Madison Ford, Texas, USA, Blog Correspondent
My neighborhood in Texas is relatively safe. I know since I’ve jogged through its streets three times a week since I moved here in June. I know where I can run freely, eyes closed, blood pumping, without being startled by a car horn and a smug smile. I walk my dog every day before dark. And every morning, I check my email for a little summary of all the crimes that took place within a two-mile radius of my address. I know that my neighborhood is safe. But despite the fact that the only crimes anyone is committing around here are almost always nonviolent, I can’t leave my house at night without one of my male roommates coming with me.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be conducting research on street harassment through the honors program in the Sociology department at the University of Texas at Austin; I had a unique experience in designing my survey in that I was basically asking people if they had been harassed in the same places I was getting harassed. Their anecdotes in the free-response portions rang true with some of my own experiences and while it was nice to know I wasn’t alone, it made me angry that so many people are experiencing the same frustrations. It was interesting to see other places in Austin where I may not visit frequently be listed as street harassment hotspots. Mostly Central Austin, where there’s lots of foot traffic and everyone is out in the open.
The most difficult thing about conducting my survey was attempting to gather responses. What I had anticipated as being one of the simpler parts of my project quickly became the most challenging aspect of it, but I think there’s a good reason I had trouble getting participants. Female students in our university have been receiving many survey research opportunities regarding their experiences with sexual violence, sexual harassment, and their experiences on the college campus and mine was just one of them. Although much work remains to be done in the fight against sexual violence and sexual harassment, the national conversation is taking a turn in the right direction. It was almost a year ago that the list of colleges under Title IX investigations for mishandling sexual assault and sexual harassment was released, and the dialogue has only grown since then. Research is not only being conducted by concerned undergraduates like me, but by universities themselves in order to make sure they make a serious effort to create safe and welcoming environments for everyone. Although female students may be undergoing survey fatigue, it’s nice to know that so many people are taking the concerns of college students about their campus climate seriously.
Conducting my own research has been an academically challenging but ultimately fulfilling experience and I feel much more comfortable talking to people I know and people I don’t know about the issue of street harassment and its wider implications for addressing sexual violence across the world. I’ll have to spend the next few weeks hunched over my computer during the data analysis process, but maybe one day the research I’ve done will inspire a young researcher as I was inspired by so many studies before me.
Madison is a soon-to-be graduate of the University of Texas at Austin studying literature and sociology. Follow her on Twitter, @madiford222.
