Exploring a feminist routine activities approach to explaining sexual assault

Abstract

Routine activities theory has generally focused on macro-level data, and has ignored sexual violence. Although virtually all researchers in this area have built offender motivation into the theory, and have treated it simply as a “given,” few have tried to explain it. Feminist theory on campus sexual assaults, however, not only explains offender motivation but also discusses how women are viewed by offenders as “suitable targets.” In this study, two hypotheses on lifestyle are tested and supported by a local victimization survey of 288 undergraduate women: women who go out drinking more often and women who are friends of motivated offenders (men who get women drunk in order to have sex with them) are more likely than other women to be sexually victimized.