While the problem of sex offending has become widely researched, little is still known about how individual cases and alleged offenders warrant intervention. For years, research on sex offenders has focused on the male perpetrator and ignored the female perpetrator. There has been some supposition as to why women have been ignored as a topic of inquiry, including traditional gender stereotypes, scepticism on the part of professionals, and biases about its occurrence. In this study, how sex offenders come to be recognized by decision-makers is the focus of inquiry, based on the alleged offender's gender, the gender of the perceived victim, as well as the gender of the decision-maker. Secondarily, this study examined the role that personality plays in the decision-making process regarding men and women alleged of sexual abuse. Using the liberal feminist position to examine gender roles and sexual scripts, as well as West and Zimmerman's (1987) concept of 'doing gender' and a new concept, 'reading gender', in conjunction with personality theory, this study explored how decision-making is conditioned by gendered schema and levels of authoritarianism, "belief in a just world" and sex roles. Using a mixed methods approach, participants completed a questionnaire, and three personality scales. It was found that decision-making is conditioned not only by the gender of the respondent, but also by the offender, in such a way that men and women regarded the same situations of sexual abuse in different ways. The gender difference that became apparent was also conditioned by levels of authoritarianism and "belief in a just world".
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/28107 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Sand, Emily C |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 136 p. |
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