Gender and Fear of Walking at Night - Research Paper Example

Gender and Fear of Walking at Night By Project Committee: Approved XXX X, 2008 Statement of the Problem A large number of women fear being attacked at night and hence avoid it. This difference has resulted from the fact that women are more vulnerable to crimes that have a great impact on personality development and less knowledge of defense mechanisms than their male counterparts. Past research indicates that women who have experienced crimes such as rape form the highest number of those that fear walking at night. Men experience more incidences of physical assaults while walking at night as compared to the number of sexual assaults. Sexual assaults can lead to one having a low self esteem and hatred for the opposite sex. These effects do not just last for a short time but may be experienced for a life time. Those women who do not seek counseling after such an incidence are likely to be the most affected. The possibility of being attacked at night increases with a decrease in monthly income and educational level since educational level is directly proportional to monthly income. In addition, marital status determines household income with those divorced or separated reporting the highest levels of poverty. The research also seeks to identify if religion plays any role in developing fear of walking at night. Assumptions This study assumes that all the required data will be available to come up with final conclusions. It also assumes that the information to be used was conducted scientifically and that personal attitudes of the researchers are not represented in the data. Since the research must be representative if one is to generalize it to a wider population, this research assumes that the data collected was representative. Research objectives 1. To determine factors that result to the difference in reaction to attacks. 2. To determine the relationship between gender and the fear of walking at night. 3. To determine the relationship between past experience of victimization and fear to walk at night. 4. To identify factors contributing to fear of walking at night Significance of the study Increased crime rate has been associated with the development of development of avoidance strategies as well as defense mechanisms. Fear is one of the avoidance strategies which may result to poor performance in the work place as well as in the educational institutions. Though women fear walking at night, they always faced with circumstances that will demand them to walk at late hours. This increases the number of women that are likely to be victimized. This research will be useful to the government in determining the strategic measures to put in place so as to reduce gender based violence experienced outdoors. In addition, it will be used in determination of the health facilities and serviced to put in place so as to ensure quick response to such assaults. In the job market, the findings of this research will be applied in determining organizations and industries that have poor working conditions. The research will also identify gaps in researches done on this topic hence provide a guideline for future research. This research will be very important in the development of community based mechanisms to fight against crime. It will analysis stakeholder involvement in fighting against crime and hence give recommendations in accordance with the findings. Literature review Crime rate has been rated to be high with all people having victimized, heard of it or watched stories in the media explaining it. Previous researches have indicated that repeated exposure to crime results to people developing several defense mechanisms (Scogan & Maxfield, 67). However, very few cases are reported especially those done against women such as rape and gender based violence. This means that crimes against women are more than anyone can articulate. Surveys carried on traditional victimization indicated that young men were the most vulnerable but fear of being victimized was three times high among women than men (Stanko, 123). High rate of victimization of men has been attributed to the possibility of fighting back when faced by danger. This does not consider the crimes that take place indoors. Women are 11 times higher likelihood of being forced to have sex than men throughout their life (Tjaden & Thoennes, 123). According to War, the reported fear of victimization by women resulted from a combination of fear of being assaulted sexually, inability to defend themselves accordingly and general fear. On the other hand, men are likely to fear sexual assaults rarely (War, 345). The fear of walking attributed to the fact that the likelihood of attacked at night is higher than during the day. Experiencing rape is not the only thing that women fear but also its aftermath. Keen however holds a different opinion and explains formless and concrete fear as the two forms of fear in women. Concrete fear which is associated with crimes such as rape was higher among young women. Most women perceive rape as equally or much serious than murder. Research also indicates that younger women form the highest percentage of those that fear walking at night with sexual assault being identify as the greatest fear. In regard to income earned and educational level, less educated women and those that earned less income formed the highest percentage of those that feared walking alone at night. The fear was only reduced when they walked in the company of their male counterparts (Schmideberg, 156). According to statistical report released in Canada in 1998, poor working conditions and long working hours were attributed to the high rate of poor women being victimized and hence developing fear in them. Majority of this were single women. Harassments of women by strangers, which mainly occurs at night is more extensive and common than harassment from non-stranger. This explains the cause of the fear walking at night. Women develop different mechanisms of preventing crime which can either be risk management or avoidance. The most commonly applied is avoidance where women fear walking at night than men do. Hypothesis and Propositions The literature review has indicated that gender is a key determinant of fear of walking at night. It is from this that the hypothesis, Women fear walking at night than men been developed. In addition, other propositions such as demographic and lack of previous training on self-defense mechanism report increased levels of fear. METHODOLOGY Research Design The research design applied is descriptive research design because the research involves an estimation of the relationship that exists between variables. This is because the data being collected included both quantitative and qualitative data. The time frame for this research is six months ensure a wide coverage. Qualitative data will be coded so as to develop a quantitative statistical data for analysis. The study will be a comparative study in which different variables will be compared and their relationship to one developing fear of walking at night. Only past scientific researches will be used since they are objective, precise and have a high accuracy level. This information will then be reviewed to come up with final conclusion. Sampling The sampling method to be applied is random sampling. Data from relevant samples aged above 18 years old will be used. Young children will not be involved in this research since they are considered to lack the will power. This will reduce biases in sample selection. However, participants will voluntarily participate in this process. Selected samples will be informed on confidentiality and study purpose of information collected. If one feels insecure and wants to terminate his or her participation, they will not face any negative repercussion. Description of study population The study population comprises of all persons aged 18 and above from all nationalities and races based in Britain. It will include both citizens and non citizens. The study population will not be selected on the basis of educational level, monthly income or educational level. All persons who will be used in the pre-test will have the same characteristics with the study population but will not be involved in the actual study. The findings will be drawn from researches done in the period between 2007 and 2008. However, data collected in other years will also be utilized so as to draw comparison. The research will completely depend on the samples collected for the past researches. Data collection instrument Secondary data will be used in this research and its analysis to come up with conclusion. This will involve making request for data to be made available on large population surveys. Confidentiality of information collected will be observed. Past articles will be used to identify whether the data obtained is objective or not. Data analysis The data will be analyzed using SPSS. This will involve coding of data to enable analysis and interpretation. Tables and pie charts are the formants in which data will be presented and conclusions will then be draw. This will ensure precision and accuracy in data analysis and presentation. Conclusions will be drawn depending on set objectives and the hypothesis will be tested. Findings and Discussion After an evaluation of secondary data from British Crime survey 2007, a greater number of women were reported to be scared of walking at night than their male counterparts. This however varied with age, occupation, geographical residential area and the race of the respondent. However, when asked of their past violence experiences, men were found to have had more experiences than women. The basis or cause of the fear differed from one individual from the other. Most however reported to have been influenced by the reports in the media. All the women involved in the research reported sexual violence as the worst crime that could ever happen to them. The main reason given was that it lowered their dignity and self esteem. However, it was found out that women were socialized in a manner that they thought that walking at night was dangerous. They also influenced to think that are the most vulnerable when compared to their male counter parts. Most of the attackers were men, a factor that made women withdraw since they had been socialized to know that males are stronger than them. Women felt that they were more likely to be assaulted sexually since they were weak and incapable of defending themselves. When some men were asked why they though that women were more scared of walking at night than them, their response included: less or total lack of control over the public, poor coping skill to be able to defend themselves and irrationality. Men were less scared of walking at night since they were in a position to fight back in defense. The fact that most of the offenders were men increased the chance of women being raped or sexually assaulted when attacked. Intimidation and stigmatization made most of the attacked women not reporting the cases. As a result, these women are not in a position to obtain counseling to overcome their experience. Those that offended them also went scot-free and were hence likely to repeat the same action to another person. The following pie chart indicated the total number of people scared of walking at night in relation to their gender. The number of females afraid of walking at night was found to be ten times higher than that of total number of men scared of walking at night. Those participants who reported to be scared of walking at night were also asked of the cause of their fear. Media was a common source of any information concerning crime. Those that expressed their being scared to walk at night were asked to rate which media made the information available to them and the one they accessed consistently. The possibility of a woman being attacked was 1.3% while that of a man being attacked were 1.6%. This meant that if men and women went out at night, more men were likely to be attacked than women. This information was displayed in the media. However, the percentage influence differed with television and newspaper having the greatest influence. The chart below indicates this. In 2007, 2.3% of all women faced the risk of being attacked while 4.1% men were at risk of the same. This is according to BCS (British Crime Survey). Young men of between 16 to 24 years were at a higher risk of having been attacked a year before. This risk reduced with an increase in age with those above 65 years experiencing the least number of attacks. Those abed between 25 years and 34 years among women were at the greatest risk of attack when comparing the variable age (Budd, 68). Threats of being attacked were also higher among men than among women. A relationship between age and fear of being attacked was established. The findings of British Crime Survey carried out in 1995 indicated that other factors also affected one’s fear of walking at night such as race. The Whites were found to be the lowest number of people who feared walking during the night, the Blacks followed while Asian led in the percentage of people that expressed fear of walking at night. However, the number of people who feared walking at night in each culture differed with the type of crime. For instance, more blacks held this fear as compared to Asians when theft committed while I a car were considered Most of the women that reported to fear walking at night were found to be from a poor social economic status. Among the women in employment, 30% of those who feared walking at night were in the occupations of protective service. 24% were combined of those professionals in the social and health welfare. Those who had occupations in personal service and leisure formed 22% and 22%of the total while those in sales formed only 16%. Those in managerial levels experienced the least fear of being attacked and formed 11% of the total (Nicholas et al, 99). This can be interpreted as: increased level of education resulted to improve occupation level which translated to increased income. The higher the income a person earned, the less likely it was for them to work for long hours and hence the less the possibility of being attacked at night. One explanation to this is the fact that those in the least paying jobs usually work for long hours and cannot afford to pay for transportation. They thus experience a higher level of violence when going home. In addition, these people do not have enough money to higher a legal representation to deal with their case. This causes to low level of justice in the judiciary system. However, the situation has change since 1992 with less number of cases being reported when compared with past researches. Past experiences were found to have contributed to development of fear. Those that had experienced sexual assaults were even more afraid that the same would reoccur. 30% of those who had been victimized before indicated fear of walking at night and only 19% of those who did not have such an experience expressed similar fears (Nicholas et al, 100). This meant that there is a positive relationship between past experience and being scared of walking at night. Factors that resulted to this fear were for instance the reduced number of police in the streets during night hour, ability of the offenders to attack suddenly and without being noticed and the increased level of unemployment which resulted to increased poverty level. Limitations of the study 1. The study utilizes secondary data from British Crime survey. This limits the researcher from actualizing with the respondent’s reaction to asked questions. It is sometimes hard to conclude on the actual attitude of the respondent while answering the questions. 2. The researcher does not analyze the actual questionnaires but depends on already tabulated data to come up with analysis and conclusions. 3. The research findings being utilized were used when observing multiple variables and not necessarily establishing why there existed gender difference in relation to fear of walking at night. This means that the researcher did not find some information which would have been of importance in coming up with conclusions such as the relationship between occupations, gender and fear of waking at night. 4. The study assumes that the researches and those who compiled the report did so scientifically and did not make any error while entering data. Hypothesis testing The hypothesis made before carrying out the research stated that women are more scared of walking at night than men was tested and found true from the findings. Though man men faced the danger of victimization in crimes, those who were more afraid were men. Conclusion Fear of walking at night has been identified as negatively influencing people’s lifestyles hence resulting to poor living standards. Those that held fear as a result of past experiences are likely to have a low self esteem. As a result, they are limited from reaching their full potential and exploring their capabilities. Though there has been a reduction in the level of crime generally, a lot needs to be done to prevent the reoccurrence of these crimes. Such would include tightening the measures take for those convicted guilty of committing a crime. Those offenders who assault people sexually or rape their female counterparts should be dealt with appropriately to avoid the reoccurrence of the same. If this happens, the society will have moved to a higher level where women are free from fear. The media was found to be a major contributor of the fear to walk at night for fear of being attacked. The worst of this is that it does not give an option for people especially those living in poverty. The government therefore has a role to ensure protection of all its citizens regardless of their financial status. In doing this, those assaulted will receive attention from the police. Failure of the government or the police to address crime and the fear of victimization can result to people acting in defense. This would make the matters worse as more people engage in hurting others. In this regard, multiple methods should be applied when dealing with crime. Recommendations 1. The community should be educated on defense mechanisms incase faced with the danger of an attack. This is a good step in crime prevention while presenting facts on the risk of being attacked. 2. Community mobilization and involvement crime prevention. This can be achieved through establishing justice programs that are community based. 3. Prioritizing those with greatest need for assistance. References Abduction by Strangers: Evaluation of Maintenance. Strategies.” Journal of Child and Family Studies 4: 177-192. Bohrnstedt, W. and David, K. Statistics for Social Data Analysis. Itasca, IL: F.E. Peacock Publishers, Inc, 1982. Budd, T. Violence at work: New findings from the 2000 British Crime Survey. Home Office Occasional Paper. London: Home Office, 2001. Cohen, Lawrence E. and Marcus Felson. 1979. Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activities. Approach. American Sociological Review 44: 588-608, 1979. Ferraro, Kennith. F. Fear of Crime: Interpreting Victimization Risk. Albany, N. Y.: State of New York: University Press, 1995. Gordon, T. and Stephanie, R. 1989. The Female Fear. New York: The Free Press. Holcombe, A. Mark W. and Julie, K. 1995. “Teaching Preschoolers to Avoid Keane, Carl. “Victimization and Fear: Assessing the Role of the Offender and the Offence.” Canadian Journal of Criminology 37: 431-455, 1995 Kennedy, Leslie.W. and Vincent F. Sacco. Crime Victims in Context. Los Angeles: Roxbury, 1988. Koss, M. 1996. “The Measurement of Rape Victimization in Crime Surveys.” Criminal Justice and Behavior 23: 55-69,. 1996 Upson, A. Violence at work: Findings from the 2002/03 British Crime Survey. Home Office Online Report 04/04. London: Home Office, 2004 Read More