RT Article
T1 “Pretty Women” and “Lucky Blokes”: Unpacking Australian Social Media Responses to Female-Perpetrated Sexual Assault Against Men
JF Journal of interpersonal violence
VO 39
IS 21/22
SP 4498
OP 4525
A1 Murphy, April
A1 Groves, Andrew
A2 Groves, Andrew
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1905378114
AB Female-perpetrated sexual violence research in Australia and elsewhere has been limited, part of a less common and arguably contentious field of criminology. Because of gendered social and cultural stereotypes, female sexual offending is often perceived as harmless or too rare to warrant attention. Utilizing Schippers’ pariah femininities, this paper presents a critical criminological exploration of social media users’ constructions of female sex offenders and their male victim-survivors. Examining 28 Facebook posts from 13 popular Australian newspapers, our findings identified social media users’ tendency to question offence severity and sexualize offenders based on appearance, revealing how offender legitimacy and conceptions of harm are shaped by gendered expectations of “pretty women” and “lucky blokes.” Conclusions suggest online discourse remains influenced by gendered stereotypes, though awareness of pariah femininities is growing, with further research needed worldwide to explore the impact of such social media attitudes and commentary on the incidence of and reactions to female sexual offending against men, including victim-survivors’ help-seeking behavior.
K1 female pariah
K1 male victim-survivor
K1 Sexual Violence
K1 female sex offender
K1 Social Media
DO 10.1177/08862605241239446