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Does wearing sexy clothing cause a woman to be more likely to be raped?

In 2011, a Toronto police officer, Michael Sanguinetti, advised that "women should avoid dressing like sluts" in order not to be raped, thus inadvertently sparking the slutwalk movement.

Many people reacted angrily to his words, saying he was blaming the victim.

A more important question -- at least to me -- was whether this is good advice: are women who wear sexy clothes in fact more likely to be raped?

It appears the answer is No.

Imagine you intend to violently subdue someone. It's in your interest to choose a victim who won't fight back. And in fact rapists do look for signs of passiveness and submissiveness:

While people perceive dress to have an impact on who is assaulted, studies of rapists suggest that victim attire is not a significant factor. Instead, rapists look for signs of passiveness and submissiveness, which, studies suggest, are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing.

In a study to test whether males could determine whether women were high or low in passiveness and submissiveness, Richards and her colleagues found that men, using only nonverbal appearance cues, could accurately assess which women were passive and submissive versus those who were dominant and assertive. Clothing was one of the key cues: “Those females high in passivity and submissiveness (i.e., those at greatest risk for victimization) wore noticeably more body-concealing clothing (i.e., high necklines, long pants and sleeves, multiple layers).”

This suggests that men equate body-concealing clothing with passive and submissive qualities, which are qualities that rapists look for in victims. Thus, those who wore provocative clothes would not be viewed as passive or submissive, and would be less likely to be victims of assault.

Thus it may well be the case that the conventional wisdom (i.e. that a woman who dresses sexily is more likely to be raped) is wrong. That oughtn't to be enormously surprising; conventional wisdom is wrong on a lot of things.

(Source: Theresa Beiner, Sexy Dressing Revisited: Does Target Dress Play a Part in Sexual Harassment Cases? , p.144-145. Via Club Troppo.)

#rape #slutwalk

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