Sexual violence against women is a severe problem in Indonesia. According to the Yearly review (Catatan tahunan or Catahu) of Komnas Perempuan (the National Commission on Violence Against Women, a state institution set up by presidential decree in 1998 that combines data from various service institutions, police departments and courts), there have been increases in sexual assault cases both in the personal sphere (whereby the perpetrator is related to the victim by blood, marriage, or intimate relations) and at the community level (cases in which there is no close relationship between the victim and the perpetrator) (Komnas Perempuan 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018). The most recent data from 2018 showed that sexual assaults comprised 31% of the total violence reported within family or other close personal relationships (husband and wife, couples living together, or man and woman dating). In addition, sexual assaults comprised 76% the 3528 cases of violence against women recorded as having occurred in the public and community domains (Komnas Perempuan 2018).

Some case illustrations can provide an overview of the seriousness of this problem in the country:

BN is a woman who was a victim of sexual harassment committed by the school principal where she worked. To save evidence, BN kept a record of her conversation with the school principal on her cellphone. This recording was disseminated by BN’s co-workers, that the principal reported her to the police as conducting a disrespectful or abusive act in front of the public under the Law No. 11 of 2008 concerning Information and Electronic Transactions. She was sentenced guilty by the court. (Komnas Perempuan 2018, p. 43).

Deli Serdang District Court in North Sumatra released someone who was reported as committed rape following the court decision that the report was unproven. The victim has died that she cannot be questioned anymore. She killed herself by drinking poison after the incident because her confession was not trusted by her surrounding environment. (Komnas Perempuan 2018, p. 42).

For years, Indonesian women’s groups and other members of civil society have been urging the ratification of the Law on the Elimination of Sexual Violence, which has received challenges from many parties for various reasons, including that the draft of the law was perceived as promoting values that are not in line with prevailing religious teachings or national culture.

As indicated by the above examples, despite the high prevalence of rape and other forms of sexual violence in Indonesia, the community at large has not created a supportive atmosphere for victims. Rather, certain sociocultural conditions contribute to an atmosphere of tolerance for sexual violence, such that victims are negatively labelled as ‘a disgrace to the family’ and are often targets of blame for the assaults. Responsibility is attributed to victims based on factors such as the clothing they were wearing, their level of consciousness at the time of the assault (whether or not they were under the influence of alcohol), or whether they were alone or accompanied by others when the sexual violence occurred.

The widespread nature of victim-blaming demonstrates an acceptance of myths or misperceptions about rape, such as when a woman’s clothing is regarded as a cause. Such beliefs are misguided because women can be targeted for rape even while wearing modest clothing, as was the case in an assault in the South Jakarta region that was perpetrated by a public transport driver against an employee who was wearing a hijab (Syarif and Purnama 2015). Such examples show how rape myths are often not reality-based, and are frequently even contradictory to actual situations.

The Underreporting of Rape Cases

Data demonstrates that cases of sexual violence are under-reported not only in Indonesia, but also in other parts of the world. When sexual assaults are reported, they are under-prosecuted, and when prosecuted, they are under-convicted. Fitzgerald (2006) analysed data on cases of sexual violence recorded in New South Wales, Australia and found that from cases that had been reported, less than 20 % of them were proceeded to the court, with a low of conviction rate. Many barriers hinder the ability of women victims to disclose or report sexual assaults. They often experience confusion, guilt, shock, or shame, or they fear retaliation from the perpetrator and worry if their reports will be believed. The tendency to blame victims might make it difficult for women to recognise or admit that they have experienced sexual violence, and they might even blame themselves for what has been done. In addition to the above, related legal processes bring further challenges. Pursuing justice is difficult, stressful, time-consuming and expensive, with a risk that the woman victim is blamed (Commonwealth of Australia 2017).

Allen (2007) conducted a study on the underreporting of rape in the United States (US) in which it was revealed that according to US Department of Justice data for the period of 1994–1995, only an estimated one-third of rape victims reported their cases to police. One reason cited for the low reporting rate is that rape victims feared incurring consequences such as the loss of privacy as well as recriminations and reprisals. Prochuk’s (2018) investigation of sexual violence cases in Canada cited that very few sexual assaults cases (only about 5%) there are reported to the police and only approximately 11% of reported cases lead to a conviction. Barriers to disclosure include the risk of being blamed or disbelieved, as well as the drain of time, material resources and energy involved in reporting. The emotional and physical burdens that are incurred may bring unbearable consequences for women who are already struggling for their daily survival. Palermo et al. (2014) reporting on demographic and health survey data concerning gender-based violence impacting 284,281 women in 24 developing countries collected between 2004 and 2011. They found that only 7% of the victims had reported their assaults to formal authorities such as local authorities or the police. There was regional variation in reporting rates; for example, only 2% of women in India and East Asia had reported their assaults compared with 14% of women in Latin America and the Caribbean (Palermo et al. 2014).

Rape Myths and their Acceptance

The term ‘rape myths’ began to be more widely discussed after Brownmiller (1975) shared her insights on society’s misled beliefs about sexual violence. Similarly, Estrich (1976) observed how people considered some rapes as more ‘real’ than others. Burt (1980) later developed a scaled-questionnaire on the acceptance of rape myths (Smith and Skinner 2017, p. 2).

A community’s acceptance of rape myths has multiple negative repercussions, most notable of which are the denial of rape and the assumption that rape is not a severe issue due to the shift of blame from the perpetrator to the victim (Lonsway and Fitzgerald 1994). Lonsway and Fitzgerald (1994) refined the theoretical basis of the term ‘rape myth’ by differentiating it from stereotypes. Rape myths not only encompass stereotypical attitudes and assumptions, but also have a cultural function to maintain the status quo. According to Gerger et al. 2007), the term ‘rape myths’ refers to descriptive or prescriptive beliefs about rape that serve to deny, downplay or justify sexual violence that men commit against women. Further, rape myth acceptance increases men’s tendency to commit rape because it serves as a justification for sexual violence (Bohner et al. 2005) and leads to decrease reports of such incidents (Bohner et al. 2005; Frese et al. 2004).

Studies about sexual violence and rape myths acceptance have been conducted in different cultures worldwide. Research from Bohner et al. (2009) examined the cognitive, affective and behavioural effects of rape myth acceptance. they found that it would affect people's perception of the seriousness of the report regarding sexual violence. Those who are hight in rape myth acceptance tend to blame the victims more, are less convinced that the victims are truly traumatized, and do not see the perpetrators as the main agents of sexual violence (Bohner, Eyssel, Pina, Siebler, and Viki 2009). Martinez et al. (2018) examined sexual assault perpetrators and rape myths among college students in Greece, and found that men expressed more tolerance of sexual harassment, were more likely to accept rape myths, and some even admitted that they might sexually assault someone under some circumstances. Fraternity men were overrepresented among sexual assault perpetrators and sorority women were at increased risk for victimisation of sexual assault.

Barn and Powers (2018) contributed to the understanding of the phenomena of rape and victim blaming with a study using data from 693 students in India and the United Kingdom. Their findings suggest that participants in India tended to endorse rape myths more than students in the UK. Barn and Powers (2018) also recognised that different myths were prevalent in the two country contexts, such that Indian students were more likely to endorse the myth of ‘monster rapists’, whereas British students adhered to the idea of the ‘promiscuous female victim’. They argued that both types of myths are dangerous and risk normalising such perceptions in society.

Meanwhile, Nilsson (2018) examined narratives of rape in Swedish newspapers and pointed out the perpetuation of myths and stereotypes with diverse narratives, such as ‘celebrity rape’ or ‘the lonely pervert rape’, which obscure the influence of patriarchal structures by questioning the existence of the incidents, or ‘monstering’ the perpetrators. Nilsson (2018) proposed that attention to patriarchal dynamics might be diverted by focusing attention on other structural problems.

The negative influence of rape myth acceptance also affects elements of legal institutions. Page (2008) showed that rape myths influence interactions between law enforcement officers and rape victims, whereby police tend not to believe victims whose characteristics are inconsistent with their stereotypes (for instance, if the victim is not a virgin or has had a relationship with the suspect). Krahe et al. (2008) study of undergraduate law students who had practical experience through internships found that participants who tended to accept rape myths were less likely to conclude that rape was the responsibility of the offender and more likely to blame the victims and/or recommend shorter sentences for the perpetrators.

Barn and Kumari (2015) investigated court judgements and conducted interviews with high court judges in India and described the infusion of rape mythology into the court process during rape trials. Similarly, Smith and Skinner (2017) observed court proceedings of rape and other sexual assault trials and found that defence attorneys routinely employed rape myths, such as by focusing on inconsistencies in witness testimonies and promoting a dichotomy of wholly truthful vs. untruthful witnesses. They proposed that courts and juries conceptualise ‘rational’ behaviour as the ‘normal’ way to act, and women who are deemed as not acting rationally are not considered to be credible. However, Smith and Skinner (2017) also identified resistance to rape myths in judicial directions or prosecutors’ comments.

Ambivalent Sexism

In the first published empirical study on rape myth acceptance, Burt’s research (1980) found that among attitude, personality, experience and background, the former was the strongest predicting variable. The attitude variables in Burt’s study included 1) sex-role stereotyping, or the perception of the appropriateness of female and male roles; 2) adversarial sexual beliefs, or the expectation that sexual relations are exploitative at their core and rape is the most extreme form of such exploitation and 3) acceptance of interpersonal violence, or the perception that forcing is a legitimate measure to gain obedience in a relationship (Burt 1980).

In addition to the variables discussed in Burt’s (1980) study, sexism has an important connection to rape myth acceptance (Aosved and Long 2006; Lonsway and Fitzgerald 1994). According to Glick and Fiske (1996), sexism is comprised of two dimensions, namely hostile sexism, which embodies actively negative attitudes toward women and benevolent sexism, whereby a person subjectively deems their sexist attitudes as positive. This two-pronged construct is called ambivalent sexism due to the two evaluatively contradicting aspects (Glick and Fiske 1996). Ramos et al. (2016) demonstrated that both benevolent and hostile sexist messages communicate that women are and should be less competent than men.

Chapleau et al. (2007) identified a positive correlation between hostile sexism and rape myth acceptance, and findings from Suarez and Gadalla’s (2010) meta-analysis confirmed the existence of a strong positive association between rape myth acceptance and sexual aggression as well as hostile sexism and/or aggressive behaviour toward women. Renzetti et al. (2015) study examined the moderating effects of ambivalent sexism (both hostile and benevolent sexism) on the relationship between alcohol use and intimate partner violence perpetration among a community-based sample of 255 men, and their findings indicate that greater alcohol consumption and higher levels of hostile sexism lead to an increased prevalence of intimate partner violence. Erdem and Sahin’s (2017) research identified a significant correlation between participants’ attitudes toward dating violence and ambivalent sexism among a sample of 1171 undergraduates.

Lila et al. (2013) conducted an important study in which they examined the roles of ambivalent sexism and empathy in attitudes toward violence against women among a sample of 404 male police officers. Their findings indicated that participants with lower levels of benevolent sexism tended to prefer unconditional law enforcement, whereas the opposite trend characterised those with higher levels of benevolent sexism. As such, officers’ attitudes regarding whether or not to press charges or not against the offender depended on the victims’ willingness to do so. Those with a general preference for unconditional law enforcement were also found to exhibit higher degrees of empathy and lower levels of hostile sexism (Lila et al. 2013). Their main finding was that sexist attitudes and low levels of empathy negatively influence law enforcement attitudes toward pursuing legal justice against sexual offenders.

Sexual Objectification

Sexual objectification is another variable that influences rape myth acceptance. Objectification theory posits that women experience sexual objectification when they are treated as body parts or compilations of body parts that are valued based on their benefits for others (Fredrickson and Roberts 1997). Bartky (1990) explained that sexual objectification of women occurs when individuals separate parts or bodily functions from the whole person, thus degrading the female body’s sexual parts as status symbols or mere instruments that are perceived to represent women as a whole.

Nussbaum (1995, p. 257) defined the sexual objectification of women as embodying their ‘dehumanisation’ as things, objects, or commodities. She identified several dimensions of this phenomenon, including ‘instrumentality’, whereby women are treated as tools by those who objectify them, and the denial of autonomy, such that women are treated as objects lacking in self-determination. Similarly, ‘inertness’ refers to women being treated as objects lacking in agency, whereas ‘fungibility’ points to the treatment of women as interchangeable objects. Additional elements of objectification include violability, ownership and denial of subjectivity. Women are treated as objects lacking in boundary-integrity that are owned by others, can be bought or sold and whose experiences and feelings need not be taken into account. In this manner, sexuality and sexual relations are engendered by asymmetrical power structures.

Sexual objectification has been described as a precursor to sexual violence that has important consequences for how people view victims of sexual assault (Loughnan et al. 2013; Stoltenberg 2000). When somebody sexually objectifies another person, he or she assumes that the other person is an object. The process is based on a person’s perception that the objectified party is less than the perceiving subject (dehumanised) and has less complex thoughts (dementalised). Engaging in objectification ultimately affects the beholder’s perception of moral treatment, i.e. the extent to which someone is deemed worthy of fair treatment and should not be harmed (Loughnan et al. 2013), which has important implications for rape victims. The sexual objectification of rape victims results in a lack of moral concern for them, which in turn influences perceptions of moral treatment toward rape victims. Based on this concept, the probability of rape myth acceptance by individuals who sexually objectify women will be higher because the victims are perceived to deserve the sexual violence that they endure.

Research is lacking on the role of ambivalent sexism and sexual objectification in predicting rape myth acceptance by male college students in Indonesia. Male college students were chosen for this study because men have consistently been found to have higher rates of rape myth acceptance compared with women (Fonow et al. 1992; Johnson et al. 1997; Lonsway and Fitzgerald 1994; Martinez et al. 2018; Suarez and Gadalla 2010; Szymanski et al. 1993). Malamuth’s (1981) study of male college students found a relationship between rape myth acceptance and the probability of committing rape, such that around 35% of respondents indicated that they might commit rape if there was a guarantee that they would not be apprehended and punished. Similarly, Martinez et al. (2018) identified significant positive correlations between men college students’ self-reported tolerance for sexual harassment, adversarial sexual beliefs, rape myth acceptance and the likelihood to conduct a sexual offence.

About this Study

Previous studies have shown that hostile sexism plays a greater role in sexual objectification and rape myths than the other variables described above. However, this study examined both hostile sexism and ambivalent sexism, which includes benevolent sexism. Although benevolent sexism refers to an attitude that is subjectively perceived as positive by the beholder, Ramos et al.’s (2016) research demonstrated that similar to those exhibiting hostile sexism, those with attitudes of benevolent sexism perceived women as being less competent than men. Lila et al. (2013) found that police officers with higher levels of benevolent sexism prefer to depend on the willingness of the victim when determining whether or not to press charges or not against the offender. This finding suggests the possibility that although police with greater attitudes of benevolent sexism tend to consider women’s contribution to the pursuit of justice or at least attempt to protect women, their attitudes are nonetheless influenced by an underlying perception of men’s superiority over women. Another possibility is that an officer harbouring benevolently sexist views might perceive sexual violence as an illegal act; however, it should not be categorised as being very severe. It is possible that in the minds of such officers, although a woman has experienced sexual violence, her acknowledged weakness requires her to continue her relations with the perpetrator or she may not want to bring the case to the law for other reasons.

Taking all of the above into consideration, in this study, we aimed to examine the roles of ambivalent sexism and sexual objectification of women in predicting rape myth acceptance. More specifically, this study investigated which of the two variables would be the strongest predictor of rape myth acceptance. The hypothesis tested in this study is that ambivalent sexism and sexual objectification significantly predict rape myth acceptance. In a more practical sense, this study aims to provide a theoretical basis for the application of intervention programmes devoted to raising awareness about rape myths. It is hoped that by understanding the roles of ambivalent sexism and the sexual objectification of women in predicting rape myth acceptance, educators can structure the content of intervention programmes to raise awareness of rape myths among the community at large.