emales are unable to gauge both their own bodies' resistance to injury, and their own strength and power. The emotional training women receive from role models also contributes to their inability to successfully fight back. Women learn to be passive, gentle, nurturing, accepting and compliment. Rapists select victims they -5can intimidate and overpower. Most women are reluctant to challenge men's offensive behaviour because of their emotional training and conditioning (i.e., it is not proper to "make a scene). In addition, women in our society tend to have an aversion to violence, due to social conditioning by parents, who received similar teachings from their own role models. It is not recognized that non-violence is no longer a virtue if it serves to maintain victimization. There is a difference between becoming a violent person and responding to violence in an appropriate and assertive manner. Women are also kept vulnerable through their isolation from each other. Women are socialized by those who raise them, or by peers, to compete with each other for the attention of men and to mistrust each other.A concrete example of social learning in our culture is that many women believe that being ogled by a group of construction workers is nothing morethan a form of praise. Many sexual assaults, however, begin with a "harmless" compliment or inquiry from a rapist. His comments are a way of testing how accommodating the woman might be. The lack of clarity about what constitutes insulting behaviour and the learned ambivalence women have about unwanted approaches makes them vulnerable to sexual assault.Many of the attitudes, beliefs and mistaken ideas about rape have been with us for centuries. By looking at myths such as, "women ask for it," and "women secretly enjoy rape," from a historical perspective, we can better understand how they evolved through social learning mechanism. Our understanding o...
