Gender differences in medical students' attitudes towards male and female rape victims

Abstract

This study examines attitudes towards female and male rape victims (ARVS, Ward, 1988) among UK medical students (N = 240; 120 females and 120 males). The study's hypotheses, namely, that male respondents will view rape victims more negatively than female respondents and that male victims will be viewed more negatively than female victims, were supported. Implications of the findings in relation to the inclusion of sexual violence teaching in UK medical undergraduate curricula, and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Keywords:

• attitudes
• medical students
• female rape
• male rape
• gender

Notes

1. Participants were briefed as follows, ‘This questionnaire concerns your views of social issues. In particular, it focuses on the issue of rape. Could you please answer the questions in this questionnaire as honestly as possible. Please circle the number that most fits how much you agree or disagree with the statement. For example, number 1 would mean that you strongly disagree with the statement, number 3 means that you neither agree or disagree and number 5 means that you strongly agree with the statement. The questionnaire takes about 10 minutes to complete and your answers will remain anonymous and confidential'.

2. One interesting issue is that the present findings reflect relatively young people's views of sexual violence (participants' mean age = 23.8 years). This is consistent with other studies on medical students (Best et al., study – participants' mean age = 25.8; Williams et al., study – mean age = 23.6 years) and other medical personnel's perception of sexual violence (Uji, Shono, Shikai, & Kumamoto, 2007) but in direct contrast to rape perception studies conducted on non-medical participants. These show that older participants usually hold more conservative views towards rape victims than younger participants (Ward, 1995; Anderson & Doherty, 2007). Given that participants' age could be a potential source of bias in rape perception, and that medical students, for a variety of reasons such as length of training and possible funding issues associated with this (which may deter older students from embarking on medical training) tend to be a young cohort, future research should examine further why a reasonably young and by extension, enlightened group (Anderson & Doherty, 2007) should subscribe to stereotyped and negative views of rape.