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Past research had found that one-half or more of all women who have had an experience that might meet the definition of rape do not label themselves rape victims. The present study examined the actual rape experiences of 33 women who labeled their assault experience as rape and 56 women who did not label their assault experience as rape through questionnaires and open-ended descriptions of what happened during their assault. Quantitative findings replicated past research, finding that acknowledged victims, compared to unacknowledged victims, were older, knew their assailant less well, experienced more forceful assaults, and had stronger negative emotional reactions to the experience. Qualitative analysis revealed that women were mostly likely to acknowledge their experience as rape when the assailant was not their boyfriend and they woke up with a man penetrating them or the assailant used force and dominated them to obtain intercourse. Women assaulted as children also acknowledged their experience as rape. However, when the assault involved a boyfriend, or if the woman was severely impaired by alcohol or drugs, or if the act involved oral or digital sex, the women were unlikely to label their situations as constituting rape.Research has consistently found that a large percentage of women-typically over 50%-who have experienced vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse against their will label their experience as something other than rape 1 be claimed if a woman does not label her experience as rape. Although there have been a number of studies attempting to differentiate women who label their experience as rape from those who do not in terms of personality and situational factors, few clear-cut relationships have emerged.

The goal of this research was to attempt to understand why white women are more prone to develop eating disorders than black women. Using self‐reports, we found that white women chose a significantly thinner ideal body size than did black women, and expressed more concern than black women with weight and dieting. White women also experienced greater social pressure to be thin than did black women. White men indicated less desire than black men to date a woman with a heavier than ideal body size, and white men felt they would more likely be ridiculed than did black men if they did date a woman who was larger than the ideal. The results suggest that black women experience eating disorders less than white women at least in part because they experience less pressure to be thin. © 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Past research has indicated that nearly half of college‐aged women who experience forced, nonconsensual sexual intercourse, do not label their experience as rape. We found evidence that these unacknowledged rape victims possess more violent, stranger rape scripts than do acknowledged rape victims, who are more likely to have an acquaintance rape script. The difference in rape scripts between acknowledged and unacknowledged rape victims was not due to different demographics or actual rape experience. However, unacknowledged victims did have a sexual history which involved less force than did acknowledged victims. Apparently, most unacknowledged victims do not define their rape experience as rape because they have a rape script of a violent, stranger, blitz rape which does not match their experience of being raped in a less forceful manner by someone with whom they were acquainted. The extent to which their less forceful sexual histories is related to their more violent rape scripts remains to be investigated.

Hooking up on college campuses has become more frequent than dating in heterosexual sexual interaction. Analysis of the relative benefits and costs associated with dating and hooking up suggest that women benefit more from dating while men benefit more from hooking up. U.S students (150 women, 71 men) at a midsized southeastern university indicated preferences for dating and hooking up across a number of situations and indicated the perceived benefits and risks associated with each. As hypothesized, in most situations women more than men preferred dating and men more than women preferred hooking up. Both genders perceived similar benefits and risks to dating and hooking up; differences provided insight into the sexual motives of college women and men.

We challenge researchers to consider sex and gender as a marker for possible social contextual differences. Disappointed by both philosophical and empirical attempts to find coherence in research making gender comparisons, we selectively review studies showing both context-specific similarities between women and men where overall comparisons found differences as well as context-specific differences where general patterns of similarity existed. These examples cut across embedded levels of social context, ranging from those immediately proximal to the individual (interpersonal) to organizational and broad societal structures. They suggest that seemingly identical contexts can have sweepingly different impacts on women and men and that effective social interventions be gender-sensitive.Comparing women and men, girls and boys, is a preoccupation that intrigues everyone from laypeople to research psychologists. A cursory check of PsycINFO in November 2002 catalogues 34,232 articles, 12,168 dissertations, 2,034 chapters, and 333 books under "human sex differences" (the Thesaurus term) and written in English. The topic areas covered by these studies are virtually universal across the discipline.A fundamental problem with our fascination with gender comparisons is that our exploration stops too soon. The vast majority of researchers documenting sex or gender differences seems to accept their description of difference as an explanation in and of itself. This way of thinking implies that sex or gender is the cause and that differences are rooted within women and men, girls and boys; as such, gender differences are part of our essential psychological natures. The purposes of the present paper are to challenge researchers both to think beyond superficial descriptions of difference and to consider more often the impact of the social context in which these differences occur.Our call to look to the social context to understand gender differences in behavior is not unique or even new. Shields (1975) cited similar arguments by Mary Calkins in 1896 and Leta Stetter Hollingworth in 1914. Naomi Weisstein (1968) reiterated the argument over 30 years ago:

Both psychologists and feminists believe power is an important and ubiquitous concept, yet its definition and scope eludes both groups. In this introduction to a special issue on women and power, we suggest three points to help organize and interpret research in the area. First, definitions of power should center around the distinction between “power‐over,” the domination and control of one person or group over another, and “power‐to” or personal empowerment. Second, power can be analyzed at different levels—societal, organizational, interpersonal, and individual—and, importantly, these levels interact. Third, power differences frequently underlie what appear to be gender differences in behavior; as society is currently configured, power and gender are never independent. Although the articles in this special issue often ask more questions than they answer, the present volume adds a feminist perspective to the psychological study of power.

Although most of the literature suggests that females are more cooperative than males, research on the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) game has often found females more competitive. Analysis of the PD game suggests that the term "cooperation" has been used differently in that context than in other situations. Cooperation usually refers to a style of behavior characterized by fairness, equalit}', and sharing, while in the PD game it refers to one of two alternative choices. Other past research has indicated that males are primarily motivated to win in a competitive situation, while females are more concerned with interpersonal accommodation. Combining these two lines of research, it was predicted males'vvould make choices in the PD game in such a way as to maximize their winnings, while females would alter their choices on the basis of the social nature of the setting. Two PD game studies were undertaken in which, for half of the subjects, the cooperative response would lead to higher winnings, while for the remaining subjects the competitive choice was optimal. In the first study 40 subjects played with like-sex partners, while in the second study 80 subjects played with opposite-sex partners, whose physical attractiveness varied. Both studies found males more likely than females to make the optimal choice, while females were more likely to vary their choices as a function of the sex and attractiveness of their partner. The findings suggest that males and females do not have differential motives to cooperate, but respond to different cues.