Female runner been 'wolf-whistled' at as University of Worcester study aims to show abuse faced by runners
A University of Worcester study has identified incidents of runners being shouted at from cars, chased by dogs, and having items thrown at them while out exercising
An organiser of an all-female running group says a University of Worcester study which revealed the vast majority of female respondents had experienced harassment while out running wasn’t a shock.
The Running Free, Running Safe survey heard from 101 people in total, 61 women and 40 men, with more than half of those reporting experiencing harassment and abuse while out running.
It found the abuse most common in being directed at women took the form of men shouting obscene and sexualised remarks or comments from vehicles and the shouted abuse was often about the victims’ appearance.
"It's something that we've always had to put up with and its sort of become normal, but it shouldn't be"
Carly Barnes is the founder of Run the Shire who run weekly around the Worcester area, she says she's been a victim to a form of abuse herself when she's been out running but it stretches beyond just that environment.
"I've experienced it, I've been wolf-whistled and rightly or wrongly, I have gone up to the person that wolf whistled at me and I've said, can you not do that please," she said.
"It happens all the time and it's something that we've always had to put up with and its sort of become normal, but it shouldn't be.
"That's a big part of why I created the running group so that as a group you feel safer."
The research also asked participants what changes, if any, they made after being targeted by abuse.
Particularly for women, responses included running in groups rather than alone, not running early in the morning or late in the evening and sticking to built up areas away from streets with poor lighting.
"Women just want to go out and run and enjoy that time, mind their own business, move their body"
Carly says when she is out running on her own she makes sure her husband can track her to check she is safe.
"He can follow my route and knows roughly how long I'm going to be out for and there have been occasions where I phoned him on runs where I've not felt comfortable and we've just chatted," she said.
"“My husband tells me that he's had the odd occasion where he's had abuse but it's different, he said it's not based on him being a man, it's based on him being a runner.
"Women just want to go out and run and enjoy that time, mind their own business, move their body."
Unacceptable abuse
Research from the University of Manchester last year found over two-thirds of women who run experience some form of abuse.
Half of the women surveyed say that form of abuse was verbal, with 13 saying they had been physically assaulted while out running.
Dr Claire McLoone Richards is leading the research and she says the abuse runners are receiving is not acceptable.
She said: "There is a tendency for many victims in the survey to minimise their traumatic experiences or to normalise it as part of their experience.
"One woman described buying a a treadmill to place in her home because she did not feel safe running out in the community anymore and many have decided just to start running in the gym on a treadmill in the gym because they didn't feel safe.
"The other thing that concerned me was the lack of contact that people made, particularly women, to the police, only four of those 53 people who had been affected by abuse actually contacted the police because they felt that they were wasting police time."
Further research
All the research is being undertaken with colleagues from West Mercia Police, Worcestershire County Council, and other academic staff from both Worcester and Birmingham City universities.
Dr Richards says they now want to get a deeper analysis of what’s happening and a stronger narrative of these experiences from people.
"When we talked about women and men's experiences, with women it certainly seemed to be a gender based perspective on the amount of the type of abuse that the women were experiencing, but also with men, it tended to be more anti-social type behaviour.
"So a form of abuse in terms of anti-social behaviour might be sort of name calling, but maybe things like empty beer cans being thrown at them while they're running alongside the road.
"We know from campaigns and studies elsewhere in the UK that these experiences are not unique to Worcestershire, one of the resounding messages we want to see coming from this research is that these experiences are not minimised or downplayed.”
The study has now entered its second phase, with a second public survey being available until 29 June to record the experiences of runners in the lighter summer months.