The way Kavanaugh's supporters talk about allegations of sexual assault can be dangerous, according to our new study.

Once again, the nation is facing a potential moment, with accusations of sexual assault and misconduct against President Trump's Supreme Court candidate, Brett Kavanaugh. The case looks like many others that have surfaced in recent years: Allegations of a longstanding sexual assault by a now powerful man. The accusers who chose not to go to the police at that time and remained largely silent for years. Proponents of the accused argue that the long silence of the accusers undermines their credibility while expressing concern about the defamation of the accused's reputation and career.

"She has had many opportunities to talk about it," said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) About Kavanaugh's first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. President Trump also expressed his empathy for Kavanaugh by saying, "It's not a man who deserves this," later added.if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been filed immediately with local police authorities by her loving parents. Trump dismissed the second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, as "totally intoxicated and all messed up. "

Some women's rights advocates have described this as a "rape culture". We undertook the first-ever long-term study of the "culture of rape", carefully defining it and examining whether these trends are in fact associated with sexual assault. Here is what we found.

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How we did our research

The culture of rape is hard to measure. We argue that one reliable way to do this is to examine how local newspapers cover rape, which reflects the norms of the local community. We interviewed dozens of academic experts, journalists and activists to determine what constitutes the culture of rape. Based on these interviews, we created a "rape culture index" of 76 distinct linguistic models, grouped into four broad categories: blaming the victims, empathizing with the perpetrators, involving victims' consent, and handing over the credibility of the victims.

We then used massive data analysis and machine learning to measure the content of more than 300,000 articles on the rape of 279 mostly American local newspapers between 2000 and 2013, looking for information. language reflecting the attitudes of "rape culture". For example, providing irrelevant information such as the description of the victim's sexual history or the manner in which she was dressed would suggest that the journalist or local source blames the victims, an indicator of "rape culture". no matter the circumstances "or describing the violence associated with a sexual assault would suggest that the reporter or source was focusing on the responsibility of the author and the absence of consent, and would not constitute evidence of" culture of rape ".

We did not find much language of "rape culture". But when we did, it seemed to be of importance.

The good news is that we found evidence of rape culture in less than 5% of these 300,000 rape stories. The vast majority of articles generally apply to the facts without minimizing the gravity of the crime, blaming the victims for their violations or expressing sympathy for the alleged perpetrator.

The bad news is that when the local coverage is compatible with the culture of rape, this language is correlated with actual behavior. The language of rape culture in the media strongly predicts sexually violent behavior. For example, in a given year, counties with higher than average language of rape in local newspapers have about twice as many rapes per capita as counties where the local language is less than the average. These counties also see six additional cases of rape per year for which no perpetrators have ever been arrested.

That said, we have seen great differences between American communities. Of the 100 counties where local newspaper coverage best matched the rape culture, 52 were in Minnesota and Iowa, 13 in North Carolina and 10 in California. In contrast, local newspapers in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan had relatively little rape culture language. The local press in Republican counties is slightly more inclined to write about sexual assault in a manner consistent with the rape culture – but not much. Overall, the geographical distribution does not divide perfectly according to the red / blue lines.

What explains the positive association between the culture of rape and rape? A higher number of rapes reported could mean more victims coming, or it could mean more rapes. Our data support the second interpretation. We measured police vigilance by examining the difference between county-level and FBI-registered arrests and rape reports in all counties for which we had newspaper data. Looking at the difference between the number of county-level arrests and the number of rape reports, we found that in the counties where newspapers used a language compatible with the rape culture, there were fewer of them. Arrests for each sexual assault only in counties such language.

In other words, in counties where the local press more often used the language of rape culture, more rapes were reported – but fewer of these reports led to arrests. Sexual assault in these communities is more common, but law enforcement is less likely to respond to these assaults.

Of course, many people do not read their local newspaper. We do not suggest that the way news is reported influences victims, perpetrators, or police. But local information can reflect local cultural biases – and these local attitudes are likely to influence potential perpetrators, victims, and local law enforcement. If attitudes compatible with the culture of rape lead the police to assume that victims rather than perpetrators are responsible, these agents may be less likely to investigate or make arrests in response to victims' reports. A feeling of impunity could encourage potential rapists, thus increasing the number of rapes. In addition, knowing that the police do not take sexual assault seriously could discourage victims from reporting. If this hypothesis is correct, the association between a local culture of rape and the incidence of rape may be stronger than what we have seen in crime statistics.

According to Politico, a White House lawyer said, in response to Dr. Ford's allegations, "If anyone can be accused of such charges, then you, me, any man should definitely be worried." The link that our research reveals between these "rape culture" attitudes and actual sexual assault suggests that excusing violent sexual behavior or normalizing sexual assault allegations as something that all men can encourage may encourage a culture of sexual abuse. impunity without consequences.

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Matthew A. Baum is Professor Marvin Kalb of Global Communications and Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and most recently co-author of "War and Democratic Constraint: How the Public Influences Foreign Policy" (Princeton University Press, 2015). ).

Dara Kay Cohen is Associate Professor of Public Policy at Ford University at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, and author of Rape Au during the Civil War (Cornell University Press, 2016).

Susanne Schwarz (@SuSchwarz) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Politics Department of Princeton University.

Yuri M. Zhukov is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Associate Professor at the Center for Policy Studies at the Institute for Social Research.