Feminist Agency, Sexual Scripts, and Sexual Violence: Developing a Model for Postgendered Family Communication

• Author: Kelly R. Rossetto,Andrew C. Tollison
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12232
• Published date: 01 February 2017
• Date: 01 February 2017

K R. R Boise State University

A C. T Merrimack College

Feminist Agency, Sexual Scripts, and Sexual

Violence: Developing a Model for Postgendered

Family Communication

Weexplore the interrelated research on intersec-

tionality, feminist agency, script theory, and gen-

der socialization to uncover the ways in which

college students may experience institutional-

ized sexual scripts and perceptions of agency

in sexual encounters. We theorize that changes

at the family level could ultimately help cre-

ate a shift in a campus culture that has become

entrenched, with biased sexual scripts that lead

to power imbalances and sexual violence. With

underpinnings of social role theory and mod-

eling, this article develops a model of postgen-

dered family communication. Practical family

communication suggestions based on the model

are provided for parents and family educators

that could help shift sexual scripts, enable femi-

nist agency, and improve rates of sexual assault

incidence and reporting at the institutional level.

In 2014, the Association of American Univer-

sities conducted an empirical assessment of

university students’ attitudes and experiences

regarding sexual assault and sexual miscon-

duct. Across 27 universities, 11.7% of students

across enrollment status and gender reported

Department of Communication, Boise State University,

Boise, ID (kellyrossetto@boisestate.edu).

Key Words: Family communication, feminist agency,gender

socialization, sexual scripts, sexual violence.

experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact

since enrolling in college. The reported inci-

dence was distinctly higher among transgender,

genderqueer, and nonconforming (24.1%)

and female (23.1%) undergraduate students

(Cantor et al., 2015). The higher percentages

are consistent with previous research, which

has reported that 19% of female undergraduates

experience sexual assault (Krebs, Lindquist,

Warner, Fisher, & Martin, 2009) and that trans-

gender young adults are at particularly high risk

of sexual assault (Lombardi, Wilchins, Priesing,

& Malouf, 2002).

In line with the high rates of sexual assault,

the Association of American Universities inves-

tigation found that 20.2% of students reported

sexual assault or misconduct as very problem-

atic or extremely problematic. However, only

5% of surveyed students felt it was very or

extremely likely they would experience sexual

assault on campus, and only 13.3% of victims of

penetration involving incapacitation and 25.5%

of victims of forced penetration reported their

assault to an agency (e.g., Title IX ofce,campus

ofcials, law enforcement; Cantor et al., 2015).

Key barriers associated with underreporting sex-

ual assault include concerns regarding con-

dentiality, fear of not being believed, shame,

guilt, embarrassment, emotional difculty, lack

of condence in institutional support, and con-

siderations of seriousness (Cantor et al., 2015;

Sable, Danis, Mauzy, & Gallagher, 2006) or

Family Relations 66 (February 2017): 61–74 61

DOI:10.1111/fare.12232