MASCULINITIES AND VIOLENCE - A FATHER-SON COMPARISON OF GENDER TRADITIONALITY AND PERCEPTIONS OF HETEROSEXUAL RAPE

This study investigated whether two generations of men-84 college men and 43 of their fathers-perceived rape differently and if perceptions of rape covaried with their masculinity ideology. The working hypothes is was that men who endorsed traditional standards of manhood would no rmalize the man's behavior described in vignettes and not as often rec ognize forced sex as rape. The authors assumed older men would uphold a more traditional ideology and less readily evaluate the descriptions of forced sex as rape. Findings surprisingly revealed that college me n and their fathers (analyzed either as groups or as father-son pairs) did not differ in their masculinity ideology nor in their evaluations of forced sex. Men's judgments of whether a woman was raped were inde pendent of generation but not of masculinity ideology.