Women’s perception of safety when exercising outdoors

High profile cases in recent years of violence against women, including murders in public spaces, also highlight the issues females continue to experience when alone in public and the decisions they make to stay safe - including how, when and if they should be exercise outdoors.

A new study published in the Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health journal demonstrates the constant negotiations women take between their safety and enjoyment for exercising outdoors.

The report, Women trail runners’ encounters with vulnerability to male harassment in rural off-road spaces, looked specifically at women who prefer to run off road, or trail run. The authors, Dr Laura Gubby, Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport at Canterbury Christ Church University and Dr Joanne Hill, Senior Lecturer in Physical Education and Sport Sociology at the University of Bedfordshire, spoke with women who trail run by themselves. They found that women had many influences when it came to deciding whether to exercise outdoors, but despite ‘risky moments’ and regularly feeling vulnerable, the runners refused to stop due to the enjoyment the activity brought them.

The report highlights some of the areas that can affect a women’s decisions before and even during their outdoor running. Influences such as suspicions male trail users, whether the risk outweighs the enjoyment and the opinion of their families and friends as to whether they should be running those paths alone.

Despite most of the interviewees not having had direct experiences of harassment whilst running trails, they still felt vulnerable to attack as a solo female runner. They would be constantly assessing their place in the environment, trying to establish the legitimacy of different people using the trails.

For example, dog-walkers perceived to pose no safety concerns for the runners and were generally accepted as legitimate users of the space, because they had a clear purpose in the trail. Particularly suspicious was a man without a dog, who consistently came up as most likely to provoke anxiety and fear in solo women runners.

When the runners did meet met others in the trail space, predominantly solo males, detailed considerations would take place on whether to change direction and avoid the potential threat. However, despite feeling vulnerable to male harassment when trail running by themselves, the women also felt guilty for judging the men, producing a complex negotiation between empathy for others and care for themselves.

The women also experienced pressure from the opinions of family members and friends as to whether they should be alone in these spaces, especially in the dark, and if they were being selfish running in such spaces.

Dr Gubby explained: “Blame aimed at women who have encountered harm implies their decisions to be in public spaces alone or in the dark were unwise and campaigns have rightly shifted blame to the perpetrator rather than the victim or survivor. The women in this study divided their encounters into safe individuals who would have less impact on their movement choices and those who were concerning. The runners indicated that they had to guess men’s intentions and did not have the privilege to ignore them.

“But despite this the runners shared a profound relationship with the trail and spoke of their enjoyment of the physical space. The runners we spoke to actively chose trails as desirable and rewarding running spaces.

“The women attempted to position themselves as legitimate users of the trail, which is traditionally seen as a masculine space, resisting male domination of off-road running and aiming to create a positive running environment, despite others who actively or passively made it negative act.

“Understanding how women experience running in trails, and the impact that potential harassment may have on their decisions and enjoyment is key to gaining knowledge around women’s exercise choices and could also have broader social implications. For example, women’s perceived inaccessibility and conscious decisions not to use certain places should also be considered when designing and maintaining inclusive public spaces. Additionally, a raised public awareness of how the presence of others may make a woman trail runner feel, could encourage trail users to act in ways that could help women feel safer.

“Women trail runners who feel concerned about male harassment should not feel alone in relation to these concerns or the decisions they make when running. In support of the This Girl Can campaign, #LetsLiftTheCurfew, it’s time we made exercising outdoors safer for women.”