Gender, Sexism and the Social Representation of Stalking: What Makes the Difference?

Objective. The present study had two main aims: to investigate how ordinary people conceptualize stalking behaviors and to deepen whether respondents’ gender and attitudes toward women are related to the way the phenomenon is described and understood. The research was conducted from the perspective of social representation. Method. Three hundred fifteen university students from Torino who had never experienced stalking completed a questionnaire investigating their knowledge about the phenomenon and the levels of sexism. The participants also provided their free definition of stalking. Results. The results showed that the participants identify the causes of stalking in distorted outcomes of romantic relationships, view its aim as controlling the victims, and attribute psychological pain to victims. Women tended more to identify stalking with ambiguous behaviors; hostile sexists did not recognize psychological consequences in victims. The representations of stalking showed an opposition between morbidity and aggression in the stalking definition, associated with the endorsement of sexist attitudes toward women. Specifically, benevolent sexism favored a conception of stalking as an annoying but not truly dangerous event. Conclusion. It would be useful to reconsider the contents of prevention initiatives: they have to be directed more toward acting on the symptoms and causes of stalking.