Empowerment or Threat: Perceptions of Childhood Sexual Abuse in the #MeToo Era

Abstract

The rise of the #MeToo movement has shed light on the prominence of sexual violence, and its victims who often remain silent. Despite increasing awareness, victims or survivors of sexual violence who disclose may be faced with negative reactions such as disbelief or blame. Such reactions extend to child victims of sexual abuse. This study aimed to shed light on gender differences in responses to sexual violence against a backdrop of #MeToo. Through an online survey ( N = 253) on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, we assessed participants’ exposure to and perception of the #MeToo movement. In addition, we measured proximity to a victim or perpetrator of sexual violence. The effect of these variables on participants’ response to a disclosure of childhood sexual abuse was examined. Results indicated that men are more likely to perceive the movement as threatening than women. Furthermore, a discrepancy in proximity to sexual violence emerged, with women more likely to know a victim and men more likely to know a perpetrator. In response to a disclosure of childhood sexual abuse, men were more likely to respond in a skeptical manner than women. Positive perceptions of the #MeToo movement translated into more supportive responses to a disclosure. Proximity to a victim of sexual violence did not impact how people responded to a disclosure, but proximity to a perpetrator was associated with a more negative response. Although the aim of this movement is to give a voice to victims of sexual violence, it may trigger a defensive response from men, which makes them more skeptical toward disclosures of victimization.

Self-affirmation and False Allegations: The Effects on Responses to Disclosures of Sexual Victimization

“…The first goal of this study was to replicate some of the findings of an earlier study regarding exposure to and perceptions of the #MeToo movement (de Roos & Jones, 2020), and to further expand on these findings by adding false allegation and self-affirmation as variables. Our second goal was to determine whether a threat of false allegation would affect how people respond to a disclosure.…”

“…Despite the positive objectives behind the movement, perceptions of the movement vary. For example, recent research on perceptions of the movement found that men had more negative perceptions (Kunst et al, 2019), and this partially translated into a more skeptical response to a subsequent disclosure of sexual violence (de Roos & Jones, 2020). Further, some people believe the movement has gone too far and is ruining the lives of men who are publicly accused of sexual misconduct without due process (e.g., Stephens, 2017).…”

“…Further, women may be more likely to disclose to other women. On the other hand, closeness to someone who perpetrated sexual violence may be linked with more negative responses to disclosures (de Roos & Jones, 2020).…”

Reducing prejudice through self-affirmation

“…Regarding control conditions, some research involved participants recalling everything they ate and drank within the past 48 hours (Cohen, et al, 2000;De Roos, 2018), list all uses of a knife (Harvey & Oswald, 2000), list mundane tasks (Schimel, Arndt, Banko, & Cook, 2004) or write about a time in which they failed to achieve their highest-ranked value (Cohen et al, 2007). In most studies, however, participants write about their lowest-ranked value.…”

“…Many lists have overlapping concepts among the items represented. List 1) artistic skills, sense of humor, relationship with friends/family, spontaneity, creativity, athletics, musical ability, business/managerial skills, physical attractiveness, romantic values, social skills (Cohen et al, 2000;De Roos, 2018). List 2) art/music/theater, social life/relationships, business/economics/making money, religion/spirituality, social action/helping others, science/pursuit of knowledge (Shrira & Martin, 2005).…”