Perception of one’s own gender role and the role played by men in adolescent female victims of sexual abuse / Percepción del rol de género propio y del rol que desempeñan los hombres, en mujeres adolescentes víctimas de abuso sexual

Abstract

Abstract In order to ascertain whether suffering sexual abuse affects the perception of adolescent females’ gender role and the perception of the gender role played by men, 71 victims and 76 adolescents who had not been abused were assessed. The findings indicate that sexual abuse victims minimize the positive characteristics of men and overestimate the negative ones, and they perceive themselves with few positive female features but with many negative ones. They are also dissatisfied with their own gender role, which produces maladjustments that increase the difficulty of establishing relationships with the opposite sex, which in turn might generate subsequent risky behaviours.