Women suffer at least 26 sexual crimes on average in their lifetime

The findings from the report are flawed.

To ask for a selection of women to come forward to report on any assaults they may have endured is to disregard those who have not encountered any as they will not bother to come forward. The question is therefore biased.

To extrapolate information from this is wrong; to state this as a fact is wrong:

^Our findings in this report suggest that current statistics of the prevalence of violence against women have been underestimated for decades, and instead, it is likely that every
woman and girl will be subjected to violence, abuse, rape or harassment.^

Their statistics relied on those who came forward and are not representative of the female population as a whole.
You can make statistics appear as biased as you wish in this way and the information extrapolated will be plain wrong.

This does a huge disservice to those women who have endured assaults of any kind because the way this has been reported is flawed and the statistics unbelievable.

Women who have endured multiple assaults deserve better than this.

What lesser crimes are we thinking of? Do we not consider groping a crime? It is, touching without consent is an offence. It is also distressing for the person being groped.
I really can't understand why so many have issues with this; I am asking again.
What sort of methodology would you prefer?

Their actual words: "The study does not seek to generalise to the whole UK female population"

Is c* a technical term?

I give up.

It is not how I think the research should be done as how it should not be done

To begin with you do not use a self-selected sample obtained through social media, which social media is not named. The whole section justifying the sample as being representative is cr*p.

The biasses that can result from a self selected sample from any source means that we have no means of knowing whether that sample is typical of the whole female population or not. The fact that the sample is large is irrelevant. They themselves admit that it is not representative of all ages and that respondents were wealthier and better educated than average and were more ethnically diverse. I could go on. That is enough for starters.

Oh dear, we seem to be going round in circles here. I am certainly not trying to say that violent attacks against women don't happen. Shocking attacks such as the one described by muffinthemoo above are truly horrendous. My heart goes out to you .
I still maintain that this report, by claiming that "99.7% of our sample had been repeatedly subjected to violence including assaults, harassment and rape.", is frankly scaremongering by lumping together violent sexual crimes with lesser events, thereby suggesting that basically all women are victims.

BTW, spitting is considered assault. The last time someone spat a mouthful of mucous at me (sorry) I felt absolutely sick. I'll say no more on that.

M0nica

We seem to be getting to a stage where criticising a badly researched and badly written report is seen as casting doubts on the validity of the subject being studied.

It isn't male violence against woman is a serious, and I regret a growing problem. It needs to be properly investigated. This report does the subject a disservice.

So, how do you think the subject should be researched and written then?
How should it be properly investigated for academic purposes?

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202105/medium-688767-capture.png https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202105/medium-848812-capture2.png

The press release. Took me about 15 seconds to Google it.

www.victimfocus.org.uk/womens_experiences_violence_abuse_study

Excerpts attached.

They are not a bunch of amateurs asking you if you like one washing over over another. The continued desire to discredit this report says goes some way to highlighting the problem that people encounter when reporting violence in this country today.

We seem to be getting to a stage where criticising a badly researched and badly written report is seen as casting doubts on the validity of the subject being studied.

It isn't male violence against woman is a serious, and I regret a growing problem. It needs to be properly investigated. This report does the subject a disservice.

I was choked until I lost consciousness and spat on whilst being raped at knifepoint after being pushed to the floor by someone who continuously threatened to slit my throat.

In order for the figures not to be “misleading”, should those be counted - as they were by the police - as five separate offences, or should the report just roll them all into one?

Lord knows, we wouldn’t want other folks to think that gender-based violence against women is common or anything.

Iam64 I do not think anyone is denying or minimising the violence on women, it is the report that does that.

By equating the most trivial of events, a hand run down your back or a wolf whistle with rape, serious abuse or disgusting events like being spat on they are saying that all are the same - and they are not. Nor are the events listed a graduation of crime where if someone wolf whistles at you they are starting the on the slippery slope that leads to rape and abuse.

It is like mixing hot and cold water in a bowl. You do not get a bowl of water where some is hot and some is cold, you just get a bowl of lukewarm water and this is what is happening here. All the most serious offences are being equated with the mildest and as a result the report loses its potency to shock.

I am also entirely in agreement with foxie48 a self selected social media sample, despite the veneer of respectability their analysis of the sample tries to put on it, is just not reliable.

I haven’t read the report but will do so.
To the posters who say they feel sorry for the women who ‘got their share’ of assaults, violence of the kind identified in the report, I could name you many women who fit that category. Some women suffer multiple assaults, rapes, humiliation, degradations, indeed live in fear from infancy.
Some comments on this thread and others on gransnet like the Noel C thread make dispiriting reading. When older women’s first response is to deny or minimise, or want to compare violence against women with violence against men, it makes me despair.

Loislovesstewie, I am sorry that this thread has upset you and that you have experienced assault. I certainly didn't wish to belittle any of our experiences with sexual assault. I too have had experiences, (and not reported them).

What bothers me is that by lumping all types of violence together like this, the report is diminishing the serious assaults.

You ask "Could someone explain why being pushed or spat at is not considered to be a crime?" Well, personally if one of my children was pushed or spat at in the playground I would have been furious and taken it up with the school and the parents, but not considered it or reported it as a crime. If I was pushed in a queue at the bar (remember those!) I wouldn't consider it a crime.

This report seems to consider all such events as crimes without any differentiation or definition and therefore it makes sense that 99.7% of the sample had been repeatedly subjected to violence.

Unfortunately any data collected by a self selecting questionaire posted on social media will be biased. It doesn't mean the results are invalid for that sample but clearly it won't be representative of the whole population. It's sad though that because of the way that the data is presented it changes the focus of the report. Rather sloppy IMO.

Could someone explain why being pushed or spat at is not considered to be a crime? They are both acts which have their basis in violence so why not?
I absolutely despair of this thread, the study is about women and their experiences and there are women here who are complaining about that. There are women saying that it is a very poor study ; we are told there is nothing to compare it with; and there is a general feeling that the experiences are exaggerated or made up.

Firstly there are ample scholarly studies on violence towards men.
There is no need to compare with studies about men because it is about women. What part of that don't you get?
Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it isn't true. Lots of things didn't happen to me, but I can understand that many others have those experiences.

This is why so many women don't report rape and other sexual assaults;because they won't be believed. It will be the woman's fault because she wore the wrong clothes; knew the assailant;had been drinking; had previously had sex with him;or sex with anyone; had smiled at him or in fact anything. Unless she was a virgin clad head to toe in impenetrable armour it could not have happened.

It's early and I am in despair.

I am one of those who have been assaulted. DO NOT tell me it didn't happen.

What I was trying to work out was whether there was any distinction in the report between what I personally would consider unpleasant but lesser events (spat at, pushed) and sexual assaults, rapes etc. As the follow-up question is "Have you ever reported any of these crimes to the police" I take it that they are all considered equally significant.

Page 19. An analysis of how representative their sample is and explanation of how they will investigate this further in their upcoming work.

Probably self selecting, but using a Bayesian statistical approach it allows them to interpret the affect on women who have been attacked, as a group distinct from those who have not.

Keep trying. I'm going to watch Line of Duty.

I totally agree Monica , a very poor study indeed. I abhor violence against women but , Suziewoozie, there is also a fair amount of misandry on GN , and that should be equally guarded against.

Figures on violence on women, written in this style tell us nothing unless we have something to compare them with.

This is why we need -comparable figures for men. How often have they experienced violence, in what way, how does that match the experience of women and so on. Possible comparable figures for men and women in other countries.

I have no idea whether the figures published here are a lot, or not many. Whether the way they collected the data, meant that the sample was representative of all women or not. They claim it is, but with no sample survey of women who do not do online surveys or do not know how to. It is difficult to tell.

I know it is considered almost criminal to criticise a survey that investigates emotive subjects like violence against women. But a poor survey is a poor survey regardless of topic and the data within it can by misleading and dangerous. But to all intents and purposes this seems a poor study.

The need to discredit/ misinterpret this report is all part of the profoundly depressing misogyny on GN . See Noel Clarke thread for other examples.

Cross post NotSpaghetti

What is this need to discredit the report? Do you not believe it? Do you have an actual scientific critique of its methodology or conclusions? Do you think its something we should not be talking about?

Do you not see how dismissive and disrespectful the comments about others getting your share of attacks are?

It's early on a Sunday morning, but even with my brain only half working I can see that there is a problem with the number of women who are attacked never reporting their attackers, or the fact that such a high proportion of people are attacked before their 18th birthday. Whatever the absolute numbers are, there are problems to address.

Monica, there are, of course studies of violence towards men and should be more - but this study is about women.

It can obviously be interpreted in the context it was planned. In the context of women.

As you and I have both read it I think we can agree that the point of it was to uncover unreported and trivialised harms done to women and girls.

I didn't come away with the idea that it was primarily about sexual abuse (and it apparently used ACE as part of the questionnaire so plenty about childhood too) - but clearly it does cover sexual abuse alongside other abuses.

The study is titled ‘I thought it was just a part of life’ - I think that's the point the study results draw out.

It also is clear that this is a self-selected group of women and has a page on the demographics and gathering of data.
It says the over 60s are under represented and there's a slight leaning towards women with higher than average educational attainment.

Personally I'd like to see this in context of abuses more generally. But that's another study.

Well, I have read the report. Whatever the report says, it comes over as being primarily about sexual violence. We have also not seen the press release that went out with its launch and how that read.

I still cannot see how this report can be fully and properly interpreted unless we have comparable figures for men's experience of violence.

I am like Witzend, I feel sorry for whoever got the attacks I should have got.

A quick Google shows umpteen studies which come under the heading of violence towards men, some concentrate on violence in relationships, women to men, some studies have taken place in the USA or Germany some in other countries, some concentrate on violence in LGBT relationships. If you look it's there.