Where Romance Meets Stalking: How Heteronormative Gender Beliefs Perpetuate Stalking

• In Event: 2351 - Section on the Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 6. Gendered Romantic and Sexual Relationships.

Abstract

Evidence suggests that we live in a stalking culture; that is, a culture in which stalking is normalized, minimized, and romanticized through various cultural institutions. In order to begin to mitigate this stalking culture, this study examines the attitudes that undergird perceptions about cyberstalking. Drawing on data from an original vignette study via an Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) survey (N=727), we explore how normative beliefs about gender and sexuality impact understandings of the difference between ordinary romance and stalking. Study respondents were shown one of four vignettes, which all adhered to legal definitions of cyber-stalking. We explore how the stalker and victim’s prior relationship as well as the respondent’s gender and their attitudes affect their perceptions of stalking behaviors. Data were analyzed using logistic regression and ordinary least squares regression. Findings show that women are significantly more likely than men to identify and label cyberstalking. Women overall label cyberstalking as less socially acceptable, relative to men. Further, heteronormativity, and its components—hostile sexism, benevolent sexism, and sexual double standards—predict higher endorsement of cyberstalking. Findings inform discussions about the way sexual norms of “the real world” translate into the cyberworld. Our results also have implications for the legitimation and perpetuation of sexual violence and gender inequality.

Authors

• Andrea Becker, The Graduate Center, CUNY

• Jessie Ford, New York University