We love to bring you positive and uplifting content that helps to inspire all women to run. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to share stories that do the opposite, but that are just as important. Last week, a new study revealed that 68% of women runners have experienced abuse while running.
The study was undertaken by the University of Manchester. Researchers asked 498 regular female runners about their experiences. More than two-thirds said that they had been harassed while running, from being whistled at to being followed.
Sadly, this isn’t news to us at WR. We’ve previously shared results like this in our National Women’s Running Survey. But the numbers of women affected are increasing rapidly year on year, and this is having a knock-on effect on all female runners. 82% of participants in the University of Manchester study said that they’ve felt concerned for their safety while out running, even if they’ve never experienced an incident themselves.
Dr Caroline Miles and Professor Rose Broad are the criminologists who conducted the study. They’ve said that they hope that the findings will encourage more women to report incidents. Indeed, just 5% of the participants who experienced harassment while running reported this to police.
Often, this was due to the…
