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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

Is c* a technical term?

I give up.

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?

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.

Callistemon, I agree with you.

I have no doubt the survey was done with integrity, but I read where the original request for the survey was posted, and it was on a victims website, and a Criminal Phycologist's website.
Of course the only people seeing the request for data are on those sites because they have suffered violence.

I'm sure if they did a similar survey using random females from the census they would get a different result.

While not diminishing other's experiences, I find the amount of violence remarkably high and not my experience.

but I read where the original request for the survey was posted, and it was on a victims website, and a Criminal Phycologist's website.

The statistics are skewed and the information extrapolated cannot therefore be correct.

Victims' concerns could be dismissed as a result of this as it could be dismissed as scaremongering.

CanadianGran you can't just send requests out via census returns because details of the returns are not released for 100 years after the census in the UK. The details of people/names etc are not in the public domain until then. We know statistics shortly after each census but nothing else. The 1921 census will not become public property until January 2022.

I am now giving up.

Thank you Callistomen and CanadianGran

I cannot see the point of a study that says it is not generalised to the whole populaton. It means that the results of this survey could be much better - or much worse than the experience shown in this survey., but we have no way of ever knowing. So what use is it?

As for some of the crimes described, like 'groping' they can range from an arm brushed across your back or bum to someone sticking a hand in your groin and grabbing what they can. The second is undoubtedly a crime of violence, and frightening. But while I do not condone groping, the odd speculative arm and hand across one's back or bum that is not repeated when there is no response, is certainly not frightening, or I never found it so, nor by any stretch of the imagination would I call it violence.

But at the end of the day the key to any survey is a properly based sample. if you do not have that this survey is reduced to the kind of surveys done by manufacturers to say that 9 out of 10 women prefer their product