Degrading females while coaching male sports might lead to assaults. (Originated from Boston Globe) - Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

    After two college football players were charged with the brutal gang rape of a 31-year-old woman, a university official recalls, one of the young men commented: ``What's the big deal? She's only a prostitute.''     When he heard that comment, Dana Skinner, associate athletic director for the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, began to think there might be something wrong with the way his athletes viewed women. That's when he decided to introduce his football, basketball and hockey teams to a novel program designed to prevent sexual violence.     ``I realized these players would probably think that any woman wouldn't be deserving of respect,'' said Skinner, a former basketball player and coach. Male athletes tend to see themselves as superior to women, ``and there's a culture out there that encourages this.''     Anecdotal evidence appears to support Skinner's observation. Every few weeks, there is a news story linking athletes with some form of sexual aggression: The West Point football players disciplined for groping female cadets are one example, as were the convictions for rape that sent the two UMass-Lowell football players to prison last year.     There is also a growing body of research that suggests a connection between sexual violence and male ``cultures'' that put women down to build men up. The latest study, released last month by researchers at UMass-Amherst and Northeastern University, found that varsity athletes at top-ranked NCAA Division I schools were significantly more likely to commit on-campus sexual assaults than other male students.     Specialists who study sexual violence are quick to note that only a small percentage of athletes are ever involved in sexual assaults, and not all agree there is enough evidence to conclude that athletes are more likely to be involved than non-athletes. In the most recent study, only 15 student-athletes were reported for rape, attempted rape and unwanted intimate touching out of 107 perpetrators reported to the judicial affairs offices or campus police at 30 Division I schools.     Researchers stress that sexual violence has many causes. For example, a 1993 study that also found a disproportionate number of athletes involved in sexual aggression revealed at the same time that several other factors are stronger indicators of who will engage in unwanted sexual contact or rape.     ``There are more powerful predictors _ alcohol use, nicotine use and personal feelings of hostility toward women,'' said Mary Koss, professor of family and community medicine at the University of Arizona at Tucson, an author of that study.     Excessive drinking has long been linked with sexually aggressive behavior, possibly in part because it loosens inhibitions. Hostile attitudes toward women, sometimes shaped by abuse and domestic violence during childhood, also play a role. And smoking, though not itself a cause, can be a marker for other traits that Koss believes are linked to sexual violence: Students who smoke today often come from lower socioeconomic classes and tend to be risk-takers.     Although athletic involvement is not the most potent predictor of sexual violence, Koss and others say the correlation is too strong to ignore. In the UMass study, student-athletes made up 3.3 percent of the male population but accounted for 19 percent of assaults reported to judicial affairs offices. (The researchers also analyzed sexual assaults reported to campus police, but found that far fewer incidents were reported through this channel. The percentage of athletes involved in reported assaults was slightly higher than average, a difference too small to be statistically significant).     In light of these findings, some specialists are calling for athletic officials, particularly those coaching the contact sports of football, basketball and hockey, to change the way they foster competitive spirit among their athletes.     ``I think there's enough evidence out there to say, `OK, we've got a problem. How do we fix it?''' said Todd Crosset, a professor of sports management at UMass-Amherst and lead author of the latest study.     Mary DeRosa couldn't agree more. Her teen-age daughter was one of nine girls who were allegedly sexually assaulted or harassed by Gerard Thorpe, a star football player at Millis High School in a suburb of Boston. Thorpe was arrested and charged in November 1993 with three rapes, intimidation of witnesses, and various episodes in which he was said to have grabbed or fondled girls, sometimes in school hallways. Though Thorpe was not allowed to attend classes, he was permitted by school officials to continue playing football and basketball for Millis High.     Thorpe, who is scheduled to go on trial for the sexual assaults this month in Dedham Superior Court, had previously been convicted of assault and battery with a beer bottle, court records show.     DeRosa faults the culture of organized sports for encouraging Thorpe to be violent. She is even angrier with a culture that she says rallies around the accused athlete, rather than his victims.     ``The school and the community were on the boy's side,'' DeRosa said in a telephone interview. ``Everyone blamed the girls for this.''     Because that happens often, women who are raped by well-known athletes are less likely to report the crime to police, says Veronica Reed Ryback, director of the rape crisis intervention program at Beth Israel Hospital. (Overall, the National Crime Victims' Research and Treatment Center in South Carolina recently estimated, 84 percent of all rapes go unreported).     ``It has been my experience that women feel more intimidated by high-status athletes precisely because they are seen as heroes on campus or in society at large,'' Ryback said. ``These women are afraid of the publicity and the high-profile nature of the courtroom situation.''     Their high profile, however, can also work against athletes, says Kathryn Reith, a spokeswoman for the NCAA, because high-profile athletes are more likely than others to attract media attention when they get into trouble. As a result, the public may be left with an exaggerated impression of how often athletes are involved in sexual violence.     Some researchers argue that there is insufficient evidence to say that athletes are any more likely to rape than other men engaged in group activities.     ``To me, sexual violence is clearly a problem of masculinity in our society,'' said Richard Lapchick, director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. ``I think that any time men get together as a collective group, whether it's playing poker or bowling, they would be just as likely to be involved as athletes in sexual assaults.''     No one has yet studied sexual assault among poker players, but several researchers say evidence is building that sexual violence can be fostered by organized sports and other male cultures whose core values are built around aggression and competition. Two published studies have documented a higher incidence of gang rape on campus by students on organized sports teams and in fraternities.     Sports sociologists Michael Messner and Donald Sabo say nothing inherent in sports makes athletes especially likely to rape. Rather, it is the way that competitive sports are organized to promote aggressiveness and male bonding.     ``Central to this group dynamic is the denigration of anything feminine. And integrally related to this misogyny is homophobia,'' Sabo and Messner write in their new book, ``Rethinking Masculinity.''     Byron Hurt, a 24-year-old former star quarterback at Northeastern who now co-directs a campus program aimed at preventing sexual violence, agrees. ``One of the biggest insults you can give a young boy growing up is to say he throws like a girl,'' Hurt said. ``That sort of putdown happens often for young boys, and that's where the whole notion of masculinity takes shape in guys and develops their negative attitudes toward women.''     Calling a player who fumbles the ball ``a skirt'' or worse is one of the ways young athletes define themselves as a distinct group, researchers say. In the process, they learn to treat females as dehumanized objects, rather than human beings with feelings of their own.     ``Dating becomes a sport in itself, and `scoring,' or having sex with little or no emotional involvement, is a masculine achievement,'' writes Sabo, a professor of social science at D'Youville College in Buffalo, N.Y., and Messner, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.     These attitudes are reinforced by the practice of segregating male college athletes _ giving them their own dorms and having them eat at ``training tables.'' Reith notes that the NCAA recently pushed through federal legislation making it illegal, as of August 1996, to house and feed student athletes in separate facilities.     ``This may have an effect on lessening the sort of sports culture Don Sabo and Michael Messner seem to be finding,'' said Reith, the NCAA spokeswoman. ``I also think our member institutions should look at instituting programs on sexual responsibility and making them mandatory for student-athletes.''     (AT-RISK READERS: KRT News Service wants to help newspaper editors identify stories that may be of interest to ``readers at risk'' (people whom newspapers are at risk of losing as readers: young people, women, African-Americans and Hispanics). These stories can be identified by note (AT-RISK) at top of story.)