonalization has already happened. To say that even otherwise a woman is not considered as person is to deny our own personal experiences. Mother, sister, wife and all other significant relations are based on "woman as person" rather than "woman as category" conception. To say that all unrelated women are objects is again far from truth. We need to acknowledge that criminals and normal human beings may think differently. Those who perpetrate crime on women are unlikely to be representative of human society.

Regarding your example of Genesis. It only shows a stage in life...not that with wife, the duties concerning parents are left behind. Available older literature may show that the phenomenon is fairly recent in terms of its reach. It was not a shame for us if a girl would call as "bhaiya" when we were in school or in college. Though, things were different during MBA.

Read the next round here.