Sexual Abuse: A journal
of Research & Treatment
Special Edition (edited
by Franca Cortoni, PhD) on “Female
Sexual Abusers”
To Be Published –
June 2015
What
Is So Special About Female Sexual Offenders? Introduction to the Special Issue
on Female Sexual Offenders
Cortoni,
F.
An
Incident-Based Comparison of Female and Male Sexual Offenders
Williams,
K. S., & Bierie, D. M.
Adverse
Childhood Experiences in the Lives of Female Sex Offenders
Levenson,
J. S., Willis, G. M., & Prescott, D. S.
Characteristics
of Females Who Sexually Offend: A Comparison of Solo and Co-Offenders
Gillespie,
S. M., Williams, R., Elliott, I. A., Eldridge, H. J., Ashfield, S., & Beech, A. R.
An
Ecological Process Model of Female Sex Offending: The Role of Victimization,
Psychological Distress, and Life Stressors
DeCou,
C. R., Cole, T. T., Rowland, S. E., Kaplan, S. P., & Shannon M. Lynch, S.
M.
Women
Convicted of Promoting Prostitution of a Minor Are Different From Women
Convicted of Traditional Sexual Offenses: A Brief Research Report
Cortoni,
F., Sandler, J. C., &. Freeman, N. J.
Group
Sexual Offending by Juvenile Females
Wijkman,
M., Weerman, F., Bijleveld, C., & Hendriks, J.
Could you talk us
through where the idea of the special edition came from?
The
idea that ‘there is no information on females so we must use male information’
is now out-of-date. While nowhere near the level of knowledge on male sexual
offenders, there is now enough evidence that women and men sexual offenders do
differ in significant ways in terms of gender-specific characteristics, offense
patterns, and recidivism rates. However, it is unclear how well these issues
are understood in the field since most researchers and clinicians will seldom
deal with female sexual offending issues. As a special issue on female sexual
offenders had already been published in 2011 by the Journal of Sexual
Aggression, we (James Cantor, then Editor-in-Chief of SAJRT and I) felt the
time had come for SAJRT to officially acknowledge, via this special issue, the
fact that research on female sexual offending has its rightful place in the
field of sexual aggression.
What kinds of challenges
did you face throughout the process?
The
biggest challenge was sorting through the large number of manuscripts submitted
for the special issue and having to turn down quite a few of these submissions.
The issue of female sexual offending appears to have become quite prominent in
the field, with a large number of people attempting to conduct research on what
are essentially very small samples of women. I find the increased recent
research interest on women very exciting after too many decades of neglect.
However, it is rarely acknowledged that this research area is fraught with
difficulties that are not just due to small samples. Gender-specific research
is much more than simply testing male-based theories on female samples; the
knowledge building exercise must be built from the ground-up on women. Only
then can it be compared to that of men to clearly establish differences and
similarities. As a result, it will be some time before we gain a sound
understanding of the factors that lead to sexual offending behavior among
women.
What kinds of things
did you learn as a result of pulling this edition together?
Based
on my observations, the most recurrent problem with the research on female
sexual is its reliance on male-based theories and data points (e.g.,
psychometric instruments validated for males; assessing factors present in
males but not validated for women). This type of approach is classic in the
area of forensic/correctional psychological/criminological research in that
male-based knowledge is assumed to be gender-neutral (i.e., the crime matters –
not the gender of the offender) and therefore applicable to women. The problem
with this gender-neutral approach is that it fails to acknowledge that other
–gender-specific – factors may be at play when women sexually offend. A simple
example will help illustrate this problem: Williams and Bierie (2014) found
that while 2% of men committed their sexual offense with a female co-offender,
32% of women commit their sexual offense in company of a male co-offender. Not
surprisingly, there is nothing in the male literature that helps explain this
gender-specific aspect of female sexual offending. Other examples of
differences between men and women that require gender-specific explanations
include the differential impact of childhood victimization, the important
differences in sexual recidivism rates, and gender differences in offense-supportive
cognitions or sexual arousal patterns. It is only by directly studying the
women themselves that we will understand these issues.
Now that you’ve
pulled these articles together, what are some implications for practitioners?
The
research presented in the special issue will help clinicians better understand
prevalence issues, victimization and offense process issues, differences in
solo versus co-offending among women, factors that differentiate subgroups of
women all considered to be sexual offenders, and juvenile girls who are
involved in group sexual offending. This new knowledge will provide practitioners
with a stronger empirical basis for their differential clinical evaluation,
treatment and management of women who sexually offend. Most importantly
perhaps, I hope that this special issue will help clinicians understand that sexual
offending is not “worse” or “less worse” when committed by a woman instead of a
man but that the explanations for it that might differ - hence the importance
of adopting a gender lens when working with female sexual offenders.
Franca
Cortoni, PhD
Excellent blog... thanks.
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