“Promiscuous girl, you’re teasing me, you know what I want and I got what you need”

It’s not out of the ordinary to receive a UM Crime Alert for some kind of sexual assault that occurs somewhere on campus. But would you ever go as far to say that someone’s promiscuity (how they’re dressed, their personality traits or how much they drink) would affect the reasoning for their attack? Researchers looked into the idea of females promiscuity and if it has an effect on who’s to blame in sexual harassment scenarios. 

In Ferguson, Berline, Noles, Johnson, Reed and Sicer’s study titled, “Variation in the Application of the ‘Promiscuous Female’ Stereotype and the Nature of the Application Domain: Influences on Sexual Harassment Judgements after Exposure to the Jerry Spring Show,” they showed clips from the Jerry Springer Show to groups of participants both featuring and not featuring a promiscuous female. They then surveyed the viewers opinions on different scenarios. One of the most important findings mentioned in the study was that there is “individual variation in the application of the promiscuous female stereotype to a sexual harassment victim can mediate the influence of media-based stereotype activation on subsequent perceptions and evaluations of that victim” (Ferguson, 2005). So basically, if the female victim seemed promiscuous, the viewers blamed the victim for the sexual harassment being put on them. Which was interesting because the tone of this article suggests that women who dress provocatively and promiscuously are the ones who are to blame for rape. However, in Kim et al’s article about heterosexual scripts, they mention that a common feminine script in the media is the script of feminine courting strategies. In this description they describe that woman dress provocatively to gain power in romantic relationships (Kim, 2007). This becomes confusing, because one researcher is saying dressing provocatively could lead to a female being the person to blame for sexual harassment being put upon them and being subject to subordinate actions from males.  Then we have another researcher saying dressing provocatively could get you date and give you power in a romantic relationship. 

In the Ferguson article, I found their main finding to be interesting and disheartening as a woman in a college setting. This article made me think of an example from 2013, the Steubenville Rape Case. In this case, a 16-year-old girl was raped by a few of her high school’s football players. The girl was intoxicated and appeared “out of it”, when the boys partook in acts that involved video recording the incidents and taking pictures and posting them to social media sites. However, this particular case became widely criticized in the media. Some outlets blamed the victim for her drinking too much and putting herself in a bad situation. After surfing the internet for some articles pertaining to this case, I found a quote from Serena Williams. 

"Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don't know. I'm not blaming the girl, but if you're a 16-year-old and you're drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don't take drinks from other people. She's 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn't remember? It could have been much worse. She's lucky. Obviously, I don't know, maybe she wasn't a virgin, but she shouldn't have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that's different." (Huffington Post, 2013) 

I somewhat agree with what Serena is saying about being taught about responsible drinking behaviors from parents and elders. However, there are times when people get out of control because of alcohol. I’m sure most people can say that they have been intoxicated in their lifetime. But that doesn’t mean that they did it on purpose to get raped by someone. Also, in relation to her being 16-years-old and Serena questioning why she was THAT drunk... uh yea, she was THAT drunk because she’s 16. I’m assuming she has probably only come in contact with alcohol a few times since she has barely been in high school for a year. She probably doesn’t know her limits yet and she’s just learning how her body responds to alcohol. I know when I first started drinking, I didn’t know my limits, and yeah, the first couple of times I went over-board. However, the people I was around didn’t decide to humiliate me in public and cause me mental trauma. Lastly, no, I would not consider the girl’s experience a lucky one. It’s an unfortunate one, and one that has ruined her reputation and embarrassed her.

I think the boys who did this need their full punishment and the fact that people think this incident was her fault is ridiculous to me. It’s sad to see that this kind of reaction to this event is not out of the ordinary. The study we read in class and Serena William’s comments about it, all show that people really think this way when it comes to who’s to blame for sexual harassment. 

Kim, J. L., et al. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research.

Ferguson, T., Berline, J., Noles, E., Johnson, J., Reed, W., Spicer, V. (2005). Variation in the Application of the "Promiscuous Female" Stereotype and the Nature of the Application Domain: Influences on Sexual Harassment Judgements after Exposure to the Jerry Springer Show. 

"Serena Williams Steubenville Rape Victim "Shouldn't have put herself in that position." Huffington Post. Web. 18 June 2013.