The attitudes toward female sexual abusers: the effects of profession, beliefs in traditional motherhood, female sexuality, and traditional gender roles

This study explored the attitudes toward female sexual abuse among professionals who are working with child abuse cases. The effects of the profession, attitudes toward traditional motherhood and fatherhood, female sexuality, and traditional gender roles on the attitudes toward female-perpetrated sexual abuse were also explored. Participants were psychological counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, doctors, nurses, forensic medicine doctors, police officers, and legal workers, all of whom handle child sexual abuse cases in their workplace. The sample consisted of 502 professionals (269 women, 206 men) between the ages of 20 and 65 years (M = 32.12, S.D = 7.90). Demographical Information Form, Examples of Sexual Abuse Cases Form, the Turkish version of Attitudes regarding Women's Sexualized Behaviors toward Children Questionnaire, Traditional Motherhood and Fatherhood Scale, Myths about Women's Sexuality Form, and Sexual Double Standards Form were used to collect data. SPSS 25 and SPSS Amos 20 were used in data analyses. For statistical analyses, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Chi-square test, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson Correlation coefficient, Simple and Multiple Linear Regressions, Hierarchical Regression Analysis were conducted. Values of p<0.05, p<0.01, or p<0.001 were used to ensure the conditions of statistical significance. One-way ANOVA showed that mental health professionals and social workers accepted women's sexualized behavior as more harmful and serious compared to justice and health workers. Results indicated that attitudes toward female sexual abusers were significantly correlated with beliefs in traditional motherhood (r = -.293) and fatherhood (r = -.342), myths about women's sexuality (r = .385), and sexual double standards (r = -.344). Simple Linear Regression showed that traditional motherhood, fatherhood, myths about women's sexuality, and sexual double standards roles accounted for 8.7%, 11.7%, 14.8%, and 11.8% of the total variance in attitudes toward female sexual abusers, respectively. Five-step hierarchical regression showed that encountering sexual abuse cases where the abuser was a woman, beliefs in traditional fatherhood, myths about women's sexuality, and sexual double standards accounted for 21.7% of the total variance in attitudes toward female sexual abusers. Beliefs in traditional fatherhood and myths about women's sexuality were the strongest predictors in this model, which uniquely accounted for 3.2% and 2.4% of the variance in attitudes toward female sexual abusers, respectively. Results showed that beliefs in traditional fatherhood, sexual double standards, and myths about women's sexuality were the most important predictors of attitudes toward female sexual abusers while the profession, gender, training about sexual abuse, and encountering with sexual abuse cases where the abuser was a woman were weak and indirect predictors. The findings of the study showed that experts working in the field are sensitive to female-perpetrated sexual abuse but do not have detailed knowledge. They need more training on female-perpetrated sexual abuse.