On national and cultural boundaries: a cross-cultural approach to sexual violence perpetration in Brazil and the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

The majority of research on rape has so far neglected to examine the effects of socio-cultural beliefs and practices on sexual violence perpetration, with most authors dedicating themselves, instead, to an individualistic approach of this phenomenon. Although these approaches are certainly valid, they often ignore how these behaviours are embedded in the culture and, as a result, do not adequately explore the causes and consequences of sexual violence perpetration. Therefore, the primary goal of this review is to redress this deficiency, focusing on the connection between the phenomenon and the cultural backdrop against which it occurs. Hence, a discussion around certain factors that may serve to either legitimise or to condemn sexual violence in two different countries (Brazil and UK) is necessary. To make this possible, differences regarding each country’s culture, rape legislation and prevalence are presented, and issues regarding the current individualistic theoretical approach to the subject are explored.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual violence
• rape
• culture
• gender norms
• Brazil
• UK

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Corrigendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Arielle Sagrillo Scarpati http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9817-6527

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil, Brasília/DF – Brazil through a scholarship provided to the first author.