The feminist explanation for rape: An empirical test

Abstract

This study was directed toward testing a major component of the feminist explanation for rape: that such criminal behavior is most fundamentally the result of traditions of male domination in most sociopolitical and economic affairs. The rape rates of 26 large American cities were compared, using both official FBI and victimization statistics, relative to various indicators of these cities' degree of sociopolitical and economic inequalities between the sexes. Four out of 14 correlations were significant, three with a sign opposite to that predicted by the feminist explanation. When presumed effects of the two strongest control variables were removed, using partial correlation techniques, only one coefficient was significant, and it was in the direction contrary to the feminist explanation. Generally, rape rates in American cities appear to be unrelated to sex disparities in earnings, education, occupational prestige, or employment. Thus, the belief that reducing average sex disparities in sociopolitical and economic terms will ameliorate a community's rape problem was not supported.

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