Men’s perpetration of violence against women and the influence of fraternities, sports, and workplaces

There is consistent evidence that men’s likelihood of perpetrating violence against women is shaped by the contextual features of the settings in which they live, play, and work. This includes research on fraternities on university (‘college’) campuses, sports, workplaces, and the military.

• Research on sexual violence by male athletes finds that the likelihood of involvement in violence is unevenly spread across sports, can vary even within a particular sport, and that local and contextual factors can be influential:
  • An early examination of determinants of athletes’ involvement in violence against women found that fraternity membership, conservative attitudes towards women, and viewing contact sports were significant predictors of sexual aggression against women (Brown, Sumner, & Nocera, 2002).
  • Another US study documented that fraternities and athletic teams with higher risks of sexual assault of women also had members with higher levels of hostility towards women and peer support for sexual violence (Humphrey & Kahn, 2000).
• The authors of other US studies, using ethnographic and other qualitative research methods, argue that on campus cultures with high rates of sexual violence, some of the socio-cultural correlates (especially among college fraternities) include:
  • An ethic of male sexual conquest and ‘getting sex’
  • Displays of masculinity through heterosexual sexual performance, heterosexism and homophobia, and
  • General norms of women’s subordinate status (Boswell & Spade, 1996; Sanday, 1996).
• The influence of sexist peer norms and cultures on men’s perpetration of violence against women has been documented also in military institutions.
  • Using data from 713 married male soldiers at an Army post in Alaska, Rosen et al. (2003) found a statistical association between ‘group disrespect’ (the presence of rude and aggressive behaviour, pornography consumption, sexualised discussion, and encouragement of group drinking) and the perpetration of intimate partner violence, at both individual and group levels.
  • Rosen et al. (2003) notes other authors’ arguments that military contexts may promote violence against women through a ‘culture of hypermasculinity’, centred on male bonding, the objectification and denigration of women, values of dominance and aggressiveness, and adversarial sexual beliefs
• In these contexts, men’s perpetration of intimate partner violence and sexual violence is shaped not merely by attitudinal variables but by collective practices and relations. In other words, it is shaped not only by peer norms and beliefs but by peer behaviours and interactions. For example, Rosen (2003) notes associations between various group behaviours (above) and intimate partner violence. He also argues that violence-supportive norms are promoted by the processes of informal acculturation in military cultures, including through leisure practices such as pornography use, sexual boasting, and strip shows.
• Similarly, rates of sexual violence appear to be higher in male campus fraternities involving:
  • Greater gender segregation
  • High alcohol consumption, and
  • Use of pornography (Boswell & Spade, 1996; Sanday, 1996).
• University campuses and particularly university residences may involve increased risks of sexual and domestic violence because of alcohol consumption, ‘hookup’ culture, social or athletic groups fostering hypermasculine norms, fraternity and social events, and other factors (Moylan & Javorka, 2020).
• In these contexts, men’s individual likelihoods of perpetrating abuse against their female partners are shaped too by their relationships to the peer group, and these are mediated for example by group socialisation, group identification, and self-selection (Flood & Pease, 2006).

More generally, there is consistent evidence that male peer support for intimate partner violence is an important predictor of men’s perpetration of sexual and physical abuse.

• Schwartz and DeKeseredy (1997) define ‘male peer support’ in terms of attachments to male peers who sexually and physically abuse women and the resources the peers provide that perpetuate and legitimate this abuse. Peer support includes informational support (peer guidance and advice from friends e.g. that women owe him sex or he should respond with force to girlfriends’ challenges to his authority), attachment (emotional ties to male peers who use violence against women), and peer patriarchal support (attitudinal approval for violence against women). 
• In a series of studies in the US and Canada, these researchers find that male peer support for intimate partner violence is significantly correlated with sexual and physical abuse of women  (DeKeseredy & Kelly, 1995; Schwartz & DeKeseredy, 1997, 2000). This finding holds across a variety of contexts. For example, in an examination across different types of tertiary institution and in regions with different languages across Canada, Schwartz and DeKeseredy (2000) found a consistent relationship between male peer support and men’s sexual and physical abuse of women. 
• Two further quantitative studies support the influence of men’s peer and social relations on their perpetration of intimate partner violence. 
  • In a US study, again among university students, negative peer associations predicted the occurrence of abuse towards a dating partner (Reitzel-Jaffe & Wolfe, 2001)
  • In another study of 1,640 university students who had had at least one serious relationship, the perpetration of intimate partner violence was “associated with embeddedness in a social network in which intimacy violence is employed, condoned, and rewarded” (Sellers, Cochran, & Branch, 2005, p. 389).

Thus, participation and investment in violence-supportive male peer groups intensify men’s tolerance for violence against women and increase their likelihood of perpetrating intimate partner violence. 

Violence-supportive cultures in fraternities, sports, workplaces, and other institutional settings are one set of risk factors for men’s use of violence against women. A range of other risk factors also are influential. For a review, see this report, pp. 30-42.

I turn now to fraternities in particular. In the US context, a fraternity is a social, professional, or honorary student organisation, most often single-sex and male, based at a college or university. Many fraternities maintain a physical “chapter house” where members live, eat, and socialise together.

Fraternities and men’s perpetration of sexual violence

• Various studies find that fraternity members are more accepting of sexual violence than their non-fraternity peers (Bannon, Brosi, & Foubert, 2013; Bleecker & Murnen, 2005; Corprew III & Mitchell, 2014; Seabrook, Ward, & Giaccardi, 2018).
  • In a US study largely among White, heterosexual, 19-year-old males, fraternity members were more accepting of sexual violence against women than non-fraternity members, in part because they more strongly endorsed traditional masculine norms, felt pressure from their friends to uphold masculine norms, and more readily viewed women as sexual objects (Seabrook, Ward, et al., 2018).
• However, there is also variation among fraternities here. While endorsement of sexual assault attitudes is common at some fraternities, other fraternities endorse more pro-social attitudes (McCready, Schutts, & McCreary, 2022, p. 229).
• Studies also find that fraternity men have higher rates of sexual violence perpetration than non-fraternity men. For example:
  • A 2005 study found that fraternity men were over three times more likely to commit sexual violence during a three-month period than men not in fraternities (Loh, Gidycz, Lobo, & Luthra, 2005).
  • In a 2007 study, fraternity men were three times more likely to commit sexual violence than men not in fraternities (Foubert, Newberry, & Tatum, 2007). Men who joined fraternities and men who did not had equivalent rates of sexually coercive behaviour prior to entering college, but the former committed significantly more sexual assaults in the first year than men who did not join fraternities. Eight percent of men who joined fraternities, compared to 2.5% of men who did not, had committed a sexually coercive act in the first year.
  • In a 2019 study among over 12,000 college men at 49 community and four-year colleges, fraternity men were more likely to commit alcohol-involved sexual assault than other men on campus (Foubert, Clark-Taylor, & Wall, 2019).
  • In a 2022 cross-sectional study among over 262,000 college men in the United States, fraternity men were more likely than non-fraternity men to report having perpetrated sexual assault (Hoxmeier & Zapp, 2022). The same was true of men who intended to join fraternities, compared to men without such intentions, prior to attending their current institution. Reported rates of perpetration were low overall, but three to four times as high among fraternity men as non-fraternity men.
    • In this study, men in fraternities also reported lower violence prevention-related prosocial tendencies, “such as communicating about sexual activity, not engaging in sexual activity with someone who is intoxicated, and willingness to intervene in sexual assault” (Hoxmeier & Zapp, 2022, p. 14).
    • In a meta-analysis of university men’s perpetration of sexual violence, fraternity membership was associated with an increased likelihood of sexual violence perpetration (Steele, Martin, Yakubovich, Humphreys, & Nye, 2020).
• Higher levels of violence-supportive attitudes and sexual violence perpetration reflect the influence of two processes, self-selection and socialisation. 
  • In the first process, men with already-existing orientations towards sexual violence (such as endorsement of rape myths, sexual objectification, and sexism) may be more likely than other men to enter fraternities where such attitudes are common.
    • In a study among male incoming first-year university students from United States, male students who intended to join a fraternity showed higher levels of self-reported proclivity to perpetrate rape than other male students (Palmer, McMahon, & Fissel, 2021).
    • In another US study, a longitudinal one, men who were interested in joining a fraternity and did join one showed higher proclivity to perpetrate sexual aggression and greater support for rape myths than non-interested non-members  (Seabrook, McMahon, & O'Connor, 2018).
  • In the second process, men in fraternities also are socialised into its group norms, through interaction with others. That is, fraternity social environments may foster attitudes or behaviours associated with sexual aggression.
    • There is evidence that men’s violence-supportive beliefs (such as their endorsement of rape myths) are shaped by the collective norms of fraternities. In a US study among undergraduate men in a historically White college men’s fraternity, the more that men from a fraternity chapter collectively endorsed the subordination of women, the more that individual members supported attitudes that minimise sexual assault and blame survivors for their sexual assaults (McCready et al., 2022).
  • As the authors of a study among over 262,000 college men in the US note, “The findings here suggest that increased rates of perpetration among fraternity members may reflect both the self-selection of members based on risk histories […] as well as the potential for such problematic attitudes and behaviors to be fostered in these all-male social groups” (Hoxmeier & Zapp, 2022, p. 13).
  • While most research on fraternities and sexual violence is cross-sectional and thus unable to distinguish between the influence of selection and socialisation, a recent longitudinal study allows this. It finds both selection and socialisation effects (Treat et al., 2021). Men prior to college who engaged in more frequent binge drinking and had a greater preference for casual sex showed an increased likelihood of joining a fraternity (selection effect). Men who then joined fraternities showed increased binge drinking and perceived peer sexual aggression (socialisation effects). Fraternity membership was associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in sexual aggression, even after considering past sexual aggression and variables that predict joining a fraternity (binge drinking and a preference for casual sex) (Treat et al., 2021).
• The likelihood of men in fraternities adopting violence-supportive attitudes also is shaped by their pre-existing attitudes towards gender, masculinity, and heterosexuality. “Men who value the subordination or objectification women, value promiscuity, and fear being identified as gay more than other members of their fraternity chapters may be more likely to support rape myths […], blame or be unsupportive of survivors, and be more supportive [of] alleged sexual assault perpetrators” (McCready et al., 2022, p. 229).

References cited

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