Kick her while she's down : an exploration of rape myth acceptance amongst the University of Malta student body

Abstract

The current study was conducted in order to determine if students of the University of Malta held a stereotypical view about rape. Research shows that rape myth acceptance has been found across a variety of samples and indicates that rape myth acceptance has serious negative consequences. The final study consisted of 100 participants. Twenty-seven of the participants were male and sixty-three were female. Participants came from various faculties of the university. Data was collected using a quantitative methodology, with likert scales used to analyze rape myth acceptance. The researcher postulated 3 hypotheses; (a) that the sample group in general would prove to have a somewhat stereotypical view of rape situations and would show levels of high rape myth acceptance, (b) that men would show higher rape myth acceptance than women, and (c) that students following courses in social sciences and humanities would have a lower level of rape myth acceptance due to their courses interest in human action. The first hypothesis was not supported for overall rape myth acceptance but was supported for rape myth acceptance of some individual rape myths. The second hypothesis was not supported for overall rape myth acceptance (p = .225) but was supported for 2 rape myth factors; victim responsibility (p = .013) and effects on women's alcohol consumption (p = .033) where the men displayed higher rape myth acceptance than women. The third hypothesis was supported by statistically significant scores for overall rape myth acceptance (p = .004), indicating that students from courses in natural and civil sciences displayed higher rape myth acceptance that students from humanities and social sciences. The final conclusion was that although University of Malta students did not exhibit high rape myth acceptance they did not display exceptionally low rape myth acceptance either. Rape prevention programmes were recommended to lower rape myth acceptance in the population.