Hollaback! Interna/onal Street Harassment Survey Project Analyses provided by: Dr. Beth Livingston Research Assistants Maria Grillo and Rebecca Paluch Property of Beth A. Livingston, Cornell University. Do not disseminate without permission of Dr. Livingston and Hollaback.org
Procedure •
Beth Livingston (assistant professor, Cornell ILR School) created the survey
– Hollaback!’s constant feedback and guidance – Guidance of prior research on street (or stranger) harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace. – Survey uploaded to the survey hos/ng site (provided by Cornell) called Qualtrics.
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Surveys were translated, where appropriate, by volunteers from various Hollaback! sites
– Guided by instruc/ons to ensure the internal validity of the ques/onnaire – Feedback was given by Hollaback! leadership and site leaders throughout the process to make sure we were using wording that was as broadly applicable as possible – Reviewed by Cornell’s ins/tu/onal review board (IRB) and found to be exempt because no iden/fying informa/on was collected from respondents.
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Site leaders given their own links to the survey in the languages they preferred.
– Survey open for 2 months (October 15-‐December 15, 2014) – Could send the links out however they wished – Survey was not randomly distributed to a random sample of par/cipants, and thus cannot be generalized to the en/re popula/on of each country in the same was as, say, a Gallup survey – Demographic data was collected so that o a profile of respondents could be created
UNITED STATES SAMPLE SIZE=4872
US: Interna/onal differences • UK, Canada, US, EU, “other”
– US age of first harassment is significantly lower than the "other" region, but equal to the UK, Canada, and the EU – US respondents report significantly more verbal harassment in the past year than every other region. – US respondents report significantly more nonverbal harassment in past year than Canada and the EU, but the same as the UK and the other regions. – US respondents report significantly fewer exposure harassment experiences in past year than the other regions, and significantly more than in Canada. The same as the UK and the EU. – US respondents report significantly fewer groping incidents in past year than the other regions, the UK and the EU, and the same as Canadian respondents. – US respondents report significantly more following/stalking incidents in the past year than the EU and the other regions, but the same as UK and Canadian respondents.
US Women under 40: Age • Age at first harassment AGE AT FIRST HARASSMENT <10 11-‐12 13-‐14 15-‐16 17-‐20 21-‐25 over 25
Percentage of respondents 11.6 23.7 31.4 18.2 12.8 1.9 0.4
US Women under 40: Summaries • 85% of US women report experiencing their first harassment before age 17. – In fact, 11.6% of women report their first harassment BEFORE age 11.
• Verbal and nonverbal harassment are the most commonly experienced types of harassment, and few women report not experiencing this behavior at all during the past year. • Having a person expose him/herself to you is the least common harassment experience, with almost 80% of women having no experience with this at all • Half of US women under 40 have been groped or fondled in the past year. • 77% of US women under 40 have been followed by a man or group of men in a way that made them feel unsafe during the past year. – A small, but significant propor/on of US women have experienced this frightening behavior more than 5 /mes.
US Women under 40: Loca/ons • Has this happened in certain loca/on/under certain circumstances, during past year? (perc saying “yes”) Expose On the street In a park On public transit In a public transit staKon On way to work On way to school On way to social event on a college campus IN a well lit area In a poorly lit area In a city In a suburb/outside of a city In a manufacturing area In a retail/sales/shopping area Around a lot of other people Alone, or isolated Late at night During the day While dressed up While dressed "down" or casually
7.1 3 6.8 3.2 3 1.4 2.7 1.3 5.7 3.9 15 2.9 0.7 2.3 7.6 4 6.4 8.9 4.2 11.6
Grope/Fondle 10.9 1.6 14.6 4.2 5.7 3 9.7 5.2 13.9 13.8 26.7 5.7 0.8 6.7 25.2 4.9 16.5 15.9 16.2 22.5
Follow 45.8 9.6 14.3 11.4 17.1 10 18.1 8.3 27 22.4 41 15.9 4.2 15.4 28.6 19.4 27.4 33.6 23.8 39.3
Verbal Nonverbal 56.4 54.6 18.1 20.4 24.6 30.8 21.6 24.3 31 30.4 17.8 17.3 33.8 31.4 12.7 12.8 42 39.8 29.8 29 54.7 53.8 22.5 23 7.2 7.8 23.8 24.5 42.7 43 24 24.5 34.9 34.6 47 45.8 37.3 36.5 49.5 47.8
US Women under 40: Emo/ons • Street harassment of any kind seems to result in strong feelings of anger – Fear and anxiety are primarily rooted in the ac/ons of groping, exposure and following/stalking.
• Groping/fondling is the most likely to lead to feelings of depression and low self esteem. • A common refrain is that women secretly find harassment to be flaoering.
– Although some women do seem to feel this way, it is a very small few.
• Some women report feeling no emo/onal reac/ons to street harassment, although they are the minority.
– It is important to dis/nguish between trends (i.e., street harassment has strong effects on nega/ve emo/ons) and possibili/es/outliers (i.e., some women will indeed feel nothing at all, or even flaoered, by it)
US Women under 40: Behavioral Impacts Leave/resign your job? Not aVend/skip work? Refuse or not accept work/job? Miss school or skip classes? Be late to school or work? Have to or want to move homes? Have to or want to move ciKes? Not go out to a social ouKng or event (bar, restaurant, movies, etc.)? Not go out at night? Have to move ciKes? Feel distracted at school or work? Change your behavior/relaKonship with friends or loved ones? Choose to take a different route home or to your desKnaKon? Choose to take different transportaKon (e.g., call a cab instead of walking/taking the bus)? Choose not to show public affecKon with a partner or significant other? Take self-‐defense classes (formally or on your own) to protect yourself? Carry a weapon? Change what you were wearing? Avoid a city or area? Change changed the Kme you lea an event or locaKon? Join a support network either online or in person? Call the police or security? Not socialize or interacted with a person? Avoid an area of your town or city specifically?
%of respondents saying "yes" 7.90 13.00 13.90 17.50 34.10 35.60 32.10 54.50 69.80 7.00 57.40 34.00 85.60 72.80 26.30 41.50 41.10 66.20 72.20 67.00 15.80 27.60 63.40 68.30
US Women under 40: Behavioral Impacts • These responses are simplis/c in some ways, but demonstrate the very real behavioral, social and economic effects that street harassment can have. • Over half of respondents noted that they changed their clothing, refused a social event, chose different transporta/on op/ons or felt distracted at work/school. • Some respondents notes that they moved ci/es or changed jobs because of street harassment. • Over a third of respondents noted that they were late to school or work, which could have major economic effects on both business performance and on personal finances.
US Women under 40: Bystanders and Communica/on • The majority of street harassment occurs without witnesses willing to help. – When people do stop to help, it usually has a posi/ve effect on emo/onal reac/ons to harassment.
• However, in general, bystanders more open-‐-‐ regardless of their inten/ons to help-‐-‐make things worse. • Women are more likely to talk to friends than anyone else about their harassment experiences. • Women feel least comfortable talking to individuals with power or status posi/ons about their experiences.
US Women under 40: General demographic notes • Wealth/class and race ques/ons had to be worded to be as broad as possible to apply to all countries surveyed. – Thus, care should be taken in interpreta/on.
• Sample: Rela/vely highly educated, moderately economically secure, and engaged with street harassment (63.1% have visited Hollaback! online) • I ran ANOVA analyses (checking significant differences between averages) comparing majority race respondents to non-‐majority race respondents.
– In these analyses, there were no significant differences in verbal, nonverbal or following harassment by race. – Non-‐majority race respondents reported a younger age at first harassment, and more annual experiences of groping/fondling and exposure harassment – Addi/onally, non-‐majority race respondents felt less comfortable talking with EVERYONE on the list (on the bystander tab). Thus, they seemed to have fewer resources available to them and were more likely to experience some of the worst types of harassment, and at a younger age.
• We did not record race of perpetrators-‐-‐as we did not analyze specific harassment events.
US Women under 40: General demographic notes, con. • When running ANOVA analyzing differences between those who have visited a Hollaback! site and those who haven't, we found significant differences on ALL types of harassment, age at harassment, and comfort talking about harassment – We cannot tell if these experiences led them to Hollaback!, or if being ac/ve in Hollaback! made them more sensi/ve to observing such experiences.
• What can we then generalize to?
– This was not a random sample, so we can say that, among female respondents under 40 from the US, we found XYZ. Respondents were not randomly selected, so extrapola/on to percentages in the general popula/on should be avoided or only carefully applied.