636239

research-article2016
VAWXXX10.1177/1077801216636239Violence Against WomenStoll et al.

Article
Violence Against Women
1­–18
Gender-Blind Sexism and © The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1077801216636239
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Laurie Cooper Stoll1, Terry Glenn Lilley1,

and Kelly Pinter2

Abstract
The purpose of this article is to explore whether gender-blind sexism, as an extension of
Bonilla-Silva’s racialized social system theory, is an appropriate theoretical framework
for understanding the creation and continued prevalence of rape myth acceptance.
Specifically, we hypothesize that individuals who hold attitudes consistent with the
frames of gender-blind sexism are more likely to accept common rape myths. Data
for this article come from an online survey administered to the entire undergraduate
student body at a large Midwestern institution (N = 1,401). Regression analysis showed
strong support for the effects of gender-blind sexism on rape myth acceptance.

Keywords
rape myth acceptance, gender-blind sexism, color-blind racism

In a 2007 U.S. Department of Justice study, Krebs, Lindquist, Warner, Fisher, and
Martin (2007) found as many as one in five undergraduate women experience an
attempted or completed sexual assault during their college years. The high rates of vic-
timization found among college women highlights a number of enduring gender
inequalities that persist in higher education. These include restrictions of movement for
women (Fisher & Sloan, 2003; Sheffield, 2007; Warr, 1985), the stigmatization of rape
and sexual assault survivors (Ahrens, Campbell, Ternier-Thames, Wasco, & Sefl, 2007;
McMahon, 2007, 2010), and the lack of institutional supports for women who seek
justice (N. Anderson, 2014; Kramer, 1994; Pérez-Peña & Taylor, 2014; Sanday, 2007).
We argue that a pervasive gender-blind ideology that serves to explain/justify women’s
subordination underlies these inequalities. Furthermore, we believe this ideology is best

1University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, USA

2College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:
Laurie Cooper Stoll, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, 1725 State Street, 432C Wimberly Hall, La
Crosse, WI 54601, USA.
Email: lcstoll@uwlax.edu

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2 Violence Against Women 

understood not as the consequence of sexist attitudes on the part of prejudiced individuals,
but as both the reflection of a patriarchal social system conducive to rape and sexual assault
and the “organizational map” (Bonilla-Silva, 1997) that guides how individuals act toward
gender and gender inequality within that system. The purpose of this article is to explore
whether gender-blind sexism, as an extension of Bonilla-Silva’s racialized social system
theory, is an appropriate theoretical framework for understanding the creation and contin-
ued prevalence of rape myth acceptance (RMA).

Racialized Social System Theory: Beyond the “Prejudice

Problematic”
In 1997, Bonilla-Silva called for a structural interpretation of racism to address what
he saw as important limitations in the “idealist” view of racism that prevailed at the
time. He argued this view confined the study of racism to the field of social psychol-
ogy by reducing it to an individual-level phenomenon rooted in psychological disposi-
tions. With its emphasis on structure, racialized social system theory diverges from
social-psychological studies of racism that have historically focused on the “prejudice
problematic” (Wetherell & Potter, 1992): identifying the nature and extent of prejudice
to develop prejudice reduction interventions (see also Dixon & Levine, 2012).
In contrast to the dominant view at the time that racism was best defined as a set of
beliefs held by individuals who could potentially lead to prejudice and discrimination,
Bonilla-Silva (1997) argued,

Although “racism” has a definite ideological component, reducing racial phenomena to

ideas limits the possibility of understanding how it shapes a race’s life chances. Rather
than viewing racism as an all-powerful ideology that explains all racial phenomena in a
society, I use the term racism only to describe the racial ideology of a racialized social
system. That is, racism is only part of a larger racial system. (p. 467)

Bonilla-Silva’s racialized social system theory posits that after a society is racialized,
a set of social relations and practices develops at all levels of society based on racial
distinctions. Taken together, these relations and practices constitute the racial structure
of a society. Out of this racial structure, a racial ideology evolves. However, as Bonilla-
Silva points out, this ideology is not simply a reflection of the racialized system.
Instead, it “becomes the organizational map that guides actions of racial actors in
society. It becomes as real as the racial relations it organizes” (p. 474). In subsequent
works, Bonilla-Silva (2001, 2003) referred to the ideology of color-blind racism as the
“new racism” in the post–Civil Rights era.
According to Bonilla-Silva (2006), “The central component of any dominant racial
ideology is its frames or set paths for interpreting information” (p. 26, emphasis in
original). Color-blind racism manifests in four frames used predominantly by Whites
to interpret information about race: abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism,
and minimization of racism. Abstract liberalism relies on the basic principles of politi-
cal and economic liberalism to explain racial matters: for example, the justification of

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Stoll et al. 3

Whites’ opposition to forced integration based on the liberal belief that all individuals
should have a “choice” of where they want to live. The naturalization frame explains
racial phenomena in terms of natural occurrences. For instance, the choice to date only
partners of the same race is rationalized not as racism but the belief that people are
“naturally” attracted to others of the same race. Cultural racism relies on culturally
based arguments to explain racial inequality such as the belief that Black children
perform poorly in school because “Black culture” does not value education. Finally,
minimization of racism is based on the notion that discrimination is no longer a major
determinate of life chances for racial minorities; therefore, what appear to be racial-
ized outcomes can be explained away by factors other than racism.
Like color-blind racism in the post–Civil Rights era, contemporary gender-blind sex-
ism operates in a political climate in which blatant sexism is supposedly rejected, yet
sexist ideologies, policies, and practices continue. This “modern sexism” (Benokraitis &
Feagin, 1986) is predicated on the assumption that because society is now “post-gender,”
what sexism remains resides only in individual acts of prejudice or discrimination on the
part of sexist persons who are out of touch with mainstream beliefs about gender. In
other words, individuals can be sexist, but not social systems or policies. Following the
theoretical model of gender-blind sexism originated in the work of Stoll (2013), we sug-
gest that within the present “post-gender” era of assumed social equality, individuals
generally interpret information about gender, much like race, through the frames of
abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural sexism, and the minimization of sexism.

The Frames of Gender-Blind Sexism

At the most fundamental level, abstract liberalism asserts that no demographic group
should be singled out for special treatment; instead, every American should have
access to equal opportunities or have autonomous choice in matters of residence or
access to resources (Bonilla-Silva, 2006). When it comes to race, Whites tend to use
abstract liberalism to explain their opposition to policies, such as affirmative action,
intended to address racial inequalities, if in fact such policies are viewed as “privileg-
ing” certain (non-White) groups over other (White) groups. When it comes to gender,
individuals can rely on abstract liberalism to reject policies such as the Lilly Ledbetter
Act or the Violence Against Women Act, if such initiatives are seen as benefitting, or
impinging on the rights of, one particular gender over another. Like racial equality,
gender equality is assumed to be a zero-sum game.
From a naturalization perspective (Bonilla-Silva, 2006), segregation is not the
result of racism but “biological” or “natural” phenomena; the reason that individuals
tend to self-segregate is not because they are socialized to identify primarily with their
racial group but because “like attracts like.” Obviously, there is also widespread appeal
for using this same logic when it comes to gender, although in the case of gender (as
opposed to race presently), there tends to be far less stigma for privileging biological
explanations of social differences. The common wisdom is that although socialization
may account for some differences between boys and girls, they are essentially hard-
wired differently (e.g., Sax, 2005; Stoll, 2013).

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4 Violence Against Women 

Just as cultural racism relies on culturally based arguments to explain racial differ-
ences, cultural sexism relies on culturally based arguments to explain gender differences.
The same logic used to buttress claims about gender and sexism using the naturalization
framework is still present, but unlike naturalization, which views these differences as the
outgrowth of organic or biological processes, cultural sexism views differences as the
result of social processes that distinguish certain types of men and women. Within this
frame, deviation from traditional gender role socialization based on hegemonic mascu-
linity, emphasized femininity, and homophobia (Connell, 1987) is generally called on to
justify the unequal station of boys and girls and women and men in the larger society, as
well as the unequal station of those who are straight and those who are gay, lesbian,
bisexual, transgender, or otherwise gender or sexual non-conforming.
Finally, minimization of racism seeks to explain away current racial disparities, if
they are acknowledged at all, as the result of factors that have nothing to do with racial
discrimination. According to Bonilla-Silva (2006), minimization of racism is evident
in statements such as “It’s better now than in the past,” or “There is discrimination, but
there are plenty of jobs out there” (p. 29). Similarly, minimization of sexism uses the
same logic when it comes to gender: Gender inequality either does not exist anymore
or, if it does exist, it is due to reasons other than institutional sexism. For example, the
reason that women are more likely to major in psychology as opposed to engineering
is not because women are tracked out of engineering fields or because women who
enter them tend to be marginalized (Bobbitt-Zeher, 2007; Colander & Holmes, 2007);
it is because women are just not as good as men at math and science. Note that, much
like with race, individuals often rely on any combination of gender-blind frames to
explain why this is the case: (a) Women and men have the same educational opportuni-
ties today, women simply do not choose to go into male-dominated fields (abstract
liberalism); (b) women, unlike men, do not have the spatial skills required to go into
math and science fields (naturalization); and/or (c) women prefer fields such as psy-
chology as opposed to engineering because they are more interested in building rela-
tionships than building cities (cultural sexism).
Taken together, the frames of color-blind racism and gender-blind sexism reflect
commonsense notions about race and gender that are used to justify and explain contem-
porary racial and gender inequality (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Stoll, 2013). The common
frames, styles, and stories that comprise these ideologies operate like “cul-de-sacs,”
according to Bonilla-Silva, because once people filter information through them, they
explain racial (and gender) phenomena following a predictable route (p. 26). In this way,
color-blind racism both reflects and perpetuates a racialized social system. In the same
fashion, gender-blind sexism reflects and perpetuates a patriarchal social system. For
example, with regard to sexual assault, the commonsense notions we rely on to make
sense of (and rationalize) women’s victimization are often referred to as rape myths.

Previous Research on RMA

According to Lonsway and Fitzgerald (1994), rape myths are “attitudes and beliefs
that are generally false but are widely and persistently held, and that serve to deny and

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Stoll et al. 5

justify male sexual aggression against women” (p. 134, emphasis in original). Over the
years, researchers have uncovered a number of important findings related to RMA
including the ability of persons to endorse rape myths while acknowledging the nega-
tive effects of rape (Buddie & Miller, 2001). In fact, RMA has been documented
among persons who work in occupations that are supposed to support rape and sexual
assault survivors, including counselor trainees (Kassing & Prieto, 2003), police offi-
cers (Page, 2010), and clergy (Sheldon & Parent, 2002). Furthermore, Basow and
Minieri (2011) found RMA to be the strongest predictor of how participants perceived
rape, including to whom they assigned blame, and whether or not sex was warranted
based on the circumstances of an encounter. Similarly, Eyssel and Bohner (2011)
found that the higher the RMA of participants, the more likely they were to believe that
men accused of rape were not guilty. McMahon’s (2010) research suggests that college
students who support rape myths are less likely to intervene as bystanders in poten-
tially threatening situations. In addition, RMA can prevent women from defining
unwanted sexual encounters as rape; in Peterson and Muehlenhard’s (2004) study,
several women rejected this label although their experiences were well within the
defined parameters of sexual assault:

Participants who believed that women who are sexually teasing deserve to be raped and
who viewed their own behavior as sexually teasing were less likely than other participants
to label their experiences as rape. Similarly, participants who believed that it is not really
rape if a woman does not fight back and who did not fight back were less likely than other
participants to label their experience as rape. . . . When asked about how they labeled
their experience, several participants explicitly rejected the label rape because there was
no penile penetration. (p. 140, emphasis in original)

Finally, RMA has been correlated with traditional notions of masculinity and feminin-
ity (Kassing & Prieto, 2003; see also Chapleau, Oswald, & Russell, 2008; White &
Robinson Kurpius, 2002), homophobia (Kassing, Beesley, & Frey, 2005), and a higher
proclivity to rape (Chiroro, Bohner, Tendayi Viki, & Jarvis, 2004).
Although an impressive body of literature exists documenting the nature and extent
of RMA (see, for reviews, Edwards, Turchik, Dardis, Reynolds, & Gidycz, 2011;
Iconis, 2008), very little of this research has sought to develop a theoretical understand-
ing of its prevalence. This is despite Lonsway and Fitzgerald’s (1994) call for scholars
to “move beyond the simple documentation of empirical relationships to the thoughtful
examination of the etiology and role of rape myths in an articulated theory of culturally
supported sexual aggression” (p. 159; see also Chapleau et al., 2008). For example,
although research has consistently shown that men have higher levels of RMA than
women (e.g., Aosved & Long, 2006; Devdas & Rubin, 2007; Franiuk, Seefelt, &
Vandello, 2008; Iconis, 2008; Kassing & Prieto, 2003; McMahon, 2010; Yamawaki &
Tschanz, 2005), little scholarly attention has been paid to structural reasons that under-
pin this finding (for two important exceptions, see Kahlor & Eastin, 2011; Suarez &
Gadalla, 2010) beyond feminists’ claims that rape myths are more prevalent in male-
dominant societies, which perpetuate a culture of violence (e.g., Yodanis, 2004).

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6 Violence Against Women 

Previous research (including some of the aforementioned studies) has found statis-
tically significant relationships between RMA and ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske,
1996), modern sexism (Swim, Aikin, Hall, & Hunter, 1995), and neosexism (Tougas,
Brown, Beaton, & Joly, 1995). These studies have been important to our understand-
ing of contemporary sexism, but it is our evaluation that a deeper understanding can
be gained by combining the individual strengths of these scales into one that aligns
itself with the frames of gender-blind sexism. Gender-blind sexism situates ideologies
about gender and gender inequality not as “free-floating” (Bonilla-Silva, 1997,
p. 469), but as structurally contingent (Lorber, 1994; Risman, 1998). We believe our
formulation offers a holistic view of the ways that sexism operates in a post-gender
society. The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, Modern Sexism Scale, and Neosexism
Scale were developed to identify particular types of sexism. However, the frames of
gender-blind sexism allow for the possibility of several variations of contemporary
sexism in a “post-gender” society, whether benevolent, hostile, or other. This is
because the goal of adopting a gender-blind sexism framework is to explain how these
various types of prejudices are used interchangeably to reproduce the status quo.
Although we believe gender-blind sexism holds much theoretical promise, the pur-
pose of this article is to examine this supposition. To do so, we explore whether gen-
der-blind sexism is an appropriate theoretical framework for understanding the
creation and continued prevalence of RMA. Specifically, we hypothesize that indi-
viduals who hold attitudes consistent with the frames of gender-blind sexism are more
likely to accept rape myths. We test this hypothesis by exploring the relationship
between our Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory and RMA.

Method
Sample
To test the relationship between gender-blind sexism and RMA, the entire under-
graduate population at Midwestern University (a pseudonym) was invited to com-
plete an online survey. The survey contained a number of items that were taken or
adapted from the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMA; Payne, Lonsway, &
Fitzgerald, 1999) and/or developed based on the suggestions of other scholars (e.g.,
Remick, 1993; Sivakumaran, 2005; see Table 1). For example, research has found
RMA is correlated with systems of inequality other than sexism, including racism,
classism, and heterosexism (Suarez & Gadalla, 2010). Therefore, we created a
number of items to capture rape myths related to race, class, gender, and sexuality,
distinguishing our measure of RMA from other commonly used instruments,
including the IRMA. In addition, several gender-blind statements were constructed
(Table 2) that reflected the frames of abstract liberalism, naturalization, cultural
sexism, and minimization of sexism. Finally, the survey contained several demo-
graphic measures.
The survey remained open for students to complete for 1 month. Three, weekly
email reminders regarding the survey were sent after the initial invitation in an effort

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Stoll et al. 7

Table 1.  Rape Myths.

Q-1 Rape does not occur in lesbian relationships.

Q-2 Rapists are usually “criminal types.”
Q-3 Rape usually occurs in inner city urban areas.
Q-4 Many so-called rape victims are actually women who had sex and “changed
their minds” afterwards.
Q-5 Rape accusations are often used as a way of getting back at men.
Q-6 When men get raped, the victims are almost always gay.
Q-7 Rape is most traumatic for girls from upper-class neighborhoods.
Q-8 Men from middle-class homes almost never rape.
Q-9 A woman who goes to the home or apartment of a man on the first date is
implying that she wants to have sex.
Q-10 Women of color are more likely than White women to be raped because
they tend to have more sexual partners.
Q-11 White women who date men of color are more likely to be raped.
Q-12 A woman who dresses in skimpy clothes should not be surprised if a man
tries to force her to have sex.
Q-13 Lesbian women who dress in masculine clothing are rarely raped.
Q-14 If a woman chooses to take the train at night, she is putting herself at risk of
being raped.
Q-15 Students who live in bad neighborhoods are more likely to be raped.
Q-16 When a man is very sexually aroused, he may not even realize that a woman
is resisting.
Q-17 Although most women would not admit it, they generally find being
physically forced into sex a real “turn-on.”
Q-18 A gay man who ejaculates during a sexual encounter cannot be considered a
rape victim during the same encounter.
Q-19 Upper class people have more control over their sexual urges.
Q-20 White women are more likely than women of color to fantasize about being
raped.
Q-21 Prostitutes cannot be raped.
Q-22 Rape is not as big a problem as some feminists would like people to think.
Q-23 Being raped is not as bad as being mugged and beaten.
Q-24 If a woman claims to have been raped but has no bruises or scrapes, she
probably should not be taken too seriously.
Q-25 The police catch most rapists.
Q-26 If the rapist does not have a weapon, you really cannot call it a rape.
Q-27 Women tend to exaggerate how much rape affects them.
Q-28 Since the women’s rights movement, rape is no longer that big of an issue.

to secure the best possible response rate. As a further attempt to increase our response
rate, we offered potential incentives. Those who completed surveys had the option to
enter an anonymous drawing for one of 30 US$10 gift certificates. The gift certificates
were evenly divided between a local coffee house, restaurant, and co-operative. In the
end, 1,401 surveys were completed representing a 17% response rate of the 8,187

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8 Violence Against Women 

Table 2.  Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory.

Abstract Liberalism
 Q-1 Affirmative action policies benefit women at the expense of men.
 Q-2 If a public policy focuses specifically on women, it is not fair to men.
Naturalization
 Q-1 Women are naturally more emotional than men.
 Q-2 Men are naturally more aggressive than women.
 Q-3 Nature is more important than nurture in explaining the differences
between men and women.
Cultural Sexism
 Q-1 It is important to teach children to behave in gender-appropriate ways.
 Q-2 It is more acceptable for a girl to behave like a tomboy than it is for a boy to
behave like a sissy.
 Q-3 It is better to socialize girls to be caregivers and boys to be breadwinners
than vice versa.
Minimization of Sexism
 Q-1 Sexism is not a major problem in today’s society.
 Q-2 Today, women have all the opportunities that men have.
 Q-3 Gender inequality in the United States is not as bad as it used to be.

undergraduates invited to participate. Although this was a lower response rate than we
would desire, comparing our sample with the university population indicates little
potential for nonresponse bias. Table 3 shows our sample characteristics relative to
those of the campus, and indicates that most sample characteristics were representa-
tive of the campus population, although more women at Midwestern University com-
pleted the survey than men.

Variables
Measured variable.  Our Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory is based on tenets of several
measures correlated with RMA. These include the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory
(Glick & Fiske, 1996), the Old-Fashioned and Modern Sexism Scale (Swim et al.,
1995), and the Neosexism Scale (Tougas et al., 1995). Glick and Fiske (1996) devel-
oped the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory to capture instances of both benevolent and
hostile sexism. In contrast, the Modern Sexism Scale and the Neosexism Scale focus
on traditional notions of gender discrimination as manifest in sexist attitudes toward
policy and practice. Following Campbell, Schellenberg, and Senn’s (1997) challenge
to “examine the association between sexist attitudes in interpersonal relationships (as
measured by the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory) and sexist attitudes in the public
sphere (as measured by Neosexism)” (p. 100), we adapted items from these instru-
ments to link our inventory to the frames of gender-blind sexism. For example, we
altered items from these scales to explicitly attend to policy for our abstract liberalism
frame. Although these may seem like small changes, they were necessary to capture

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Stoll et al. 9

Table 3.  Sample Versus University Population Demographics.

Sample (%) University population (%)

Year in school
  First year 20 26
 Sophomore 24 23
 Junior 22 20
 Senior 33 27
Gender
 Men 27 42
 Women 71 57
Race
 White 90 88
 Non-White 9 8

whether individuals adhered to or rebuked any or all of the frames of gender-blind

sexism.
Reliability statistics on our inventory were mixed. As an overall scale, the items
had a Cronbach’s alpha of .801, indicating relatively high reliability. The alphas for
each individual frame, however, were somewhat lower. The alphas for each frame,
in descending order, were .698 (naturalization), .641 (minimization of sexism),
.638 (cultural sexism), and .623 (abstract liberalism). Although Hair, Anderson,
Tatham, and Black (1998) suggest a cutoff of reliability at .7, they indicate that
scores between .6 and .7 could also be considered in the lower realm of acceptabil-
ity. In addition, each of the individual frames is represented by a low number of
items. The naturalization, minimization of sexism, and cultural sexism frames
include three items each, whereas the abstract liberalism frame includes only two.
Prior research has indicated that a low number of items can result in a downward
pressure on measurements of reliability (Tavakol & Bennick, 2011). Taken together,
and following Cortina’s (1993) argument that “dimensionality notwithstanding,
alpha is very much a function of the number of items in a scale, and . . . it must be
interpreted with number of items in mind,” (p. 102) we interpreted the alphas for
each individual frame to be acceptable.1 To create our measure of gender-blind sex-
ism, we transformed the gender-blind statements listed in Table 2 into a Gender-
Blind Sexism Inventory (strongly disagree = 1, disagree = 2, neither agree nor
disagree = 3, agree = 4, strongly agree = 5). After summing scale points across the
items, the composite index ranged from 0-12.

Criterion variable. To create our measure of RMA, we transformed the rape myths
listed in Table 1 into a rape myth index (strongly disagree = 1, disagree = 2, neither
agree nor disagree = 3, agree = 4, strongly agree = 5). Cronbach’s alpha for these
items was .917, indicating high reliability. Summing the scale points across items
resulted in an index that ranged from 0-28.

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10 Violence Against Women 

Control variables.  Previous research has found RMA to be related to several vari-
ables, making them relevant to control for when examining the relationship between
gender-blind sexism and RMA. For example, studies have consistently shown that men
are more likely than women to accept rape myths (e.g., Aosved & Long, 2006; Devdas
& Rubin, 2007; Franiuk et al., 2008; Iconis, 2008; Kassing & Prieto, 2003; McMahon,
2010; Yamawaki & Tschanz, 2005). Similarly, several scholars have documented the
positive correlation between religious beliefs and RMA (see, for example, Edwards
et al., 2011; Franiuk & Shain, 2011; Freymeyer, 1997; Sheldon & Parent, 2002). The
research on the relationship between race and RMA has often been conflicting. Some
studies have shown racial differences (e.g., Burt, 1980; Giacopassi & Dull, 1986; Mori,
Bernat, Glenn, Selle, & Zarate, 1995), whereas others have found little to no significant
racial differences (see, for example, Carmody & Washington, 2001). Although little
research has been conducted on the effects of year in school on RMA, Sawyer, Thomp-
son, & Chicorelli’s (2002) study on RMA among intercollegiate student athletes found
that freshmen and sophomores accepted rape myths more than juniors and seniors.
Even less work has explored the effects of sexual orientation on RMA. However, at
least one study has shown that heterosexual men are more likely than their female coun-
terparts or gay men to accept rape myths (Davies and McCartney, 2003). Based on this
research, we control for these five variables in our analysis and code them as follows:
gender (male = 0, female = 1), religion (Christian = 0, non-Christian = 1), race (White
= 0, non-White = 1), year in school (freshman/sophomore = 0, junior/senior = 1), and
sexual orientation (heterosexual = 0, non-heterosexual = 1).2

Results
To test the relationship between gender-blind sexism and RMA, we first regressed our
individually indexed frames (Model 1: Abstract Liberalism, Model 2: Naturalization,
Model 3: Cultural Sexism, and Model 4: Minimization of Sexism) on the rape myth
index while controlling for gender, religion, race, year in school, and sexual orientation
(Table 4). Table 4 contains the coefficients for each term in these regression models
along with an indication of significance. Each of the four models was statistically sig-
nificant at the .000 level. The level of variance in the criterion variable explained by
each model is as follows: Model 1, 28.2%; Model 2, 27.7%; Model 3, 31.6%; and
Model 4, 26.5%. Each of the individual frames was statistically significant in their
respective models at the .000 level and, in each model, gender and year in school were
statistically significant correlates with RMA as men were more likely than women, and
freshmen and sophomores were more likely than juniors and seniors, to indicate sup-
port for rape myths. In the case of Models 1, 2, and 4 (Abstract Liberalism, Naturalization,
and Minimization of Sexism), religion was also a statistically significant correlate with
rape myth support as Christians were more likely than non-Christians to indicate sup-
port for rape myths by factors of .099, .073, and .118, respectively.
Although it is important to consider the relationships between the individual frames
of gender-blind sexism and RMA, consistent with Bonilla-Silva’s (2006) theorizing,
we argue it is the frames taken together that collectively comprise the post-gender

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Stoll et al. 11

Table 4.  Regression Coefficients for the Individual Frame Models Predicting Rape Myth
Acceptance.

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

R2 .282 .277 .316 .265
Constant 41.809 38.403 37.372 40.269
Abstract liberalism .393***  
Naturalization .398***  
Cultural sexism .460***  
Minimization of sexism .376***
Gender −.237*** −.254*** −.198*** −.197***
Religious affiliation −.099*** −.073* −0.044 −.118***
Race .032 .012 .011 .028
Year in school −.075* −.068* −.053* −.086**
Sexual orientation −.045 −.019 −.021 −.042

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

ideology that gives rise to RMA. As such, our next step was to regress our Gender-
Blind Sexism Inventory on the rape myth index while controlling for gender, religion,
race, year in school, and sexual orientation. Our overall model was statistically signifi-
cant at the .000 level, and the variance explained in the criterion variable increased to
44.0%. Table 5 contains the coefficients for each term in the regression model along
with an indication of significance. As hypothesized, our Gender-Blind Sexism
Inventory was statistically significant (p < .001). Specifically, as respondents moved
from disagreement to agreement with gender-blind sexism, there was a corresponding
increase of support for rape myths by a factor of .621.
When combining the individual frames into a Gender-Blind Inventory, religion and
year in school were no longer statistically significant correlates with RMA and sexual
orientation and race remained unrelated as well. Consistent with other research, how-
ever, gender remained a statistically significant correlate of RMA (p < .001) even with
the Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory in the model. Controlling for all other variables,
women were less likely than men to indicate support for rape myths. As respondents
moved from male to female, the likelihood of accepting rape myths saw a correspond-
ing decrease by a factor of .114, perhaps due to the fact that women are more likely to
be victims of sexual assault. As Yodanis (2004) points out, “Not every woman needs to
be a victim of violence for violence to control the lives of women” (pp. 671-672). In
other words, gender may be a function of exposure, direct or indirect, to sexual assault.

Discussion
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
To begin, it is important to acknowledge certain limitations of the current study.
Although our sample was reflective of the university population, indicating little

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12 Violence Against Women 

Table 5.  Regression Coefficients for the Indexed Model Predicting Rape Myth Acceptance.

R2 .44
Constant 14.929
Gender-Blind Inventory .621***
Gender −.114***
Religious affiliation .004
Race .023
Year in school −.029
Sexual orientation .014

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

potential for nonresponse bias, our response rate (17%) was much lower than we
would have desired. As previously discussed, we used several strategies to maximize
our response rate. These strategies include attaching potential incentives for participa-
tion via gift card drawings, leaving the survey open for a reasonable time, and sending
out several reminders for invitees to participate. Future researchers should consider
additional strategies as they aim for a higher response rate than we were able to
achieve. For example, a review of the literature (Nulty, 2008) has shown that online
surveys typically suffer from much lower response rates than do paper surveys. Future
researchers looking to replicate this study might consider moving to a paper survey to
increase response rates. Future researchers might also consider shortening the survey.
Including demographic information, our survey contained 55 items. Out of the 8,187
undergraduates invited to participate, 1,809 began the survey but only 1,401 com-
pleted the instrument. This is a 23% failure rate and dropped what would have been a
22% response rate to 17%. Review of the failures did not indicate any particular ques-
tion or portion of the survey as problematic. Thus, it is possible that the overall length
of the survey was a factor in our low response rate.
Even if our response rate was higher, the fact is that the population from which the
sample was drawn is largely homogeneous in relation to religion, race, and sexual orien-
tation. Because our population (and thus, our sample) contained so few individuals who
did not identify as Christian, White, or heterosexual, we were forced to collapse these
categories, forgoing the level of nuance we would have liked. In addition, the generaliz-
ability of our findings is in question due to the homogeneity of the sample. Therefore, we
suggest researchers consider using a more diverse sample of participants in the future.
Finally, it should be noted that this study was exploratory in design. As stated, our
goal was to find whether gender-blind sexism is an appropriate theoretical framework
for understanding the creation and continued prevalence of RMA. Although we found
statistical support for our Gender-Blind Sexism Inventory, scholars including Bonilla-
Silva (2006) have argued that qualitative methods, and triangulated methods in par-
ticular, are perhaps best suited for studying sensitive topics such as racism and sexism
in an era of “post-racial” and “post-gender” politics. Therefore, we suggest that in
addition to collecting survey data, future research should explore the parameters of
gender-blind sexism using other methodological approaches.

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Stoll et al. 13

Conclusion
Because the politics of gender-blind sexism relegate rape and sexual assault to indi-
vidual-level problems, the solutions that universities offer to deter both are almost
exclusively rooted in individual-level approaches. In fact, scholars have long encour-
aged schools to endorse these types of strategies. In the late 1980s and early 1990s,
Adams and Abarbanel (1988), for example, called on universities to implement
security procedures such as effective lighting, landscaping designs, and self-locking
dormitory doors to prevent rapes, while Bachman, Paternoster, and Ward (1992)
urged educators to appeal to the morality of college men to reduce their proclivity to
rape (for more recent examples, see also Baugher, Elhai, Monroe, & Gray, 2010;
Kress et al., 2006). Although we concede that a few individualistic strategies can
help deter some offenses, our study finds that attitudes toward rape and sexual
assault are structurally contingent. Thus, we believe any long-term solution to
decrease sex crimes on college campuses must include a concerted effort to dis-
mantle systems of privilege and oppression including gender-blind sexism (e.g.,
Kassing et al., 2005).
To begin this work, colleges and universities must be willing to implement policy
changes that codify an institution’s refusal to tolerate sexual violence. For example,
universities should specifically name rape and sexual assault as offenses in student
codes of conduct. More importantly, universities need to enforce these policies.
According to “Not Alone,” the First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect
Students From Sexual Assault (2014),

And in all too many instances, survivors of sexual violence are not at the heart of an
institution’s response: they often do not have a safe, confidential place to turn after an
assault, they haven’t been told how the system works, and they often believe it is working
against them. We heard from many who reached out for help or action, but were told they
should just put the matter behind them. (p. 7)

Indeed, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has seen an expo-
nential rise in the number of alleged Title IX violations associated with universities’
mishandling of sexual assault complaints (e.g., N. Anderson, 2014; see also About
Know Your IX, 2013; Farrey & Noren, 2014; Gonzalez, 2013; Kingkade, 2014). When
sexual assaults are systemically mishandled, it not only discounts the significance of
crimes against women but also subtly reassures men that universities would rather
have these incidents disappear than hold perpetrators accountable. However, Bachman
et al. (1992) found that college men who believed there would be stiff sanctions for
committing rape and sexual assault were less likely to do so.
Furthermore, policies and practices addressing sexual harassment and inequality in
hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions must exist alongside those addressing sexual
assault. In addition, universities must guard against gendered wage gaps among fac-
ulty and staff, resist the marginalization of disciplines such as women’s and gender
studies, and work toward equality in recruitment, representation, and retention across
disciplines where women have been historically underrepresented. In other words,

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14 Violence Against Women 

colleges and universities must be diligent in ensuring their students, staff, and faculty
live and work in an environment free from all forms of sexual discrimination.
Finally, colleges and universities need to be aggressive in socializing students, fac-
ulty, administrators, and staff about what constitutes inappropriate sexual behavior.
Research clearly indicates that ambiguities remain as to what women and men believe
defines rape (e.g., Peterson & Muehlenhard 2004; Ward, Chapman, Cohn, White, &
Williams, 1991). As Warr (1985) points out, the importance of consent must be empha-
sized; men must learn to specifically ask their partners whether they want to engage in
sexual behaviors; and schools need to be clear that the absence of a “yes” in a sexual
encounter means “no,” instead of the other way around (p. 71). As this study clearly
shows, however, decreasing RMA requires a fundamental understanding of the ways
that systems of privilege and oppression operate. Therefore, students, faculty, admin-
istration, and staff must be taught how the intersections of race, class, gender, and
sexuality underpin common rape myths. According to J. Anderson (2007),

Dismantling rape myths is critical to the work of ending rape. While we won’t find many
individuals who would stand up and claim that it is O.K. to rape, when people imply that
victims deserve it, question a victim’s credibility, or hold up rape myths and rape-
supportive attitudes and beliefs as truth, that is exactly what they are saying. (p. 3)

In sum, dominant group members have a vested interest in developing ideologies to

explain racial and gender inequalities in a society they purport to be “post-racial” and
“post-gender.” As Bonilla-Silva (2006) points out, if the ultimate goal of the dominant
race is to maintain their position of privilege within a racialized society, they must develop
rationalizations to account for the status of minorities. This is also true with patriarchy. To
maintain power, authority, and privilege, dominant group members must develop ratio-
nalizations to account for the status of women, men of subordinated masculinities, and
any other persons who are gender or sexual non-conforming (Connell, 1987). This is why
scholars must incorporate an analysis of patriarchy as well as other systems of privilege
and oppression when studying the pervasiveness of RMA (e.g., Aosved & Long, 2006).
As researchers who have studied the prevalence of rape and attitudes toward sexual
assault have long argued, what is missing in the literature is not empirical evidence docu-
menting the pervasiveness of RMA, but a theoretical model that helps explain why it is
these beliefs remain so prevalent (e.g., Edwards et al., 2011; Lonsway & Fitzgerald,
1994). We believe the frames of gender-blind sexism provide a particularly useful theo-
retical model for explaining the persistence of RMA in a “post-gender” society.

Acknowledgments
The authors thank Carol Miller, PhD, as well as the Violence Prevention Office and the
Statistical Consulting Center at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

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Stoll et al. 15

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

Notes
1. With regard to the abstract liberalism frame, the affirmative action item may also have a
downward pressure on the reliability statistic. The term affirmative action is often racial-
ized in the popular imagination. This characterization may have been most salient for our
sample, which was overwhelmingly White. Thus, the lower alpha score may be a result of
students not recognizing that women benefit from affirmative action policies at all.
2. The variables measuring religion, race, and sexual orientation were dichotomized due to
the homogeneity of our sample. Gender was dichotomized due to the fact that the over-
whelming majority of the sample identified as men or women.

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Author Biographies
Laurie Cooper Stoll is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Archaeology
and the founding director of the Institute for Social Justice at the University of Wisconsin–La
Crosse. Her research explores inequalities related to race, class, gender, and sexuality in the
context of social institutions, particularly education.
Terry Glenn Lilley is an assistant professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and
Sexuality Studies at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. His research focuses on issues of
social justice with a specific emphasis on gendered violence and organized responses to inequal-
ity in a neo-liberal context.
Kelly Pinter is an adjunct professor at the College of Lake County and Harper College in
Illinois. Her research explores the intersections of sexual violence and institutional structures in
higher education.

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