Perceptions of Vulnerability: A Target Characteristics Approach to Disability, Gender, and Victimization

Abstract

This article takes an intersectional approach to how gender and disability affect the likelihood of experiencing violent or sexual victimization in a young adult cohort. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) Wave 4, I adopt a target characteristics approach to victimization. A visible signifier of disability increases the risk of violent and sexual victimization. Disability status itself increases the risk of sexual victimization. Gender interacts with disability, as visible signifiers of impairment affect only women while the effect of disability on sexual victimization is stronger for men.

Acknowledgments

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/Add Health). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

I am most grateful for the invaluable input provided by Dr. Susan Sharp and Dr. Trina Hope. I thank the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their insightful comments and critiques.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology in 2012.

Notes

***p ≤ .001, **p ≤ .01, *p ≤ .05.

***p ≤ .001, **p ≤ .01, *p ≤ .05.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul D. C. Bones

PAUL D. C. BONES received his M.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 2011. He is currently pursuing his doctorate at the same university. He is interested in studies of disabled populations, how neighborhoods affect criminal victimization, gender and race intersections in victimology, and college deviance.