Contribution to Book
Patriarchy, Not Hierarchy: Rethinking the Effect of Cultural Attitudes in Acquaintance Rape Cases
WOMEN AND THE LAW
(2017)
Abstract
Do certain people view acquaintance rape cases in ways that favor the man? The answer to that question is important. If certain people do, and those people form a disproportionately large percentage of the people in the institutions that process these cases, then those institutions may process these cases in ways that favor the man. In 2010, Dan Kahan published Culture, Cognition, and Consent, a study on how people evaluate a dorm room rape scenario. He found that those who endorsed a stratified, hierarchical social order were more likely to find that the man should not be found guilty of rape. If Kahan is right, radical change may be necessary. The institutions responsible for handling sexual assault complaints – law enforcement communities, the military, and university and college administrations – are stratified and hierarchical, and are likely over-populated by people who are attracted to hierarchical institutions and who hold hierarchical world views. These institutions may need to be overhauled – or even replaced. However, the study has a serious methodological flaw: it uses the Hierarchy-Egalitarianism Scale to measure those hierarchical world views, and as this article demonstrates, this scale has reliability and validity issues. This article then applies a different methodology to the underlying data and shows that patriarchy, not hierarchy, explains the differences in guilt perceptions. This more accurate understanding of Kahan’s data carries important policy implications. Rather than radical change, targeted training that addresses inaccurate rape beliefs may be enough to ensure accurate processing of these cases.
Keywords
- criminal law,
- sexual assault,
- law and psychology
Disciplines
- Law and
- Criminal Law
Publication Date
2017
Editor
Tracy A. Thomas ed.
Publisher
Thomson Reuters
Citation Information
Eric R. Carpenter, Patriarchy, Not Hierarchy: Rethinking the Effect of Cultural Attitudes in Acquaintance Rape Cases, in WOMEN AND THE LAW 227, 262 (Tracy A. Thomas ed., Thomson Reuters, 2017).