Have You Been #HarassedMidrun? You’re Not Alone.
A new report commissioned by Runner’s World, entitled “Running While Female,” has found that 43 percent of women say they sometimes experience some form of harassment while on a run — compared with just 4 percent of men. And the numbers are even more dramatic for younger women: 58 percent of women under the age of 30 report being sexually harassed or threatened while running “always, often or sometimes.”
Furthermore, 5 percent of female runners report being flashed while running, 30 percent report having been followed by a person (whether on foot, in a car, or riding a bicycle) while running, 18 percent say they have been sexually propositioned while running, and 3 percent have been grabbed, groped or otherwise physically assaulted — all while simply trying to run in public.
And fear of threats and harassment is affecting how women run too. The report found that 63 percent of women surveyed say they choose a place to run or a running route based on where they feel it’s unlikely they will encounter a person who might try to harm them. Only 23 percent of men surveyed said the same. Likewise, 41 percent of women runners said they choose routes where they are less likely to receive unsolicited attention, compared to only 9 percent of men. And 41 percent of women also said they choose a route where they can flee a dangerous situation, should one occur.
The precautions women take while running don’t end there. Out of concern for their safety, 73 percent of women say they run with their phone, 71 percent say they tell someone where they will be running and when they should be back, 60 percent limit their runs to daytime hours, and 41 percent run with other people.
More than half of all women runners — 54 percent — say they are concerned they could be physically assaulted while running.
The Runner’s World report is both deeply troubling and, unfortunately, not entirely surprising. This summer alone saw the murders of three women joggers: Karina Vetrano, 30, of Queens, N.Y.; Vanessa Marcotte, 27, of Princeton, Mass.; and Ally Brueger, 31, of Rose Township, Mich.
Boston-area fitness instructor Erin Bailey shared her thoughts on being harassed while running in a viral blog post, “What Do We Deserve?” She told Yahoo Beauty that she was inspired to write her post after experiencing countless instances of street harassment herself and hearing similar stories from friends and acquaintances. The unifying thread behind all these stories, Bailey said, was that women were not only facing harassment and threats of sexual violence regularly but also being told repeatedly to deal with it by giving up running outside.
Zoe Peterson is the director of the Sexual Assault Research and Education Program and an associate professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She explains to Yahoo Beauty that when it comes to the kind of threats faced by female runners, it’s complicated.
“‘Catcalling’ a woman runner, although demeaning and disrespectful, is obviously not equivalent to physically assaulting a woman runner,” Peterson says. “It is very common for women to experience sexually harassing comments from strangers on the street, but it is extraordinarily rare to be physically or sexually assaulted by strangers on the street. Those kinds of assaults are far more commonly perpetrated by someone that the woman knows.”
And yet, Peterson explains, the incredible rates at which women experience verbal street harassment can genuinely make them feel vulnerable — and at risk for physical, sexual assault — when out in public.
“Being harassed and objectified by a stranger is likely to increase [a woman’s] feelings of vulnerability and thus increase her fear of running alone,” Peterson notes. “Because most men don’t share the experience of feeling sexually vulnerable every time they leave their house alone, they may not be sensitive to women’s fears.”
As a result, she says, women deal with the added sociological effect of men finding humor or a lack of seriousness in exactly the comments that women know and understand to be verbal harassment — and yet every time a woman hears these kinds of comments, even if not meant “seriously” by men, it only increases her fear of being alone in public.
“Ultimately, this may impede a woman’s ability to enjoy running or even cause her to discontinue the activity altogether,” Peterson concludes.
Speaking to Runner’s World, Michael Kimmel, the distinguished professor of sociology and gender studies at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y., explained that women regularly experience sexual aggression in public because “the public sphere is [still] a male space.” As a result, he explains, even seemingly “casual” verbal street harassment is a way that men assert their privilege and space over women and remind them that the world writ large is not theirs to exist in independently.
The editors of Runner’s World are asking other women to share their stories and comment on the report using the hashtag #HarassedMidrun.
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