“But she was drunk”: Sexual violence and Blaming the victim

Abstract

Various studies have been demonstrating the importance of patriarchal values in the structuring of society, especially with regard to sexual violence against women, pointing out that women themselves are still blamed for the violence that they suffer. The work presented here falls within this context and analyzes how the social representations of university students about women victims of sexual violence are structured (Study 1; N = 288) and how information about the victim's skin color can affect the judgment that is made about women victims of sexual violence (study 2; N = 99). Together, the results indicate that the woman was blamed for the violence she suffered and this becomes more evident in the situation in which the woman was Black.

Keywords

• sexual violence
• social representations
• blaming the victim
• violence against women