Examining Boys’ Assumptions About Sexual Violence
© Next Gen Men 2019
By Jonathon Reed
Next Gen Men sent out a newsletter last week that included one of my recent stories of discussing sexual violence with adolescent boys. “As is often the case,” I wrote, “the boys overestimated the rates of physical and sexual violence experienced by women in Canada. I normalized this and explained that the way I think about the statistic is that if it’s one in three women who will experience violence in her lifetime, it’s either my mother or one of my sisters.”
We’ve gotten a number of emails back wanting to clarify that it’s actually true that boys overestimate rates of sexual violence. To put it simply, yes. The boys in our programs often estimate that physical sexual violence is experienced by around 75-95% of women in Canada.
At first glance, this awareness of sexual violence might seem like a positive thing, but there’s more to it than that. Our boys also often underestimate the percentage of the time that sexual violence perpetrators are male, and overestimate rates of false accusations. So a boy might think that 80% of women report sexual violence, but also believe that they’re false reports half the time.
What this means to me is that the growing conversation on sexual violence in the #MeToo era has reached boys, but that media coverage isn’t enough to create meaningful dialogue about actual patterns of violence and the role of boys and men in challenging them. Without further context and dialogue, there’s a good chance that boys assume high rates of reported sexual violence, but also assume that they are not part of the solution.
ICYMI This Week
Boys Will Be…The Boys We Raise (National Association of Independent Schools)
Why California needs more male teachers of color (CalMatters)
Want to Build a Future Without Sexual Violence? Start With Middle School Boys (Supermajority News)
Written by Next Gen Men Program Manager Jonathon Reed as part of Learnings & Unlearnings, a weekly newsletter reflecting on our experiences working with boys and young men. Subscribe to get Learnings & Unlearnings delivered to your email inbox.