New research shows young men objectifying women more likely to be violent towards their partners
New Research
Past research found young men who sexually objectify women are especially likely to perpetrate sexual violence. It also showed that men who unconsciously associate women with objects have a relatively high propensity for sexual harassment.
In our recently published work, we moved from considering violence towards women in general to violence towards men’s intimate partners. You might expect men would be less likely to objectify those they claim to love. The appalling statistics on intimate partner violence suggest otherwise.
Our new article presents findings from three studies on the role of objectification in intimate partner violence. Each study sampled American men aged 18 to 35 who were in a committed romantic relationship of at least one year’s duration.
In our first study, men completed a computer-based task – the Implicit Association Test – commonly used to measure unconscious bias. We adapted the task to assess how much they automatically associated women with inanimate objects or animals.
The group also responded to questionnaires measuring how often they engaged in a range of abusive and sexually coercive behaviours towards their current partners. Although based on self-reporting, and therefore open to distortion, these measures are valid predictors of violent behaviour.
As expected, men with relatively strong tendencies to associate women with objects reported higher rates of violent and coercive behaviour. This effect did not occur because these men held more hostile sexist attitudes toward women.
Objectification and sexism were distinct predictors of intimate partner violence, suggesting that objectification independently contributes to this form of violence.
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