JOURNAL OF FAMILY VIOLENCE

This study examined the attitudes of police officers and judiciary members toward wife abuse in Turkey and the relation between these attitudes and profession, ambivalent sexism (hostile/benevolent sexism), gender, and gender roles. The following instruments were used for the analyses: The Attitudes Toward Wife Abuse Scale (AWAS), the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), and the Bem Sex Role Inventory. The participants were 300 police officers and 150 judiciary members selected from different regions of Turkey. Results showed that compared to judiciary members, police officers are more tolerant of physical and verbal abuse of women in marriage, but less tolerant of the idea of the victim leaving an abusive marriage partner. Similarly, men were more tolerant than women of those husbands who physically and verbally abuse their wives, but less supportive of the wife leaving the abusive partner. Profession and ambivalent sexism (hostile/benevolent sexism) were found to be the strongest predictors of attitudes toward wife abuse

Turkish university students' attitudes toward rape

In this study we investigated the effects of gender and gender roles upon attitudes toward rape among 432 female and 368 male college students in Turkey whose mean age was 22.08 (SD = 2.09). The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and measures of attributions toward date rape and stranger rape, and myths scenarios were used. All 3 scenarios were given to each participant. It was hypothesized that women would attribute less responsibility than men would to the rape victim, more responsibility to the assailant, and describe the assault as a serious crime. Women and men who have masculine gender roles were expected to attribute more responsibility to the rape victim and less responsibility to the assailant and show higher tolerance of the assault than would those in the other classified gender roles. Both men and women were expected to attribute more responsibility to the victim of a date rape and less responsibility to the date rape assailant and show higher tolerance of date rape than stranger rape. Results indicated that gender, but not gender role, was an important factor in Turkish college students' attitudes toward date rape. Women and men shared a similar point of view on stranger rape, but date rape was considered less serious than stranger rape. Gender role was not a significant factor in attitudes toward rape